#oh yeah it is a common thing that love interests get special names that no one else calls them by why do you ask???

[v4mpire45]

The Things He Doesn't Know — K. Bakugo

This is a series, so other parts will be here!

☞ Link: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.

Bakugo x female reader (Slight Sero x reader)

Synopsis: When you realize you're in love with your childhood best friend, but force you're feeling's down for the sake of your friendship.

Author's note: Low-key feel like I'm losing the plot, anyhow Bakugo lore and finally an interaction with him tehe. Enjoy everyone!

The past week had been rough. Even after apologizing to Kimiko, she was still pissed. It had taken a whole lot of convincing from everyone for her to stop glaring at you, or at least pretend she wasn’t mad to your face.

She also made it clear you were out of the Bakugo setup plans. She never directly said so, but you could tell she didn’t want you around.

Not that you minded.

Mina and Jirou still kept you updated on the drama, but honestly? You were done hearing about Kimiko drooling over Bakugo.

The last thing you needed was more drama from your outburst.

Unfortunately, avoiding it wasn’t going to be easy, not with today’s plans.

The Bakusquad, along with Kimiko, had decided to get ice cream together.

You stepped out of your dorm, only to find Sero waiting for you.

“I figured we’d head down together,” he said casually.

“Oh. Yeah, sure,” you replied, smiling, falling into step beside him as you made your way to the elevator.

As the doors closed, Sero pressed the button for the common room and glanced at you. “So… you okay? I know everything with Kimiko probably got to you.”

You hesitated, then exhaled. “Yeah, I’m okay. You really helped, y’know.”

Sero smiled, his voice softer than usual. “Yeah? Well… anything for you, Y/N.”

You looked at each other for a second too long.

The warmth in his gaze made something twist in your chest, a twist that's been happening a lot lately.

Then the elevator dinged, and the moment disappeared.

Sero stepped aside, letting you exit first.

Down in the common room, the others were already gathered, Jirou, Kaminari, Mina, Kirishima… and Bakugo.

“There’s my favorite girl!” Mina grinned, bouncing over and looping her arm through yours, dragging you away from Sero.

“Finally! Let’s go, I need ice cream, like, now,” Kaminari whined.

“No, you idiot,” Jirou said, smacking his arm. “We’re still waiting for Kimiko.”

Kaminari groaned and collapsed onto the couch dramatically. “Ughhh, come on.”

After a few minutes, Kimiko finally arrived, dressed in an orange sundress that flared around her knees.

“Hey, everyone!” she chirped.

Mina gasped. “Oh my God, you look so pretty!”

Jirou nodded in agreement. “Yeah, nice outfit.”

Kirishima grinned. “Looking good, Kimiko!”

Sero, much to your annoyance, looked slightly flustered, his face tinted pink.

Bakugo, on the other hand, merely tapped his foot impatiently.

“Okay, can we go now?” Bakugo grumbled.

“ICE CREAM, ICE CREAM, ICE CREAM!” Kaminari chanted, marching out the door.

Jirou rolled her eyes but followed after him.

The rest of you trailed behind, leaving campus and heading into the city.

On the way, Kimiko playfully teased Bakugo, but he barely reacted. If anything, he just looked bored.

“So, where exactly are we going?” You asked Mina.

“Oh, it’s this place called Frosty’s!”

Frosty’s?

You blinked. The name alone sent a wave of nostalgia crashing over you.

You snuck a glance at Bakugo, wondering if he remembered.

Frosty’s was... special.

You and Bakugo had first come here when you were wide-eyed kids, eager for ice cream. The place was small, family-owned, with faded walls and an old-school charm.

You both always ordered the same thing: vanilla with sprinkles. Bakugo swore his tasted better, even though they were identical.

But that wasn’t what made it special.

No, what made it special was the fact that it was where you and Bakugo had your first kiss.

You were twelve freshly into middle school. Dating and crushes had started becoming a thing, but neither of you had been interested. Bakugo was too focused on becoming N.1, and you had always been too shy to think about it.

That day, you had both been sitting outside on the worn-down bench, eating your ice cream, when he asked out of nowhere...

“Have you had your first kiss?”

The question had caught you off guard. You had licked your ice cream, avoiding his gaze.

“No… have you?”

He had muttered, “No.” Then he kicked at a loose rock on the ground, his voice unusually hesitant.

“We should just… get it over with. Y’know, so we’re not behind or whatever.”

You weren’t sure why you agreed. Maybe curiosity. Maybe the tiny part of you that had always been drawn to him.

“…Okay.”

You had leaned in, your noses awkwardly bumping before your lips met. It was quick, clumsy, and a little embarrassing. Neither of you had ever brought it up again. Maybe because you were both mortified. Or maybe… maybe, because it had meant something neither of you were ready to face.

“Y/N?” Mina’s voice snapped you out of the memory.

“Huh?”

“What are you getting?” she asked, already holding her own cone.

You barely had to think. “Vanilla with sprinkles.”

Mina groaned. “Ugh, you and Bakugo are so boring.”

At that, you glanced over, and sure enough, Bakugo was sitting at a table, eating vanilla with sprinkles.

You shook your head fondly and paid for your order. The group headed outside, and your eyes immediately found the old bench. Without thinking, you sat down, lost in thought.

Your feelings for Bakugo.

Kimiko.

Everything.

A moment later, someone sat beside you.

Bakugo.

You both sat in silence, the weight of unspoken words settling between you. Then, without looking at you, he muttered, “You remember this place?”

Your grip tightened slightly on your cone.

“…Yeah. Do you?”

“Tch. ‘Course I do.”

A pause. Then...

“You were a horrible kisser,” he remarked.

You scoffed. “Oh, like you were any better.”

He clicked his tongue but didn’t argue.

For a moment, the air between you felt lighter. No Kimiko. No drama.

Just you and him. Just like before. Just how it'd always been.

© 2025 v4mpire45 — All rights reserved. Please don't post my work as your own on any other sites.

Tags: @tsukikoxo @pet1t3 @anon-mouse223 @nepenthes-things @hakkoyo @ita606 @raeroowrites @dreamybabbyy @ghostkat23 @channnee @sanriihoe @ch3rryjampi3 @eyesforbkg @charlotterosea13 @chuugarettes @mtsudaa @myblogsucks @emmaafinchh @adherethecomingofage @uhsakusa @shewki @galaneiaeris @surprisemodafakas @uhnanix @ilovemushroomss @bakunianadecorazon @bonbonbytes

[fictiongods]

Sorry don’t mind me just thinking about the simple fact of Faith has a nickname for Buffy that’s just hers. Like Buffy has a decent amount of nicknames that the Scoobies all call her, yet it’s never B. And the one time Willow tried she IMMEDIATELY got death glared at. Like apparently Faiths the only one allowed to use it, as well.

[pandorxxx]

Treat me (decision based fic)

Lo’ak x omatikayan fem reader (all aged up)

Warnings: heavy smut, fingering, choking, slapping, hair pulling, p in v, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, soft-dom to DOM lo’ak.

🔞mdni🔞

Synopsis: when your friend group becomes alittle more advanced with age, you find it hard to relate to them, seeing as you were a late bloomer in the sex department. You turn to lo’ak for help but you end up quite…helpless.

You and your friends would always meet up and talk to each other about any and everything. Wether it be about hunting, partying, or just joking around, there was always a topic of conversation. As you all got older, that topic switched to something a little more advanced….sex.

It seemed to be the only thing your friends were interested in. And you being the late bloomer in all of this made the topic irrelevant to you. Made it seem like you had nothing in common with your friends anymore. They were growing up, and you felt as if you were staying still in the sex department.

As time progressed, your friends would ask you about your sex life, and to save yourself the embarrassment, you would lie.

“Oh, yeah! He told me I gave the best head in this clan.” You would say, chest poked out in confidence. And a flow of questions would follow after:

“Stop! Was he hot?”

“Did you swallow?”

“Omg girl, tell me your tricks.”

You finally felt like you belonged in your friend group again. Even if that meant lying to fit in. One day, the lying went alittle too far. And there was no turning back without giving your entire operation up.

“You keep saying “he”. Who is this mystery boy who’s getting all of your love, girl?”. Your heart stopped, realizing that you could either come clean, or continue this drawn out lie. Even though you wanted to do the right thing, the name you thought about was coming up like word vomit, there was nothing you could do.

“Oh, no one special. Justttt….lo’ak sully.” You sung. Your friends jaws dropping in shock and excitement for you. But regret burned deep in your heart, because you knew this would end badly. Lo’ak was like an older brother to you, and it seemed to be reciprocated on his end. He never really tried anything with you, which was new.

He was a very sexual being, and this was known throughout the clan. He was popular, strong, son of a great warrior, and he was hot. So this little lie was for sure to come out soon.

Again, you contemplated with yourself:

Should I just come clean? Or should I get lo’ak to go along with it just until it all faded out?

“Bro, you told them WHAT?” Lo’ak laughed, throwing his hair into a ponytail infront of his mirror.

“Listen, I know it sounds crazy. But I need you to do this for me, please!” You pleaded urgently, pacing back and forth nervously in his hut.

“Y/n…no.” He chuckled, turning to face you with his arms across his chest. You huffed, stomping to his cot until you plopped down on it in frustration.

“And I mean, you really went all out, too. Best head? Are you fucking kidding me? You’ve never seen dick in your life.” He lectured, walking over to your sprawled out body.

“You should HEAR the shit they talk about. I’ve never even heard of some of that stuff. Didn’t even know some of it was possible.” You sat up, looking up to him. He laughed out loud.

“Yeah, because your friends are a bunch of sluts. And you shouldn’t even be hanging out with them. You don’t need to impress those girls, y/n. Just stay innocent a little while longer, shit.” He leaned down, planting a kiss on your forehead, caressing the side of your head before walking back over to the mirror.

“Don’t “little girl” me. I hate when you do that.” You pouted, shooting him a stone cold glare. He smirked at you through the mirror, playing with his loincloth to make sure it was secured around his hips.

….

“you ARE a little girl.” He laughed, shaking his head before checking himself out in the mirror, vainly.

You rolled your eyes with a loud huff. “No I’m not! Skxawng.” You crossed your arms. Shooting him a deadly glare. He tilted his head, crossing his arms across his broad chest. “Oh yeah? Prove it.” He shrugged, eyeing you up and down through the mirror.

Your body began to get hot, shifting on his cot nervously. “Lo’ak…please. Just help me.” You sighed, hands together as you begged him to save you from the mess you dug yourself into.

He face turned serious, eyes rolling in frustration before shifting his body weight to one side.

“So let me get this straight. You want me to pretend to be your boyfriend untilllll?”

“Until I tell everyone we broke up. I just need a couple of months, lo’ak.” You reassured him, hoping that he would finally give in for you.

“A couple of months?! No fucking way.” He shook his head. “Why not?!” You whined.

“Because im just going to assume we’re not going to be having sex. And I don’t know if you noticed but….I like having sex.” He smirked at you through the mirror.

…

“Lo’ak, i-ive never done that before.” You reminded him. Crossing your legs nervously. He scoffed, watching you squeeze your legs together.

“Yeah, I know. Which is why this is a terrible fucking idea!” He chuckled. You began to grow more frustrated, finally blurting out what you truly wanted to say.

“Lo’ak! I don’t know why you’re acting so untouchable. Every girl In this clan has had you for gods sake! Just break me in already, what’s the big deal?” You rambled, glaring at him with a confused look, waiting for him to answer your question.

“Do you hear yourself? Like…seriously.” He spoke lowly , turning around to lean against the mirror, staring at you. Your ears shot up, shooting your head to him confusingly.

“I mean…you talk about yourself like you’re an object. Break you in? Like a fucking car? You’re so much more than that. Why do you wanna be treated like a slut? Please explain.” His eyebrows ruffled in confusion as he awaited an answer.

“I just- my friend’s talk about it like it’s the best thing in the world. All I wanna do is see what that feels like. To be used and dominated. To be fucked until I can’t take it anymore, and even then he doesn’t stop. Showing me no fucking mercy no matter how much I scream for him to slow down. I want someone to make me cum…over and over again until I have nothing left to give. I wanna be slapped, choked….treated like an absolute slut.” You explained, not even knowing the tone in which you spoke. You were so in your head that your tone was borderline seductive, making lo’ak forget everything he said to you before.

“I just need the right person to show me.” You smiled sarcastically, realizing that this conversation was probably going nowhere. You stood up, walking towards the door. You only opened it inches before it slammed back shut in your embrace. You could feel his body heat radiating on your backside as his hand laid on the shut door.

…

“And after all that…you think you’re just gonna walk out? I’ll have your little ass crawling out of here when I’m done.” He growled in your ear. You let a small whimper leave your throat, completely submitting to him. He spun you around to face him, pinning you to the door by your neck with great force.

“I’ve thought about it. Who am I to deny you of what you truly want, huh? What kind of… boyfriend would I be if I didn’t treat you how you’re begging me to?” He chuckled, titling his head at you. He scanned your trembling body for a moment before meeting your face again.

“Tell me you want it.” He whispered, bringing you closer to him by your neck. His hand slid down to your waist, drawing circles into the sides. You looked up at him with nothing but lust, so hungry for him. “I want it.” You moaned, nodding in his embrace.

“Talk to me, tell me how you want it.” He nodded with you before tucking his bottom lip in between his teeth.

“Take me right here. Use me, please.” You strained as his grip on your neck became slightly tighter. He nodded for confirmation before ripping your loincloth off, deeming it un-wearable. He immediately slid two fingers in between your soaked folds, making you throw your head back in his embrace.

He brought his fingers up to your face, your juices dripping down his knuckles. You looked at him with hooded eyes. You stuck your tongue all the way out, using the flattest part to lick his fingers clean. He watched you intently before pulling his fingers away, bringing you in for a fiery kiss. Your tongues fought for dominance, but his won. The kiss was slow and sloppy, just how you liked it.

He let your neck go, picking you up by your thighs harshly, lips still stuck to yours. He walked you over to the table, swiping everything away with one hand before plopping you down.

He trailed his hand down to your cunt, massaging your clit gently with his thumb while he slide one finger into you slowly. You detached from his lips, back bowing as you threw your head back. A series of loud moans left your throat as he took the opportunity to leave hickeys on your neck.

He slowly added the second one, scissoring your hole gently to open you up. “Tell me if I’m hurting you.” He whispered in your ear, playing with the squishy ball of nerves inside of you. You let out a whimper, bucking your hips into his hand. It was safe to say that you felt no pain, just pleasure. Yet and still you nodded at his request. You both watched as his fingers slide in and out of you, coaxing squelching sounds out of your soaked cunt.

Although it felt good, you couldn’t help but think about how his cock would feel. Filling you up just right. You needed him, right now.

“Please, fuck me. I want it so bad.” You whined, still bucking your hips into his hand. He looked into your eyes, scanning your seriousness.

“Oh baby. You’re gonna need to be stretched as much as possible before you take this dick. Be patient with me.” He spoke breathily, kissing your forehead.

“I-I can take it, lo’ak. I promise! Give it to me, please.” You pleaded, tears forming in the corner of your eyes from your incoming orgasm. He smirked, watching your legs tremble slightly.

“Cum first, and then I’ll let you have it. You’re so fucking close, don’t you want to finish, hmm?” He whispered in your ear, before tugging on the lobe with his canines. He sped up inside of you, massaging your sweet spot. Your mouth flew opened, eyebrows scrunching together as your legs shook violently around his waist.

“That’s what I thought. Go ahead, and cum for me Princess.” He spoke in your ear before pecking it. Obeying his orders, you clung to his neck, eyes rolling back as you released on his fingers.

“Good girl, such a good girl.” He muttered through a clenched jaw, pulling his fingers out of you. He brung them to his mouth, sucking them clean as he eyed your small frame.

“Can I have it now? Please?” You begged, tugging at his loincloth. He chuckled, licking his fingers one more time. He used his thumb to wipe his mouth clean before eyeing you up and down.

…

“Take it, if you’re bold enough.” He licked his lips, glancing down at his bulge before looking back up at you. With his permission, you untied his loincloth slowly as you both watched in anticipation. Once it was untied, you gently let the loincloth go, letting it fall to the ground.

Your eyes widened at his size. His cock sprung up, tip touching the middle of his belly. He was pulsating, oozing with precum. He watched your reaction, and the way you used your hands to slide back on the table slightly. He finally dropped his hands to his side, eyeing you like you were his prey.

“Scared?” He asked, eyebrow cocked. You watched his cock jump with every heartbeat, gulping loudly before squeezing your legs together to hide your little cunt from his huge cock.

“Mhm.” You confessed, nodding your head frantically, still staring down at it.

“It won’t fit.” You shook your head, shifting on the table nervously. He scanned your small frame once more, palming his cock to jerk It slowly.

…

“That pussy was made for me, baby. It’ll fit.” He spoke sensually, rubbing his hand up your thigh.

“Do you trust me?” He asked, placing his hands on either sides of your thighs. You nodded frantically.

“I’m gonna talk you through it, ok? Lay back for me.” He reassured, pushing on your stomach gently. You obliged, laying all the way back for him. He gently grabbed your legs, pushing them back to open you up.

He stared at your dripping cunt, your slick trickling down to the table beneath you. He ran his hands down his face before licking his lips, in awe at the site before him.

“All for me, huh?” He asked, tapping the tip of his cock on your clit. You let out a soft moan, the friction bringing you pleasure.

He then proceeded to rub his entire length in between your folds, bucking his hips ever so slightly. You both hummed in unison, watching the source of pleasure.

“Are you ready?” He asked, looking at you through his eyebrows. “I’m scared.” You pouted.

“Don’t be. You’re safe with me.” He reassured. Your heart was beating out of your chest, but this would be the most ready you’d ever be. You nodded, motioning for him to begin.

“Just look at me, ok? Don’t look down. Not until it’s in.” He commanded, caressing your cheek. He lined his cock up with your entrance, probing it with his throbbing tip. You tensed, looking down at the source.

“No, no, no. Relax, baby. Look at me, ok? It’s just you and me.” He nodded, caressing the back of your thighs. You took a deep breath, looking into his eyes. Grabbing his cock, he probed at your entrance again, slowly pushing his length in. Your face was scrunched up as you waited for the pain to kick in. Your eyes were closed, not even wanting to see how he was making this happen.

“Princess, You’re doing so good.” He spoke breathily, watching his cock slide into you at a painfully slow pace to ensure that he didn’t hurt you. However, you were stretched to capacity and the pain was starting to settle in.

“Fuck!” You whined, throwing your head back. You let your legs go, planting your feet firmly on the table in exhaustion. He watched you intently, becoming even more aroused by your reaction to his size. He bit his lip, thrusting half of his cock into you slowly to get you used to him.

“I thought this was what you wanted. Now look at you. A complete fucking mess for me.” He moaned, pushing himself alittle farther inside of you with every slow stroke. The squelching sounds were loud, his cock dripping with your slick.

“I-I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” You blabbered deliriously, eyes rolling to the back of your head as you felt his tip graze your cervix. He chuckled, realizing that you were already drunk off of him, and there was really no turning back now.

“Sorry? Don’t be sorry. I like making little sluts like you my cock sleeve.” He moaned, gripping your neck as he bottomed out. He was the deepest he’d been, almost felt like he was in your stomach. You let out a series of whimpers, feeling as full as you could possible get.

“Open your eyes.” He commanded. You obliged lazily, finally looking down at the source of pleasure. Low and behold, his tip was poking into your lower belly. Your eyes widened, sitting up on your elbows in panic.

“Told you it would fit.” He chuckled, grabbing the sides of your waist, using them as leverage to thrust into you gently.

“You’re s-soo big, lo’ak.” You whined, pouting up at him with scrunched eyebrows. He nodded, watching his cock slide into you with ease.

“I know, mama. Tell me if I’m hurting you.” He moaned, focusing on his slow and steady thrusts.

“I-it feels good. So so good.” You moaned, running your hands down his abs. He tilted his head, scanning your relaxed demeanor. “Mmm, so no pain?” He asked, a devilish smirk creeping up on his face.

“Just keep it right there, don’t stop!” You whined, watching his tip make an appearance in your stomach with every slow thrust. Since it was your first time, he thought that he’d take it easy on you until you finally opened up to him. Little did you know the trouble you’d just gotten yourself into.

“That’s good to know, mama. So what was all that talk earlier? About being fucked like a slut? No mercy, remember?” He asked innocently, still drilling into you deep. You were already too fucked out to comprehend correctly.

“I-I remember.” You chuckled deliriously, nodding with hooded eyes. “Yeah? Well guess what, baby?” He chuckled, before biting his bottom lip, staring at your fucked out face.

“What?” You smiled, taking your bottom lip in between your teeth.

His smile fell immediately, sending you the hardest thrust, leaving it inside of you. You gasped, eyes going wide as you stared up at him in shock. He grabbed your neck harshly, pulling your forehead to his.

…

“I’m gonna treat you like the slut you’ve been dying to be.” He growled, pulling your legs over his shoulders, using your neck as leverage to fuck into you harshly.

“Ohhh my- lo’ak!” You moaned sharply, holding onto his wrists. He slammed into your sensitive sweetspot with every hard thrust, deeming the pleasure too much for you.

“Nope! You’ve gotta take it now, baby.” He shook his head, thrusting up into you at a fast pace. Every stroke knocking the wind out of you to the point where you couldn’t keep steady breaths. You watched his cock slide in and out of you, showing itself in your lower belly with every thrust. Although you were experiencing euphoria, you couldn’t help but panic at the abnormal print in your stomach. It made you nervous, scared even.

“Lo’ak! It’s t-too big for me!” You whined, shaking your head nervously as you tried to push on his stomach. The pleasure was too much and your anxiety was through the roof. He smacked your hand away quickly, pinning you back down on the table by your neck.

“Don’t push me away. Ever.” He spoke sternly, his gaze turning predatory. He grabbed your cheeks harshly, squishing them together.

“GOT IT?” He asked in a harsh tone, eyebrow cocked as he waited for a response. With the grip he had on your jaw, there really wasn’t much you could say, so you nodded slowly, tears beginning to well in your eyes from the pleasure.

“Now watch it. Watch me play in your guts.” He chuckled, tilting your head down to look at the source. You whined, opening your legs wider for him as your stomach tensed. The feeling started to consume you. Your eyes were low, cheeks flushed, and it was safe to say you were officially drunk off of his cock. You had no words, no voice, nothing would come out anymore. All you could do was watch, and take every pleasurable stroke he sent your way.

“That’s right you naughty bitch. Take it!” He growled, watching your eyes roll back in complete satisfaction.

“Tell me you love it.” He muttered through a clenched jaw before smacking your face lightly. “I-I love it! I love it!” You moaned, throwing your head back in his embrace. He brought you up to him by your neck, looking you in the eyes as he rutted into you with no remorse.

“I’ll believe it when you cum for me. Go ahead, cum on this dick, baby. I know you want to, I can feel it.” He whispered in your ear, sending you into a moaning frenzy. Your hips began to buck into his, chasing that euphoric orgasm that was building up.

…

“Yesss! You feel s-sooo fucking good.” You whined, face scrunched together in pleasure as you stared into his eyes. He bit his lip, watching you fall apart underneath him. Your legs started to shake around his hips, squeezing him in as you wrapped your arms around his neck.

“Baby, you’re taking this dick like a pro. My good little slut. All MINE!” He whispered in your ear, angling his hips up to smack your sensitive sweetspot.

And that was all it took for you to come undone on him. Loud moans left your mouth as you clung to him for dear life. He thrusted into you slowly, nice enough to let you ride out your high.

He pulled out once you came down, watching your cum drip down his shaft and onto the floor beneath him.

“Turn around.” He commanded, twirling his finger. You slowly lowered yourself off of the table, legs shaking beneath you, making it hard to complete such a simple task.

However you managed to turn around slowly. Your back flush to his chest. Without warning, he bent you over the table, making you gasp audibly.

“Now that I’ve…broken you in.” He started, running his hand all the way up your slender back, reaching the back of your neck to squeeze it tightly.

“I’m gonna fuck you like the slut you claim to be. No mercy right?” He asked with slight aggression, sliding into you slowly. Your eyes widened at the familiar fullness, humming lowly when he started to thrust into you firmly.

“No mercy.” You muttered, eyes already crossing as you shook your head in response. He immediately started to rut into you like an animal, so hard and deep that your pelvis smacked against the edge of the table harshly with every stroke. You let out a few strained cries, your cheek finding comfort on the cold hard table.

“Don’t cry, now. This was what you wanted, Princess.” He grunted, shifting both of his hands to your hips, using them as leverage to drill into your tight cunt. The pleasure was unbearable from the start. Your knees started to buckle with every hard thrust. You were a whimpering mess, your lips becoming salty from your own tears.

“No, stand the fuck up! Stay still.” He growled, holding your hips In place to keep you up. Setting that unbearable rhythm again.

“I-I can’t.” You moaned, eyes rolling to the back of your head. You sat up lazily, holding your weight with your shaky arms as you tilted your head back. He reached around, grabbing your neck from behind.

“You will, though. I want you to keep the same fucking energy.” He whispered in your ear as he abused your sensitive sweetspot. Your mouth flew open, eyes rolling so far back that they might’ve gotten stuck.

“I-it’s sooo fucking deep.” You whined through a clenched jaw, reaching for nothing as you tried to get away from him. You swung your right leg onto the table, placing your knee on the edge to try and crawl out of his grasp. Soon realizing that you made a big mistake because all that did was gave him access to slide deeper into you.

“Nice try. But I already told you about running away from me.” He spoke sternly, wrapping your long braids around his forearm, using it as a leash to tame you. You let out a series of curses, tears rolling down your flushed cheeks.

“Lo’ak…y-you’re killing me.” You whined, voice rippling from each hard thrust. He tightened his grip on your hair, pulling your head back until your eyes met his.

…

“I don’t care. Shut up and take this dick.” He growled, his lip finding refuge In between his teeth as he watched you fall in and out of consciousness ever so often. You let out a high pitched squeal with every thrust, legs beginning to shake from your incoming orgasm. He felt you flutter around his cock, letting out a guttural groan as he stared at you.

His lips hovered over yours, you both panting loudly. He leaned down, kissing your lips passionately as he sped up his pace. Your mouth flew open against his. He smiled devilishly, nodding his head as he stared into your puffy eyes.

“You like that shit, huh? Gonna cum on this dick again?” He chuckled, both of you nodding your heads frantically in unison, all knowingly for what’s to come.

“Mhm! S- So close!” You whined drunkenly, eyes rolling to the back of your head once more. He used his free hand to smack your ass, watching you come undone for him.

“Oh I’m cumming, lo’ak! Cumming! *thrust* cumming! *thrust* cumming! *thrust*” you announced, chanting between hard thrusts. Your legs shook, releasing your essence all over his shaft.

“Fuuuck!” He groaned, watching his cream coated cock slide in and out of you harshly. He didn’t stop, he didn’t even slow down for you. The merciless rhythm turning you into a squirming mess.

“Too much, TOO MUCH!!!” You screamed, tapping his thigh to get him to ease up on you. He smacked your ass harder, leaving a purple handprint on your skin.

“Im not done yet, Princess. Stop fucking moving!” He growled, reaching around to your clit, massaging the ball of nerves.

“Ohhh shit!” You squealed, holding onto his strong arm to keep you up. Although you didn’t mean to, you continued to squirm under him, legs trembling uncontrollably, making it hard for you to stand. He huffed in anger, pulling out of you quickly. You fell immediately, your legs numb from his constant drilling. You took the opportunity to attempt to escape, lazily crawling towards the hut door.

…

“Bring your little ass here!” He shouted, walking to the front of you to pick you up. He held you by your ass, wrapping your legs around his hips. He walked you over to the wall, pinning you there to keep your back supported.

He wasted no time impaling you again. Your mouth flying opened at the single hard thrust. He stared into your eyes, thrusting into you with great force.

“You’re done when I say. Got it?” He grunted, fucking into you at the speed of light. You nodded your head frantically, words stuck in your throat. All that could be heard was aggressive skin clapping. Your legs started to shake around his waist, and your whines progressed in volume.

“Gonna cum for the 3rd time, huh?” He asked, placing his large hand above your head, using one arm to drill into you with no mercy.

“Yesssss!” You cried, wrapping your trembling arms around his neck as you came undone for the third time. You buried your face into the crook of his neck, muffling your loud cries.

Your sweet voice, and the way you sucked him in started to get the best of him. He threw his head onto your shoulder, panting loudly as he sped up his pace, chasing his own orgasm.

“Fuuuck, y/n. You’re gonna make me cum… sooo deep in this pussy.” He moaned, eyes rolling to the back of his head. Your legs began to tremble hastily. squeezing your eyes shut tightly as you whined loudly.

He began to pant, using his tongue to drawl circles on your exposed shoulder. He took a deep breath, inhaling your addictive scent. Letting it send him into a trance. He nuzzled his head in the crook of your neck in an attempt to scent you. He contemplated on wether or not he should mark you. Your pure, unscathed shoulder was practically calling his name.

…

He couldn’t take it any longer. He flashed his fangs, grazing your soft skin with them before he bit down, just enough to leave a mark on you. You hissed at the feeling, basking in the mixture of pain and pleasure. He pulled back, lightly sucking on the puncture with a low hum rumbling in his chest.

“Mmm, y-you’re driving me….fucking crazy.” He muttered drunkenly, letting his fangs graze over the new womb. The act alone sending shivers down your spine. Enough to make you come undone again with a loud scream.

“Oh my- shitttt!” He moaned, feeling your walls flutter around him. He continued his merciless rhythm, chasing his orgasm. You cried in his chest at the overstimulation.

“Shh baby, I-I’m almost done with you. Took me so fucking well.” He moaned, eyes rolling to the back of his head once more as his thrusts became sloppy.

You were a trembling mess. Feeling as if your entire body was going numb. You bit your lip , trying to suppress your loud cries.

“Mmm, cumming mama!” He grunted, sending you one hard thrust, nearly knocking the wind out of you as he painted your walls with his sticky seed. You let out a strained whine with every thrust that he sent to ride out his high.

You two stared into eachothers eyes, catching your breaths. He chuckled, pulling out of you to watch his access seed seep out. He placed you on the ground gently but your legs were too numb to stand on. You fell to the ground hard with an agonizing groan. He stared down at you with a devilish grin before bending down to be eye level with you.

He grabbed your neck harshly, before speaking:

“Now you really have something to tell your friends…”

Tags: @avatarsslut @neytirishottie

[misterdetectiveswag]

SEASONS

LOVE INTERESTS

ISAGI YOICHI - ❝we have a lot in common, you know? we both have similar problems when it comes to soccer and the fact that we struggle with the same things.. kind of comforts me cause' someone else can actually relate to me! oh, did I say too much? sorry! ❞

RIN ITOSHI - ❝leaving was a mistake. I'm gonna show what kind of striker I am, n/n. ❞

SAE ITOSHI - ❝when you have the guts to face me in a match, then maybe I'll finally consider you as the striker you always wanted me to view you as. ❞

BACHIRA MEGURU - ❝when you look at me like that, you kind of look like you're in a world of your own. I wish that I exist in that world, like you're in mine.❞

REO MIKAGE - ❝good boy. shoot like that in other games, yeah? me and nagi will take the win for this match.❞

NAGI SEISHIRO - ❝y/n and reo were the only ones who have taken interest in a slacker like me. I think that's part of the reason why I like the two so much..but whatever.❞

CHIGIRI HYOMA - ❝no funny business, okay? just because you're in some special team doesn't mean that you'll win this match.❞

MICHAEL KAISER - ❝getting to know you is like choosing to unravel a map filled with mysteries. maybe that's why I like you so much.❞

ALEXIS NESS - ❝having someone like you in my life is always so exciting! second to kaiser of course.❞

SHIDOU RYUSEI - ❝you're being so uptight, pretty boy! loosen up a little would ya? I've heard from underlashes senior that you were so much more softer than this!❞

HIORI YO - ❝l/n? do ya wanna play games with me later? I'll trade with ya my food later if ya do, I'll get your favorite f'you, kay?❞

KURONA RANZE - ❝y/n is nice, nice to me. that's why I like him and stick 'round him. his play style is also interesting, interesting. I wanna practice with him one day forever if i could.❞

TERMS

N/N - NICKNAME

Y/N - YOUR NAME

H/C - HAIR COLOR

E/C - EYE COLOR

F/F - FAVORITE FLAVOR

© misterdetectiveswag

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Special Interest 4

Warnings: non/dubcon, age gap, creep behaviour, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

Characters: Cole Turner, short!reader

Part of the Bookstore AU

Note: this one is a bit longer than I anticipated!

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

You have everything neatly tucked into a box for your delivery. You're anxious, more so to get it done and over with, than to meet the demanding buyer. Your mother finishes up and hurries you to get ready. You can’t help but take your time.

You bring another box, this one full of parcels to be sent out. After dropping those off, you’re back in the car hug the last order in your lap. Your mother pulls into the lot, just behind the garden center outside, now selling wreaths and pine trees in lieu of the season bulbs and petals.

You get out and check your phone. Your mom comes around to read over your shoulder. You keep an arm around the box as you lean it against the car. You bring up your Etsy messages.

‘Think I got here early. In the garden center checking out the garlands.’ 

“Oh, great,” your mother says, “we won’t have to waste too much time.”

“Mhmm,” you agree and bring your other arm around the box, pressing your phone to it as you follow her. 

She doesn’t wait as she walks along the wall of the garden centre and dips through the door. You catch up inside, nearly bouncing off of her as you hold the box ahead of you. She squeals and points out a shelf of ornaments made of pine cones. You humour her with a smile and hum.

“Those are cute, mom, but we’re not here to shop,” you huff as you peer around.

That woman in the patchwork jacket looks like a farmer. She has the square jaw of a real hard lady. You know she’d probably best you in any physical combat. You meet her eye, tilting her head in question, ‘are these your crochet goods? Huh? Did you make me come all the way down here?’

She frowns and quickly turns away. Alright, not her but you’ve definitely creeped her out. You glance back at your mom as she ogles the ornaments. You wonder how she manages to work from home effectively.

“Excuse me, uh, SashayCrochet? Um, I think that’s for me?” A voice draws you back to face the rows of trees and hanging wreaths. You almost fall over as you recognize the man approaching you. No flipping way. “Hey,” he points at you in a similar epiphany.

“Uh, Farmer’s Delight?” You grimace.

“That’d be me,” he smiles. He’s wearing the same tan jacket, you note the stain by the pocket, “thanks for meeting me here.”

“Uh huh,” you squint at him. What a gosh dang diddly darn coincidence this is. “Here, everything’s there. Have a good day.”

“Oh, wow,” he sputters as you push the box against his stomach, slowly placing his hands on the corners. “Do you mind if I check to make sure or–”

You hold back a sneer. You can’t believe this. You had a bad feeling all along. You somehow don’t think this is fate. You think this guy has a problem. Why would he needs a lady’s magenta cap and matching mitts?

“Honey,” your mom finally catches on to the scene behind her, “oh, is this him?”

“Um, hello,” the weirdo smiles at her, “yeah, uh, it’s me. Cole.”

He offers his hand as he shifts the box under his arm. Your mother shakes his hand and nearly vibrates in excitement. She loves finding a new mark for her unending small talk. They deserve each other.

“Cole, that’s such a cute name,” she rescinds her hand, holding it over her chest coyly, “matches you well.”

“Mom,” you growl, raising your chin defiantly at Cole the creep, “I included an invoice so you can see everything’s there. Go ahead and check, we have things to do.”

“Honey, don’t be so rude,” your mother chides, “so, Cole, you live on a farm?”

He sets the box down on the corner of a table and shuffles through the contents. You stay where you are as your mom steps closer. You wonder if she sees the silver in his beard and just thinks that’s some festive touch. He’s ancient.

“Yeah, my parents’ place. I help out. As much as I can.”

“Oh, wow, I always dreamt of living out in the country but I’m too much of a busy body. The city is where I belong,” she preens, “but my daughter, she’s loves being at home. Don’t you, honey?” She beckons to you but you don’t move. “Spends all her time making this stuff,” she motions to the box.

“It’s very nice,” he says as he admires the beret style cap, “good handiwork. Talented.”

“Yes, a good hobby,” your mom insists, “not so useful as working the field, I’m sure.”

He chuckles, “yeah, I guess, but it takes all sorts.” He lifts the box up again, “my mother is going to love all this. Her birthday’s just around the corner and I didn’t really wanna walk in with another gift store teddy bear.”

“Too sweet,” your mom chimes, “any mother would be so lucky. Honey, get over here.” She reaches back blindly and grabs your arm, forcing you up next to her, “she always makes me something pretty for the holidays but you can only really have so many socks and scarfs.”

“Mom,” you snarl again, glowering at Cole as amusement dimples in his cheek.

“Actually, uh, I was just coming from the market. I have a booth there. I sell plants, so, uh, I have some in my car. If you wanna have a look. You can have one for free… some probably won’t last that much longer,” he suggests.

“Oh, plants! I love plants. And with this weather, everything’s so grey,” your mother trills. “We’d love to have a look.”

You almost hiss at her again but you don’t want to argue, not in front of this man. He smiles and leads her out of the garden center. You trail behind reluctantly. Your mother glances over her shoulder and snaps her fingers at you. You come up behind her and lean in close.

“Mom,” you whisper, “do you really think we should follow this stranger to his car?”

“Stranger? He’s so nice.”

“You said two words to each other.”

“Don’t be so cynical,” she snaps back, lowering her voice as she talks out the side of her mouth, "he's gorgeous."

He takes her to a pale blue truck and opens the back door, he tucks the box on the floor and steps back, gesturing to the back seat. You furrow your brow at your mom. She is easy pickings.

“You can have a look. Mostly cacti,” he shrugs.

“Don’t mind if I do,” your mom steps up and peeks into the back seat.

You can see the edge of a cardboard tray as she moves around the small pots. You stay a few feet back and cross your arms. Cole edges towards you.

“I guess… we’re running into each other so I can apologise,” he says, keeping his voice notably low, “about the bookstore.”

“Huh, bookstore? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m being nice. I just wanna make it up for you. Why don’t you take a plant too?”

“I don’t have much of a green thumb. I’d rather knit my plants,” you sneer.

“You mean crochet,” he corrects you. You look at him sharply and he lifts his brows plaintively, “I’m learning, see?”

“Mom,” you put your hand up as if to say ‘talk to the hand’ and block him out, “hurry up. We gotta grab that thing for dad. Remember?”

“Great, I’m heading inside too,” Cole says, “they have some sod in stock and I need some chicken wire.”

“I like this one,” you mother shows a prickly cactus with a little red cushion on top, “and wonderful, you might know what this is,” she fishes out her phone with her free hand, “something for the sink. My husband sent me a link…”

You die a little as your mother shows him the web page. Of course she can’t just let him go. She can’t let you get out of this. She thinks this guy with his dumb blue eyes and sandy brown hair is some sort of Prince Charming.

“Maybe I’ll just wait in the car,” you say.

“Oh, honey, don’t be silly, it’s too cold for that.”

Cole looks at her phone, “oh, I know exactly where those are. One sec.”

He shuffles past her to shut his truck door. You glare at your mom but she doesn’t notice, she’s completely enamored with this tall hunk of weirdo. Whatever, you’ll have to sneak away and hide in the pet section and daydream about the puppy you never got.

[cometconmain]

EXTRAORDINARY ATTORNEY WOO

Cannot recommend this ^^^^ enough. I've only watched the first episode so far due to time constraints but my friend and I (both autistic) were so excited watching it because she (yes, SHE) is allowed to be MULTIPLE THINGS AT ONCE. She is allowed to be a savant AND disabled in complex ways you don't normally see. She is allowed to have special interests outside of the skills that make her a good lawyer (she LOVES whales!!) Discrimination against her is called out very quickly and one of the characters being shitty begins to pull himself up, apologise, change and give her space to talk through her process instead of shutting her down within the very first episode, after his boss chews him out for missing what was on the first page of her resume because he was too busy being shitty about the second page containing mention of her autism.

But most amazingly? IN THE VERY FIRST EPISODE SHE IS SHOWN AS HAVING EMPATHY FOR OTHERS. Her struggle is in IDENTIFYING, not in feeling or capability of comprehending how others work!!!! She has pictures on her wall at home of her father in different facial expressions with names of emotions underneath which she then practices showing on her own face in a mirror (I was taught this way too so it's highly relatable) and what's really amazing is that she is the only one who identifies that her client isn't guilty of attempted murder because SHE IDENTIFIES LOVE AND CARE IN THE DEFENDANT'S BEHAVIOUR TOWARD HER HUSBAND. In the FIRST EPISODE.

You know how frustrating it is that we're always portrayed as struggling to 'understand' social skills (ie: neutotypical social skills since we tend to understand each other just fine even if we don't actively always gel) and oh oh "they just don't have empathy/they have low empathy" etc. Extraordinary Attorney Woo takes that bullshit and IMMEDIATELY STOMPS ON IT. They also take her noticing her society considers her being Autistic/disabled as highly pitiable and actively and intentionally WEAPONISES IT AGAINST THE PROSECUTION. Uncomfortable? Yes. Empowering? Honestly also yes. Because nothing says "screw neurotypical assholes and their prejudices" quite so well as intentionally using it against them. XD

Yes it starts with a little kid who doesn't talk and how terrible that is oh oh what a tragedy my daughter is Autistic no that can't be, what a horror!! And yes she suddenly starts talking out of nowhere and everyone is so damn excited because we all know how important wagging your mouth is over anything else in the world. *eyeroll* And yes they're still doing the savant thing which is frustrating.

But this is also South Korea and the fact they outright call her Autistic from the getgo and it doesn't just disappear into the aether and are already smashing so many of the common Autistic character tropes Western media is dragging its feet on so damn much is amazing to me. Also she gets a clearly Autistic friend which is awesome because generally media seems to only be able to handle one Autistic character at a time (any others are temporary guests or villainous nemeses etc) and this show went "actually it's perfectly normal and common for Autistic ppl to have healthy fun happy relationships with other neurodivergent people. Suck on that."

I'm so excited to watch more. But yeah, you want a show about an Autistic character that so far has blown a LOT of (not all but a significant shakeup) typical problems out of the water?

Meet the actively Autistic-labelled SOUTH KOREAN WOMAN shoving all the white western usually-American autistic males out of the way to step forward as a full person with multiple interests and a combination of both skills and disabilities which are both part of who she is and who is perfectly capable of understanding and working with human emotions and needs outside of her own (she just has to practice to IDENTIFY them on the fly, which I relate to), intelligent and cool, and just generally downright awesome so far.

(Editing without making a new one so Scribeofpnakotis doesn't see it yet because I want it to be a surprise, but HDHKXJGGKXHKXKHCOCKHCLHXHOOOHDHLXLHXHLJCLCHLCJLCJLCLJFLJFJLLFLJJLJLBKVJLCJLCLJCJLLJCLJCLCHHFJLFJLLJLJ HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS SHOW JUST BELTED OUT "QUEER RIGHTS" AND "FREEDOM OF RELIGION" AT THE TOP OF ITS LUNGS, GODDAMN!! I LOVE THIS SHOW!!)

[adaines-furious-feast]

bc you're my friend who i talk about jace stardiamond with, here is the sorcery subclasses of the bad kids imo:

Kristen - Divine Soul, pretty rare for sorcerers imo and Jace probably finds it interesting but would be so annoyed by Kristen's shenanigans

Adaine - Aberrant Mind, has something to do w/ being the Oracle. Jace loves the effort she puts into her work and is probably his favorite.

Gorgug - Wild Magic. Tries really hard to control his surges and Jace puts in the effort in helping him come to terms w/ his magic, rather than fight it

Fabian - Storm Sorcery. Jace really finds Fabian's whole freshman self to be pompous and it's like looking into a mirror almost. Really tries not to project onto him but fails <3

Fig - Wild Magic as well. Is also in the Kristen school of sorcery and is such a wild card. but she's worse bc her magic is uncontrolled (somewhat)

Riz - Clockwork Soul. Jace enjoys Riz as a student until he realizes how obsessive Riz is at school and wants Riz to relax. Riz cannot relax.

Yeah, I'll co-sign these subclasses.

Kristen would be a really interesting case. Has her magic always come from Cassandra or was she once blessed by Helio and that changed? I can see Jace - honestly any teacher - finding Kristen fun at first but then it keeps going. And he realises "oh, this isn't a joke, this is your personality". In a class of chaos, that is really, really unneeded.

Aberrant Mind is so interesting and just such a perfect match for Adaine. I mean, of course she's his favourite, for many reasons. One of those reasons is definitely because he can go to Tiberia like "ha, one of my students is better at divination wizard spells than any of yours and she's not even a wizard". Adaine definitely gets frustrated with Jace though because she has a very clear idea of what being taught magic is like and he doesn't provide it, so she attends wizard classes even if she can't fully participate in the same way. She'll just take that teaching and change it into what she needs.

With Gorgug, I can see the problem being honestly the same one he has with rage: he needs to feel like he has a good enough reason to use magic. In canon, he would only let himself rage if he felt he was protecting his friends. I can see Gorgug being like "ok, I'll only use magic to help people when I have a good enough reason", perhaps not realising that this self-suppression is only hurting himself.

Fabian as a storm sorcerer pirate is just so super interesting. I want to know what things were like for him before he arrived at Aguefort, when he was with his dad on adventures. Were there other storm sorcerers on the Hangman? Or Leviathan? Did he get help from any of them? Or did Bill see his son, blessed by the storms on the seven seas, and just use it as evidence that Fabian was special and going to write his name on the face of the world, only bigging him up even more?

I actually think Jace would find Fig less annoying than Kristen purely for the fact that she doesn't show up for class. Fig's in every other class for spell casters, trying to see how long it takes the teacher to figure out that she's not actually a wizard/warlock/bard. Normally he'd find this brilliant but Fig's inability for introspection is making her surges more common which is an issue.

Riz hates his class (as in school class, not D&D class). When I was at school, we had to pick one of about five different types of "design and technology" classes we could take for GCSE (cooking, textiles, woodworking, ect.) and I picked graphics, which turned out to be what the students who were rejected from all the other classes took so it was just me and a bunch of kids (boys) who could not give a fuck. I was the only one that showed up to any revision classes, I was the only one paid any attention (and I was the only one to get an A). That's Riz in sorcery class, but with a teacher who prefers the kids that fuck about a bit and it drives him absolutely insane.

[batsplat]

hello!! i think you don't talk that much about tennis here, but this year i’ve been watching singles matches from roland garros and wimbledon and omg, it’s super fun!!! my grandfather used to be a big tennis fan and to be honest, i only started paying attention this year because i deeply miss him but omg!!! i've been missing in one of the best sports!!

well, my question is if you have any advice on how to start watching tennis! like, I know how the scoring system works, but for example, are there basic things you feel one should know? lore? matches that everyone absolutely should watch?

i know it’s a lot of work to answer all this, but thank you whether you respond or not! prob everyone tell you this, but wow you really are fantastic!

your brain >>>

i can’t even count how many things i’ve learned since following you!! at the risk of sounding parasocial, i really do have a lot of love for you <3

oh everything about this ask is so sweet!! I'm glad you've had fun watching the slams this year, I think it's quite easy for me to get down on the sport but it really is fantastic. and oh yeah absolutely, this is like. my speciality topic. forget all the other shit, when it comes to tennis I know my stuff

because of the disparate nature of tennis, it's hard to just give easily distilled lore, though I will be peppering a bunch of information and like, infamous matches + moments throughout the post that are quite common touchstones within the tennis fan community. this should also be quite a good time to get into the sport: we have a few smaller tournaments, then the olympics, and then it's immediately big tournaments leading up to the last slam of the year, the us open. the general aim of this post is to just provide a little bit of context for what you're seeing, some useful bits and bobs to get started, without delving too much into the actual tennis itself - but please feel free to ask about those bits too!!

I'll also give a little bit of history on the key players in both tours, starting at the inception of the open era. modern tennis as an actual professional sport has existed since 1968 (though obviously tennis has a far more extensive history we're not going to get in here) - and since then, we've had the gradual development of the formalised elements of the sport like the introduction of a rankings system in 1973, the creation of the women's tennis association also in 1973, the constant tension with the four slams, and so on and so on. which, yeah, all of this is plenty interesting, but in this post I'll mostly limit myself to providing a general lineage of the big name players of either gender from the inception of the open era onwards. the 1920s wills/lenglen one-match rivalry is a conversation for a different day

so yeah, a multi-part guide with a bunch of stuff I think should be useful. these parts can all be read independently, so really just take out whatever's useful for you - no need to read the whole thing:

how it works: the basic details of how the tours and calendar are set up

where to watch: a broad overview of where you can access tennis

how to get started: some general stuff about how to navigate the sport

women: a very, very quick who's who of women's tennis in the open era, kinda the biggest names and then a little more on the top of the game right now

men: you'll never guess

matches to watch: this is not necessary to get into the sport, but I have still provided a few picks from youtube that felt like they fit the general remit

in conclusion: got to have one of those y'know

I've also put a few other things below the cut:

some non-match tennis content and resources, a mix of more fun + casual stuff and where to go for a little more analysis of what you're watching

me going through the women's rankings and giving like, the first thing that pops to mind about the first 35 names

me doing the same with the men but trailing off after 20

just a list of players I think could be fun to look out for

I'm aware that my 'please don't feel overwhelmed' guide may feel overwhelming. again, you do not need to know or remember all of this when you are starting out. the most important thing is to watch matches and to figure out what you enjoy - none of this is mandatory. tennis is very much a buffet sport. pretty much everyone keeps up with the slams, but beyond that you will find fans who are super into challenger tennis, those who are dedicated to supporting every british scrub from rank 28 to 428 in the world, those who consider themselves specialists on two matches from the early 1980s. some are super big doubles fans, which is unfortunately something I will mostly leave out in this guide but is absolutely worth checking out! lastly, and this is really important: you do not need to keep up with tennis all the time! again, most fans generally will tune in for the slams, probably for the masters/1000s, but if you're not keeping up with every 250 it is fine. it isn't homework, the commentators are there to provide context for everything you've missed. all the information I've provided below will hopefully be useful in following the sport more closely but none of it is necessary. there is no required viewing in tennis, just find the bits you vibe with and go from there

HOW IT WORKS

right, thank god we're not starting with the scoring system, but the macro organisation of the sport is also *rubs temples*. once more with feeling, you do not need to remember most of this stuff to enjoy the sport. the rankings points per round thing? honestly, especially how often they faff about with the specific number of points for stuff, I too have to look these up a lot of the time. I usually just check the live rankings sites after certain rounds like everyone else (best site for this for both genders is an unofficial one because of course it is, if you want to find men's entry lists for various tournaments then go to 'dartsranking.com' here (don't ask) and if you want to find women's entry lists then they will come to you in a dream when you are ready to perceive them)

the tldr here is that you have the four slams, you have a bunch of tour-level events, the most important of which are the masters/1000 events and the tour finals, and then you have other stuff going on. also, the tours are thinking about completely uprooting and quite frankly vandalising this whole system so don't get too attached to it

right so, basically the main organisations in tennis are: international tennis federation (itf), association of tennis professionals (atp), and women's tennis association (wta)

the itf is basically like... it technically is responsible for the four grand slams, aka australian open, roland garros, wimbledon and the us open, but those four slams also all have a lot of individual power because they're the most important events in the sport. it's also stuff that's below tour-level tennis (aka atp/wta) but above national level competition... plus they're responsible for team events like the davis cup (men) and the billie jean king cup (formerly fed cup, women)

(atp matches are shorthand for men's matches and wta for women's, even when we're talking about slams. nobody cares that much)

slams are best of five sets for the men and best of three sets for the women. all other events these days are best of three. why is there this gender disparity in format in slams? because pretty much nobody is interested in changing it :) sucks because it's such a unique aspect of men's slam tennis but that's where we are

the atp is responsible for all the other events for the men, and the wta is responsible for all the other events for the women. so basically you have slams, which are the most prestigious things you can win the sport. below that, you have several different tiers of events that the 'top' players still play but aren't quite as important. the slams and all these other events do contribute to the same ranking system though

so the four slams give you 2000 points apiece if you win one of those bad boys (you get points for each round you win, so for instance 400 points if you get to the quarterfinal), and provide you with atp/wta points. it's seven rounds to win a slam, 128 player main draw, plus there's also a three round qualifying for lower ranked players. these are two week events and they're the ones players dream of winning when they're wee shits with delusions of grandeur

the next tier is masters events on the men's side and wta 1000 on the women (honestly often colloquially they're referred to as masters there too). the winner gets... you guessed it, a thousand points (last year we still had events called '1000' that provided '900' points and 500 events that gave you 470 and 250 that gave 280 points, because the wta does literally hate us). they used to mostly be one week but now we're getting more and more two week masters, for reasons. some of these events include both genders, some are for just one of the genders, some are in canada (they do the men in montreal and women in toronto one year and then switch the next)

then you've got 500 events, then 250 events. they're still plenty prestigious for most players, but of course it depends... for some players, winning a 250 is the best day of their life - for others, it's really just a warm up event for something more important

anything lower than that may still be handled by the tour but it's not a 'tour-level event' and top players won't play them. so on the women's side you have 125s and on the men's side you have *drum roll* challengers

if YOU are in the top eight of the year's rankings at the end of the season (referred to as 'the race') then you get to go to the year end championship technically more complicated than this in the atp but let's not!! also called the tour finals. this one's got a round robin system followed by semis and a final, you get points per match for a maximum of 1500. it's kinda a reward for consistency too, not as valuable as a slam but it's the next tier

there's also the olympics, which is like? almost all players would rather win a slam tbh - but I think for a lot of players olympic gold would be the next big thing. it depends though! it's very individual how much that means to you in tennis, and for instance this year because it's on clay between the grass and hard court swings, a lot of players are skipping it. you don't get ranking points for them either

ranking points are updated on a rolling basis, so they drop off after 52 weeks. the official rankings are released every monday (though obviously there's also the live rankings) and they determine what players can enter what event... plus seedings

the points distribution, ta da:

so the thing about tennis is that it's basically just... always on. no break! starts in january, the tour finals are october/november-y - and if you're REALLY feeling withdrawal symptoms, itf's are going on all the time. especially the top players (who expect to go deep in the events they enter) won't enter events every week, and you generally expect weeks right before or after slams to have fields with lower rankings. the 'big titles' are slams, masters/1000s and tour-level finals - and when those are on, that's the only tour-level event happening. most of the masters/1000 are 'mandatory' for players of a certain ranking, but there's a bunch of exceptions there we're not going to get into. 250s and 500s are often happening in the same weeks as other 250s and 500s. a normal amount of tournaments for top players per year is like... 17 to 25 I'd say

the other big element of the tennis calendar is the surfaces, which the tours are organised around. now, basically throughout the year, you do have hard and clay events going on at itf/challenger/125-level - but at the tour-level, it's more regimented than that. let's start with what the surfaces are:

hard - has increasingly become the 'default' surface for tour-level tennis, though it was not always thus. made out of... hard stuff... asphalt, concrete, y'know. lot of different types of hard court, in various colours too, for both indoors and outdoors tennis. you've got very slow and very fast ones and everything in between. tricky to slide on, though men do that a lot these days

clay - made out of crushed brick. generally orange, but can be grey. generally the slowest and highest bouncing surface, though again there's also variation there. in geographical terms, players from continental europe and south america generally grow up on this stuff - if you're from elsewhere, it's usually hard. you can slide on this stuff!! it gets everywhere

grass - used to be the tennis surface but now is kinda novelty value and confined to a small stretch of the calendar. the fastest surface, low bouncing. you can slide on this - but beware, players don't really grow up playing on this (even the bri ish) so is extra likely to cause injuries

and the way it maps onto the tennis calendar in like... very rough terms...

okay. okay so we start on hard court! for the australian swing, leading up to the australian open in like january-ish. there's also generally some events going on in asia in the lead-up to ao

then... right. february, you've got men's events indoors hard in europe and outdoor clay in south america. and there's women's events indoors hard in europe and outdoors hard in the middle east. look. ignore february for now

then everyone goes to the sunshine double (indian wells/miami), back to back masters in the states for four weeks starting in march. outdoor 'hard' (indian wells is infamously slow)

then it's clay season! so ignoring those like. three events at the start, almost all of this happens in europe. all of the events apart from the wta 500 stuttgart is outdoors. and then you've got roland garros in may/june!

and then we switch to grass, where there's only three weeks to lead up to wimbledon! these events are in britain, germany and the netherlands

and then. okay. so. you've got one more grass event but you ALSO have the july clay swing. this doesn't lead up to any big events, it's just sort of there. they're trying to get rid of july clay because #they hate whimsy and fun

also you have the olympics during that time when they're on, typically on hard but this time on clay

then you also start having hard events at the same time, and eventually everyone goes to two masters, first in canada then cincy. outdoor hard

and THEN you get the us open, the final slam of the year, again on hard court, in like august/september

and then. and then. everyone just goes wherever. asia, america, europe, indoor hard, outdoor hard... even a rogue wta event on clay scattered in there

and eventually there's the tour finals! so on the men's side, it's in turin, where they've got a longer term contract - the tour finals move around, but only every few years

on the women's side, they're now in saudi arabia, which... discussion for another day, at least they're polite enough to let us know where it's happening more than two days in advance

as an example, here's what wta events are going on in july:

so, generally speaking there has been a process of surface homogenisation over the last few decades, where court speeds and all that have become more similar to all the other courts... like unless you're casper ruud, if you're a top player on one surface you will be able to perform to a reasonable standard on all of them. but it does matter! every player has courts where they're better or worse, preferred conditions and places where they're relatively weak - even the greats of the sport. relatively dominant world number one iga swiatek just flopped out of wimbledon. 24 slam winner novak djokovic kinda sucks at monte carlo. this is a question of playstyle and how it interacts with the conditions, of weather, ability to move on certain surfaces... etc etc. and the tennis does look different... this is one of those things you do just get the more you watch it I reckon

it's even just very basic stuff! because grass is faster than clay, serves are more dangerous there - and also it's harder for players to make it to the ball in time, so rallies are on average shorter. it used to be super extreme that grass was the territory of servebots and super aggressive players, and clay was ultra defensive grinders. now it's more complicated than that but *wiggles hand* everybody still has their Thing

HOW TO WATCH

*sigh* yeah this is the tough one

okay. so this really depends on where you are, and unfortunately there's no getting around the fact that the rights situation is an absolute disaster in this sport. first of all, each of the slams are their own thing, and often have different deals with different networks/streaming services. so for instance in britain, you can can watch the australian open and roland garros on discovery plus and wimbledon on the bbc and the us open using vpn to a different european country's more affordable streaming service in a language you can speak on sky sports. my understanding is the situation in the states is a nightmare

with the tours, which is most of the year, regardless of location you can watch men's tennis on tennistv, their custom streaming service that also provides replays of... almost all matches in the last few years and a strong selection of matches from the years before. it's not exorbitant fees, but it's also not cheap. again, depending on location, there may be other options available like tennis channel *sigh* and skysports *stares into the middle distance*. with the women......... okay, so you can use vpn to select countries (or just live there I suppose) and then buy wta.tv, which is quite possibly the worst streaming site to have ever been created. they do also have a list of broadcasters by country

I don't really know how to sugarcoat this because like... it's a nightmare. it just is. and if you want to watch a player you like in qualifying, well then, good luck. I do have to bring up for completist's sake that you can use betting sites where you pay in a one-time fee of like ten quid to watch any match live without commentary, including the ones that are otherwise available nowhere else but apparently do have cameras on them. which is.... obviously terrible. but well, icl, I do use it. for below tour level, challengers tv on the men's side does actually exist and works great! no commentary though in almost all cases. for 125 events... I do think they're mostly on wta.tv now? which. about time. some itf events are available on the itf website. the other option we all have to go for sometimes is... alternative streams. the way to go about this for the uninitiated is googling 'reddit sports streams', go to a recent-ish post, click on one of the links they provide, and work from there. of course, you can't watch replays with this - but especially as an entry level fan, that's often the place to start unfortunately

you can also watch match highlights! men's tour-level highlights posted by the tennistv youtube channel are generally speaking quite good. the highlights that the wta compiles are. *takes deep breath* *stares into distance* well. they do exist. sometimes. with slams it's all over the place, so like the australian/us open actually provides great 'extended highlights' quite regularly (and even uploads full matches!!) whereas the roland garros youtube channel might as well be telling you 'fuck you' in french for two and a half minutes for all the viewing value you get out of their highlights. wimbledon is almost as bad an offender - and both also relentlessly copyright strike anyone who is rude enough to attempt to advertise their product for them

^one of the best slam matches in years. an instant classic. exactly three minutes of highlights. the blandest caption on this planet. let's all kill ourselves in french

another thing that's worth bringing up: start times on a tennis schedule are very much vibes. you can generally trust the first match of the day on any given court to start when it's supposed to, except if the weather has something to say about it. there's also some 'not before' times or evening sessions, where generally the schedulers hope that all the preceding matches will already have finished by then. otherwise, you are dependent on how long the players before that have decided to take. this can be frustrating, especially when you're setting an alarm for 4 am and were kinda hoping you didn't do so for nothing. match notifications aren't a bad idea!! and sometimes you just have to see if you can vibe with whatever's on. also, anon you said you were watching roland garros and wimbledon.... okay, look, this can always be an issue (except in indoor tournaments obviously), but I PROMISE you the rain situation isn't usually THAT bad

listen. the thing about tennis is that it doesn't necessarily want you to watch it. but you can beat it

HOW TO GET STARTED

okay, the obvious one, and the bit you've already done: just start watching some matches!! slams are a good gateway drug. also, the next few months are gonna be super hectic - you don't even have the relative 'lull' of july clay because it's all prep for the olympics. then you've got two masters leading directly to the us open. there's plenty of matches to watch!! most of the top players will be at the olympics, basically everyone will be at the masters and then at the us open

for one week events, you have a lot of matches at the start of the week before the field gradually thins out, and then you get just the final on sunday. for two weeks, it's a bit more complicated than that, but you still generally will end up with a final on sunday

again, you don't need to watch everything! seriously, I imagine the number of matches can feel a bit overwhelming, but there's plenty of tournaments where I watch like. one match on a thursday and nothing else that week, and if it's on the main feeds then the commentators will tell me all I need to know about what's been going on

and yeah, pick a few players. if you've got a bit of a range - especially in terms of their ranking - they're also likely to be competing in different events and give you someone to get invested in most weeks if you so choose. plus, if you're just there for one player, they may just flop for six months and go on a seventy match losing streak. can get pretty dire. give yourself a few players to orientate yourself week by week... I used to have scoring notifications turned on for a bunch of players (also to let you know when they start), now I just let their results come to me in a dream

we'll be getting into this in a moment, but with the men it's always important to remember that legally speaking, only three men are allowed to win a slam at any single point in time. which means that for your sanity it's probably a good idea to just pick one of those blokes to be a fan of so you have someone to actually provide you some joy in life. the other top ten players are kinda filler material in terms of the Big Narratives of the sport, but some of them do make it to late stages of slams quite regularly and have even been known to win some masters, so you might want to pick from that pool too. beyond that, you're getting into territory where there's a lot of fun blokes who generally have a big run in them somewhere, but it's also considerably less predictable and they are more likely to just. lose a lot. but also, the small successes there are more fun to celebrate!!

with the women... well, listen, we're in a situation where the big events on a tour level currently do feel a bit more dominated by top players than the slams do - cf how we've had two matches this year between the worlds numbers one and two and none of them have come at the majors. given the wta has more or less left its chaos era, you're quite unlikely to have 'random' players winning slams, though generally speaking they may be more likely to make the late stages of the slams than on the men's side. what this tour really has plenty of is depth! I'd still recommend getting into one of the top 3-4 players on tour, all of whomst are slam winners - but there's only two multiple slam winners you feel relatively confident about racking up at least a few more, whereas the other two still have a bit more to prove in that regard. beyond that, you do have to embrace a little more volatility to enjoy the women's game to the fullest extent. if you've watched the channel slams, you'll have been introduced to a player who would have been considered a 'scrub' a year ago (a term of endearment, at least to me) but made back to back slam finals in the midst of her strongest career season. #realtennisunderstanders will know this didn't completely come out of nowhere, but for a lot of viewers it will have!! the beautiful thing about this tour is that you can hope for something that isn't just more of the same - you too can pick a random scrub and experience the thrill of them making a round four in a slam out of nowhere

basically, with both genders, my suggested approach would be finding a realistic slam contender who might actually win shit for you, find maybe one or two lost causes you can get upset about whenever they give you false hope, and then pick up a bunch of scrubs at random because they charmed you that one time they won a three and a half hour match in the first round of a 250

there's also a bunch of non-match tennis content that you can check out! I shoved it under the 'read more' because this was getting too long, but you have a mix of youtube channels, podcasts, writers to check out, specific pieces, websites... that kinda thing. I'll say this again below but really my number one rec is daria kasatkina's tennis vlog to get the insight into what life is like for a top twenty player. plus, her and her girlfriend are lovely. so

WOMEN

right, first a brief history of the big names, starting from the open era (1968):

at this time, the big names were billie jean king (known dyke, one of the key figures in founding the wta, cf 'the original 9') and margaret court (known homophobe, statpadded her slam count total with a bunch of australian open titles when nobody bothered to make the trip to australia which still feeds into some deeply annoying modern goat debates). you've got the breakthrough of goolagong (one of the most important players in the 1970s, from an aboriginal family back in the time when the government was removing aboriginal children from their families - really would recommend reading up on her story). these players all won a bunch of slams, very successful

in the late 1970s you get the emergence of navratilova and evert, who have the most prolific rivalry in tennis history - and they are the dominant names throughout the 1980s. interesting and layered rivalry, both in terms of their interpersonal relationship (which has gotten very warm since they've retired) and in terms of the tennis - with navratilova the attack-oriented serve and volleyer taking on evert the defensive baseliner. unfortunately, they now spend much of their time being transphobic on twitter dot com

the next big name to break through is one of the contenders for the title of goat, steffi graf, miss forehand who started winning slams in the late 1980s. a bit shy, a bit introverted, a bit withdrawn with a father who can politely be described as 'a piece of work', she was dominating the sport to an insane extent - she's still the only player to have won a 'golden slam', all four slams + olympic gold in a single year, which she did in 1988. then comes monica seles, even younger, a power player with two hands on the forehand as well as the backhand and seemingly the player who could finally take on graf. seles won three out of four slams in 1992 (she lost wimbledon in the final to graf) - but then, in 1993, she was stabbed while playing a match by a fanatical graf fan. while she survived the attack and was eventually able to return to the tour, even managing to secure one more slam, the crime irrevocably altered the course of her career. it's still considered the single biggest 'what if' in tennis history. graf dominated for most of the nineties... the other big names are sanchez vicario, who won a bunch of slams but also lost a lot of slam finals vs graf + seles, as well as hingis, an extraordinarily precocious talent with a few fun controversies and plenty considerably less so, who ended up having her career marred by injuries

turn of the century is when we get the emergence of the williams sisters, venus and serena, both of whomst are all time greats - and serena has perhaps the strongest goat case of any single player in the women's game. the two made a huge impact on the sport both on-and off-court and they are in that rare categories of athletes who can be considered 'bigger than the sport'. of course, we're not going to do that history justice here - and there's all manner of talking points like the indian wells boycott as a result of how the crowd treated their family (allegations of match fixing with obvious racist under/overtones) and how instrumental venus in particular was in bringing about equal pay in slams. on the court, both separated themselves from the pack in their athleticism in all domains - venus has the all court game with the mix of aggression and craftiness, and serena is a powerful baseliner with probably the best serve of all time in the women's game. beyond their singles slam tallies, they also are one of the all time great doubles pairings, winning fourteen slams as a team (this did used to be more common, cf navrat's doubles slam count)

many wta fans consider the noughties pretty much... peak of the sport, a golden age - this is the bit people tend to get nostalgic about. it's partly the tennis itself, partly the state of the competition, the Big Characters and all their drama.... apart from the williams sisters, you had the belgian rivals: henin, who was seen as cold and ruthless and a bit of a cheat, with a lethal one handed backhand, quick feet and a great serve considering her height, and clijsters, with her big groundstrokes and her distinctive way of sliding on hard court and how she was considered cheery and kind but also flaky and too much of a choker to ever finish the job. those two had a whole history with each other, as childhood friends from opposite sides of the belgian linguistic divide who became very much not friends.... were on very different on-court and off-court trajectories. then you've got a few more americans, many of whomst were also active in the nineties... davenport who smacked the ball like crazy, capriati who was known for being a semifinal choker until she wasn't - one of those players who captivates you with how much of themselves they leave on court. then kuznetsova, with a fun if inconsistent game and some banger matches, particularly memorably vs serena, mauresmo who had a stunner of a one handed backhand, these days she's making herself unpopular as roland garros' tournament diector, sharapova, the prodigy to break through and suddenly beat serena in a wimbledon final (basically never beat her again lol) who... uh. yeah! lore! she's got plenty of that! also jelena jankovic, who was world number one but never won a slam. still known for the single most important reaction image in the sport:

you use this attached to some dumb fake quote, typically about how players today just don't cut it. an important element of sports discourse is, of course, nostalgia for some kind of mythical era vastly superior to the present - get in on the game early

the 2010s is like... a mess... serena is still super successful, sharapova is still a major factor, but you also have a bunch of other big names. muguruza! halep! azarenka! wozniacki! kerber! kvitova! in no particular order! some are still around, some have retired recent-ish, some are now back after having been suspended for doping. as a cohort, I feel like they're generally treated as kind of underachievers, but all the ones I listed DO have at least one slam to their names. also many Characters in this camp!

next big thing is naomi osaka, who is currently on four slams (first sealed at us open 2018). her first slam was sealed in a massively controversial final against serena that is hard to summarise in a pithy way - but the controversy is all about officiating and serena's disagreement with the sanctions the umpire was applying. it had nothing to do with osaka - who is a fun character with a great understated sense of humour, but also is a bit of an introvert and ended up quite overwhelmed in the situation with the vocal crowd response. since then, osaka's torn up a few more hard court slam draws, though her other results aren't like,,, really in line with those slam results? and she ended up a bit disillusioned with tour life, which is tied to another big controversy we're not getting into here about her refusal to attend press conferences at rg '21. then she got pregnant, but this year she's back! jury's out about whether she'll become a regular feature at the top of the game again, but her recent r2 at roland garros against swiatek was promising in that regard. one of those players where the sheer power of her groundstrokes can make you gasp, one hell of a serve, so so much raw talent that she's now attempting to coax out again

for a while, the most important player in the woman's game was ash barty, who ended up on three slams and a good run of weeks at the top of the rankings. an australian with obscene amounts of natural talent at all manner of sports, she was short enough to make her serve freakishly good, a powerful forehand and a nasty slice... but always with a complicated relationship to the sport. after winning the australian open in 2022, she retired out of the blue, in what has to be one of the shocking announcements we've had, like... ever. given the sport had been fairly chaotic in recent years, there was a bit of an expectation that the world number one ranking was going to be beset by similar levels of chaos. with barty gone, removed from the top of the rankings after the very next event, were we going to get another five different number ones in the year to come? was it just going to be a free-for-all? will we all be number one for 15 minutes?

well, no. off the back of her third consecutive tournament win, iga swiatek ended up inheriting the title. she'd already won a roland garros title as a teenager (the weird covid-y autumn 2020 one where she just like... terrorised the field, scary scorelines) - and after a slightly rockier 2021, she was already in the process of putting together a fearsome 2022. there was always the concern the new pressure of becoming world number one might affect her... but if anything, it spurred her on even further. she ended up accumulating a 37 match win streak, the longest in the women's game in the 21st century - which also took her to her second roland garros title. she's on five slams total now

she's been number one since then except for a brief period late last year when aryna sabalenka briefly replaced her

which brings us to the current game:

especially on the non-slam level, there are definitely a few big names right now who you'll see win a lot of titles - or at least show up in the late stages. I've already mentioned iga (igatha) and aryna (sabs, sublanko) (long story)

iga is a class apart from the field outside of slams, has by now won a shit ton of titles, often by like... brutalising the field. her biggest asset is her phenomenal movement, best in the game. the forehand is... unusual (odd grip and with very high topspin by women's standards), big big weapon but can fall apart - but on the plus side that's meant people are finally paying attention to her very lovely backhand. can be a bit tactically rigid, generally too few in-match adjustments

very intense on court! less so off it, kinda an introvert, big on reading, tiramisu, that kind of thing. her polish fanbase can be a teensy bit. insane. (honestly the non-polish ones are also a lot.) on clay she's in a class of her own - four of her five slams are at roland garros, and I fully expect her to reach the double digits at that particular slam. her slam results have been a bit disappointing outside of that, minus her one us open title in 2022, which in itself is a reflection of the expectations people have for her. she's also very good on hard, though the grass situation is currently a bit sketch. always a force to be reckoned with, though! struggles the most with big flat hitters (rybs, penko, noskova, alexandrova, kalinskaya, idk, that type. apart from those first two who are consistent Problems, generally speaking she does get the better of them more often than not)

^our current numbers two and one, sabs on the left and igatha on the right. I quite like iga's top because from the right angle it looks a bit like a piano and I like pianos - but on running doesn't believe philosophically in providing people a chance to 'buy' their 'product', so to the best of my knowledge this kit was never available to buy. tennis: a sport that is so profoundly shit at capitalism it comes around to being kinda marxist

sabs is a POWER player, but with a fair amount of spin to her strokes when compared to many of the other wta 'bashers'. smooth and elegant and easy power production is overrated as shit - sometimes you want to see a player who is visibly putting effort into smacking that ball. she puts so much of herself into every single shot, and you do NOT want to be that ball when she's on it. very expressive on court, a fun character off it, the type of player to really show her emotions. for her, the mental side of the game tends to be a massive talking point. despite her current slam tally of two (ao '23, '24), a lot of her fans would very much feel she should be on several more than now - and a big reason for that is a pattern of underperforming/choking in big matches late in slams, typically in the semis but also in last year's us open final. the tennis is there, but the ability to always deliver on it? eh. it's a cruel sport

the other massive hurdle for her was her serve. she developed such a severe case of serving yips that during the australian swing of 2022, she ended up clocking double digit numbers of double faults in single matches. she ended up working with a biomechanics specialist to fix the issue - and it's still one of the sport's loveliest fairy tale stories in recent years that she ended up winning her first slam in the place that had caused her such heartache the year before. she started the final with a double fault, and went on to win it in the best slam final (either gender) we've had this decade. she might still be fighting her demons, but at least you do know she won't stop fighting

speaking of the ao '23 final: elena rybakina (lena, ryba, rybs), the player sabs beat to win it. ryba is... I don't think it's fair to say she came out of nowhere to win wimbledon in 2022 because she had reached a slam quarter the year before, but she certainly was a bit of a surprise. a little bit of controversy surrounding that title, given ryba is a russian-born citizen of kazakhstan who switched nationalities because she was promised support by the kazakh tennis federation - and wimbledon that year had banned russians and belarusians (this was a one time thing, and in the end no other tournament went the same way). there was also a little bit of... *sigh* discourse? about how little she emoted when winning the title, which kinda led to a weird set of presser exchanges where she ended up crying when the emotion finally overcame her and she kinda went 'well you got what you wanted' and then everyone clapped? like, literally

anyways, she backed it up by reaching the ao '23 final, won a couple more big titles last year, and seems to be particularly lethal when facing iga. that being said, her other slam results have been quite poor since then - and she was seen as the clear wimbledon favourite this year in the second week but failed to convert it into another slam. she's also been hampered by various illnesses, remains to be seen if that remains a consistent problem in her career. still feels like she's got a little bit to prove in that regard. she's very tall, an icy demeanour on the court with an excellent serve and big, flat groundstrokes that are particularly effective cross court. also she has a sister who tags along sometimes and very much emotes

and then there's coco gauff, who had her main tour breakthrough very very young and is still only twenty. had her big title breakthrough last summer in the american hard court swing, won a lot of matches and ended up winning that us open. since then it's been... a bit more of a mixed picture. she's a great athlete, very very fast, and that athleticism is her single biggest strength. the backhand is a thing of beauty. the forehand is not a thing of beauty. partly due to her unorthodox grip, it's a bit of a catastrophe at times - very liable to breaking down entirely, and her slam was won working around that weakness. iga has a painful 11-1 head to head against her in large part for that reason. coco's also got a powerful serve, but it's... not in great shape right now I don't think? but the other big thing she's got going for her is how damn tough she is - like especially this year when the tennis hasn't always been there, she's managed to knuckle down and get a lot of incredibly gritty wins. she's survived a lot of 'ugly' matches, has somehow scrapped and clawed her way through plenty of them... though yeah, doesn't seem like she's particularly happy with her camp at the moment. no question about her dedication or talent, but it remains to be seen whether the forehand will end up imposing a ceiling on her ultimate potential

barbie k has earned a promotion to this bit of the post by just winning her second slam at wimbledon! you get to this section if you win two slams this decade, I reckon, and barbora krejcikova (barbie, barbs, mother krej) is now a multiple slam champion in singles as well as doubles (where she is very, very successful). she's a late-ish bloomer who really only started performing in singles in 2021, and still remains a bit of a mystery in her performance patterns. czechia is a powerhouse in the women's game that has produced a lot of top players, some crafty ones with a ton of variety and some bashers - and krej is in the former camp. she has a real fun game in part as a result of her doubles expertise: she slices! she moonballs!! a LOT!! kinda quirky way of hitting her forehand, a lot of arm extension, but the backhand is the real beauty. clever player even when she can't string it together consistently on the singles court... had a dip in results after winning a final against igatha early last year (her second time doing so in a matter of months - given iga's fearsome reputation in finals in particular, this is particularly impressive). who knows, she might disappear again after this... but well, you always know she has this kind of a run in her. she's a proper fan of the sport herself and you'll frequently spot her watching women's matches from the stands in her off time

in conclusion, the current women's game is great. I have no clue who's going to win the us open. there are about a million fun and interesting players I've left out of this narrative summary. pick up your local scrub today

MEN

again, starting with a broad historical overview:

right right around the switch to the open era, the biggest name is rod laver, who is still the only bloke to win a calendar slam (all four slams in one year). the main stadium at ao is named after him, as are a bunch of other things. they trotted him out in 2021 when it looked like djokovic would win the calendar slam, but, well, he did not. there's also rosewall who won a bunch of slams... the era also includes arthur ashe, the first black man to win a slam title (did it three times). eventually, in the mid seventies you get the emergence of jimmy connors, who ended up being around forever and ever - famously a dickhead, one of the backhands of all time and an early adopter in the two handed squad

you also get the emergence of bjorn borg, the iceman, who was like. super popular with his looks and magazine shoots and exorbitant exhibition fees, very very intense about his tennis, steely baseliner. eventually burned himself out and retired young, which also negatively affected his rival - the tempestuous young john mcenroe, known for his temper tantrums (he of "you cannot be serious") and being a magician on the court, who tended to behave himself around borg and borg alone. he believes he never quite recovered from borg deserting him so early, though he did amass quite a nice collection of slams

early eighties and we're throwing in a mats wilander into the mix, a baseline grinder in the classic mould who you may be familiar with if you've ever followed tennis through eurosport - plus boris becker, who won wimbledon ridiculously young, a highly gifted serve and volleyer, who spends his days now going to prison for tax evasion. two more eighties players while we're at it: the hardy ivan lendl, a man with a big forehand and an icy demeanour which is SUCH a cliche I hate myself for using it, and stefan edberg, the best type of serve-and-volleyer because he really was more about the volleys than the serve

and then!! the nineties!! well, a little bit before the nineties, actually, is when a new crop of american talent come through - four players who were going to define that decade of men's tennis. michael chang was the first one to break through, and did so very young - still the youngest slam winner in the men's game at seventeen years old. a short bloke who based his defensive game around his speed and consistency, he never quite managed to replicate that initial success, but was still a major factor in the game for the decade after that. also, check out chang's autobiography if you want to learn more about nineties tenn- oh, what's this I'm hearing? really? huh, that's not what I was expecting going in, but fair enough! right, okay then. let me try this again: check out chang's autobiography to learn about how to live a good christian life and why sex before marriage goes against the teachings of jesus christ our lord and saviour (and also a little bit of tennis). then you've got jim courier, an american who excitingly did not suck at clay (funnily enough three of these four did win one slam on clay, it's really just sampras who SUCKS), big fighter, one of those americans with big forehands, y'know how they are. also one of the best retired player commentators and interviewers, really knowledgeable and good at explaining shit. courier also used to be in the same training academy as agassi and was kinda the less favoured one so he loved to beat agassi in a five set final to win his first slam

the other two are wunderkind andre agassi who hated the sport most of the time, and pete sampras, a genius of the game who had a far healthier relationship with the concept of tennis. the world's best returner against the world's best server, the intrepid baseline with the fearsome running forehand versus the cool serve-and-volleyer with one of the greatest serves in the game. sampras defeated agassi when everyone thought agassi would finally win his first slam, and he became a bit of a professional bogeyman for agassi. very much the rivalry of the decade, big contrast in personality as well as style. sampras won fourteen slams (but was very much not one of those americans who could play on clay), agassi had a bit of a messier time of it but still ended on a respectable eight - and remains the only man in history to win a 'career super slam', aka all four slams, olympic gold and the year end championships (nadal was missing yec, federer and djokovic gold - these olympics are presumably djo's final chance to complete the set)

agassi and graf eventually got their happy ending with each other. when he retired from the sport, agassi focused on his true calling and became a professional wife guy

anyways, they did also need someone to win the clay slams in that era, for which you do get a bunch of different blokes - but the most successful of these is kuerten, who brought a lot of aggression to his clay court game (this would become way more common since). big heavy groundstrokes, lots of topspin, you know how it is

early noughties is a bit chaotic, sampras and agassi are still winning a bit, there's a few names who are kinda limited to being successful on clay, lleyton hewitt looks like's gonna be the next big thing but isn't (still wins two slams). eventually you get the emergence of the big three/four

the first guy to show up is roger federer, who was kinda seen as a very talented flop, lots of potential he wasn't delivering on, until he finally put it all together and started winning absolutely everything. one of the serves, especially given his height, all time great flat forehand, very good slice. got even better at the net in his later years. the one handed backhand is a shot people like for aesthetic purposes, but it could be a liability. swiss. after he got rid of the ponytail, he was eventually seen as sort of synonymous with like. elegance. gentleman's sport idk

after a few years of federer winning everything, rafa nadal emerged as an ultra good teenager. kinda became the federer kryptonite. he's especially good on clay... okay, yeah, understatement, greatest of all time on the men's side on that surface, a lot of records that are going to take a lot of beating. like it's hard to overstate how good he is at roland garros, won the thing fourteen times. lefty, seen as a big fighter, got the sleeveless shirts, big big forehand with big big spin, fast. did branch out from the whole clay thing to also win all the other slams a bunch

that was the big rivalry for a while, until two players shoved themselves into the conversation (born a week apart): novak djokovic (nole) and andy murray. djokovic wasn't quite as early a bloomer as nadal, struggled a bit more physically early on, won a slam in 2008 and was consistently at the top but it really clicked in 2011 when he just won like. basically everything that year. didn't lose a match until roland garros. from serbia, childhood affected by the war... prone to some pretty dubious nationalism. a counterpuncher with one of the all time great backhands, ridiculously flexible, also ridiculous mental strength. was unpopular as the intruder in that nadal/fed rivalry that a lot of tennis fans seem to really be into, also federer in particular used to be real bitchy about him (kinda faded over the years). but like, don't bother booing him! it makes him better!

has won some insane matches against fed - crowd against him, fed with matchpoints, all that shit... us open 2011! and of course, wimbledon 2019, that infamous final where federer had two championship points and that lady in the crowd held up one finger (one more point) and djo ended up winning. another beloved meme in the community (well, not with fed fans)

*extremely cold take voice* REAL fans know the 2019 final is overrated and 2014 fed/djo is the superior one. djo won that one too, tended to do that a lot in that rivalry

oh obviously also gotta mention that djokovic had the entire covid 'oh I don't want to get vaccinated look at me get deported from australia' thing going on. which means a lot of like, free speech anti-establishment nuts are super into him now. so beyond the vaccine scepticism, it also means that now any time he gets bitchy about crowds, you can't really enjoy it because it immediately sparks super weird discourse

anyway then there's sir andrew murray who was part of the 'big four' as an era and was always there but was losing a lot of semis and finals against these guys. far, far better than his three slams sound, one of the greats who got unlucky in the era he played in. moody scottish bloke, pepperidge farm remembers the english used to hate him. counterpuncher, lovely lovely backhand, the forehand was sometimes a bit. eh. and the second serve *stares into middle distance*. very smart and crafty and tactical player. just retired this wimbledon

wawrinka also won three slams in this period..... powerful one handed backhand, kinda peaked at exactly the right time because the rest of his record is not three slam worthy. interesting taste in shorts. used to have beef with fellow swiss bloke fed and also his wife? but unfortunately they patched things up years ago. dated teenage vekic when he was late twenties - there are rumours that relationship may have started when she was underage, but either way she was definitely very young. reaching the end of his career

basically, look, the big three won pretty much everything for so so so long. unprecedented length of domination by three blokes. all of them have deranged fanbases, though each of them is a different flavour of deranged? single slam winners who are either retired or close to it are del potro (insanely talented, very injury blighted), cilic (when he's on, he sure is on), thiem (the guy who the big three feared for a while, insane one handed backhand, won a silly slam final in 2020 and then was kinda struggling mentally before his wrist got fucked)

andddd let's get to the current state of the game, what the vibes are like right now:

we are. finally. I think. mostly done with the big three? federer's very much retired, nadal's on the brink, djokovic... *wiggles hand* he's been deeply mid most of this year until roland garros, where he got injured. then he came back very quickly and admittedly got bitch slapped in the wimbledon final but also, like, 63 players allowed him to reach that final? anyway the thing about the big three is you can't really trust them to actually stay down, but tentatively I do think it's mostly #over

first bloke to get through the big four stranglehold on the number one ranking since. uh. 2004 I believe? a long time. was daniil medvedev (meddy, med), who it's fair to say was a bit of an Unexpected contender for that spot. he's very tall, part of a new generation of very tall players who can actually move, used to have a good serve... unconventional technique, especially on the forehand side. unique return position (think very far back), commonly compared an octopus with his lanky limbs in odd places. a pusher who likes to win by outlasting his opponents in rallies to exhaustion/madness. smart bloke, head case on the court - quite marmite where either you enjoy the antics or think he's a dick who's apologised for his behaviour more than he's changed it. has reached a lot of slam finals, did win one (us open 2021) but also. the manner of some of his late stage slam losses is what his fans would consider 'a little bit painful'

he was part of the og nextgen... basically you had the golden gen, which was the big four and co, then the lost gen, dimitrov, thiem, all those fuckers who didn't replace the gold gen, then the next gen which was like a marketing campaign to finally replace the big three (med, AZ, tsitsipas, rublev)... still didn't work so now we're on the next next gen

the big name here is carlos alcaraz (carlitos, charlie, charlitos), this wunderkind who is known for his big forehand and dropshots and creative game and general air of like, joy on the court, also for not being a talentless flop (and came in at just the right time to not get a shit ton of scar tissue courtesy of the big three). alcaraz had a mini breakthrough us open 2021, and then the proper one 2022... a season Of All Time by a teenager. won a lot of stuff that year and then eventually won the us open, ended year number one. 2023 has brought another slam, 2024 two more slams and counting... very much the next big thing in the sport, loads of fans. he's got basically everything, offensive all-court game with a lot of tools that make him successful on all surfaces, a mix of power and finesse. sometimes his number of options can trip him up and he can be a bit of a slow starter, has also been criticised for his over-reliance on coach ferrero in terms of his tactical flexibility - but crucially he's very very good, has won a lot, will continue to win a lot

then you've got jannik sinner, an italian from south tyrol (y'know, the bit that's right next to austria, kinda pasty looking, his fans have this whole carrot situation going on). he's number one now, after winning his first slam start of the year... bit older than alcaraz but only became a shoo-in as a slam contender this year. bit more of a linear, straightforward game than alcaraz, big big forehand and big big backhand, high margin aggression but more emphasis on the 'aggression' than for either prime djo or nadal. like alcaraz, an elite returner, plus his serve has massively improved in the last year and it's now pretty lethal. has sometimes been quite physically frail, jury's still out whether he's completely overcome those issues looking at his losses this year. the alcaraz rivalry is a whole thing now.... for a while, sinner was still kinda mid against the field but always played alcaraz super close and got some big wins. now he's very good against the field too, still plays alcaraz close

just as a recommendation: if you want to get into men's tennis and want to have a good time for the next decade, you probably want to try to get into one of those two guys

MATCHES TO WATCH

this is kinda trickier to do than with motorsports because it really depends on what you're looking for? like I wouldn't say there's really any 'recommended viewing' and also because tennis is going on literally ALL the time, really the best way to get into it is just watch the new shit as it comes out.... also most tennis fans aren't watching that many replays lbr. now obviously there are freaks who are way too into old matches they weren't old enough to experience live and could provide you with detailed match recs from the nineties if you were interested, but they're very much in the minority in the fanbase and can safely be ignored

that being said! you asked for recs so I will provide recs, all from stuff that's available in youtube. weirdly enough this is like, the one thing that is better for women's tennis than men's tennis, so for new-ish matches the only men's matches uploaded on youtube are a few slam ones. I'm gonna give like, 3-4 older matches from each gender (all from this century don't worry) that jumped out at me when I checked what was available, then add a few newer ones. all easily searchable on youtube dot com

historical matches:

okay. look. I don't want to sound like I have some fixation with the concept of '2003' specifically. but if I can give you one match, just one older match to watch. it's the us open 2003 semifinal between capriati and henin. this is a match with literally everything... incredible tennis between two very different players, stylistic contrast, a crazy atmosphere, ridiculous momentum shifts all three sets, officiating controversy, booing, a player fighting through cramps, choking, a super dramatic finish, narrative implications... like it's so worth it I PROMISE

um... apart from that, let's go serena/clijsters australian open 2003, really cool match though a BRUTAL third set to watch on a psychological level. like oof... again the narratives around this match that emerged for one player specifically... cruel!! tennis sucks!! hm I'm aware this is also a 2003 match but kinda an iconic season in women's tennis idk what to tell u!!

gonna refrain from reccing henin/serena rg 2003 though if you want something super controversial...

venus/davenport wimbledon 2005!! one of THE all time great slam finals. this is a match that grabs you by the throat and doesn't let you go until the bitter end. real back against the wall stuff, going beyond your limits to somehow turn it around.... absolute classic

oh idk let's toss in serena/henin 2010 ao, I'm gonna stop myself there but it is a fun match-up lol

men!! men. I mean, if you want to get 'caught up' then I'd probably better give you some big three recs

well, look, if there's one classic men's match everyone will tell you to watch, it's wimbledon 2008 federer/nadal. icl I haven't watched it in years and can't really remember it particularly well, but I'm sure it's perfectly lovely

from the matches available on youtube..... hm well australian open 2012 djokovic/nadal is also a classic! partly because it's Very Very Long but yeah nah this one's definitely fun

oh oh federer/djokovic matches I'd go wimbledon 2014 and us open 2011! especially the latter one, along with wimby 2019 I think those are kinda the matches that define the rivalry in the popular consciousness? also it was the FIFTH consecutive uso in which they played each other, which is inherently narratively potent

they uploaded nadal/djokovic roland garros 2021! that one's great yeah, the... third set I believe is one of THE all time great sets of tennis. also again interesting arc there because it's only a few months after the rg '20 final where nadal like, bagelled djokovic in the first set

and more recent matches:

well first of all, they have the ao 2023 ryba/sublanko final on youtube and yes, OBVIOUSLY watch that. fantastic match! best slam final this decade thus far, what a classic. also, read up just a little bit more about sabalenka's 2022 australian swing before watching it to get a sense for just How Bad the double fault situation was (I'm sure the commentators do also discuss it). like again!! what a journey!!

the wta full matches playlist is an absolute blessing here. iga/aryna 2023 madrid final!! still... well okay madrid this year is also in the conversation, but certainly one of the best matches they've played. as an introduction to the pair of them and how much fun that rivalry can be to watch, definitely the place to start! yeah, what a match man

they have!!! iga vs krej!!! ostrava!!! 2022!!! final!!! I miss ostrava!!! such a good vibes tournament, important to note that iga was almost unbeaten in finals going in (apart from one final when she was still like, a toddler) - this one's a real journey and also really works to show how cool barbie k's game can be when she's actually playing well. lovely stylistic contrast, lots of quirky momentum shifts, again you're getting introduced to current players of relevance. also ostrava!!!

kerber/juvan strasbourg 2022 look you do not need to get into angie kerber in the year 2024 but... well I saw it on the youtube playlist and I can't NOT include it. it's a 250 final, it's right before roland garros, this isn't relevant to greater narratives or anything else, this is just two players fighting it out for hour after hour, leaving their absolute all in the dirt. I could marry the matchpoint

leylah/osorio monterrey 2022... again, I'm not saying they're big names or some shit, but I can't not. two of the all time great tusslers in the women's game like there are women who tussle and then there are women who TUSSLE. amazing amazing atmosphere, some ridiculous drama, scamming, lights fixtures failing, these two women going at it… they're both SUCH characters, such energy, such vibes, never give up… this slaps!!! my favourite matches are the ones that really take you on a journey

speaking of. any match in the leylah us open 2021 run lol like they've got her vs naomi vs svitolina vs angie vs sublanko.... still one of the most bonkers slam runs in recent times, if perhaps overshadowed by what was going on on the other side of the draw. but yeah truly one match of peak drama after the other, what joy

scrolling through the ao matches that have been uploaded and tried to refrain from reccing coco/kostyuk but in the fondest way possible if you want to see some awful tennis... there's nothing more beautiful on this planet than genuinely horrendous matches. like again when I say 'abysmal' it's meant as a term of endearment

(I feel bad for just including a terrible coco match so of the ones on youtube the one I'd rec is maybe us open 2022 vs zhang? but like her coach's catchphrase is 'winning ugly', it really isn't a bad thing or meant as a drag)

from last year's rg, muchova/sabs and muchova/igatha are both very much worth a watch, both for the drama and the tennis

moving on to the men... well look, again, it's just a few of the slam matches on youtube not the tour level, which does kinda limit the ones I can offer you. probably the one I'd go for first and foremost is alcaraz/sinner uso 2022? defo the best match those two have played, super high quality, big big big momentum shifts, the third match between the two of them in fairly short succession which really helped in terms of like. narratives and shit. and again, these two are definitely The Guys going forwards, so you kinda want to be vibing with one of them I reckon

uh.... okay sure, alcaraz/djokovic wimbledon final last year. I still think there's a little bit of gaslighting in the tennis community about how good this match actually was (not as bad as what people do with their cincy match last year, mind) but well it's long and dramatic and long! also you do have like, the generational contest and all that stuff... it's A FINAL FOR THE AGES according to wimbledon's youtube account and who am I to argue with them

man these men's matches.... there's some sentimental faves for me personally but I shall not include them. apart from that, the youtube selection is honestly quite poor. maybe alcaraz/tiafoe 2022 us open

lmao altmaier/sinner roland garros 2023, sure, that was funny. making that one of like ten matches you've uploaded... never change roland garros, never change (please do change)

anyway listen there's a lot of fantastic men's early slam rounds that clearly nobody ever bothers to upload, I'm not really feeling any of the choices they have here. if you have tennistv and access to actual tour matches, then I'm more than happy to give recs for some of my faves there

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

congratulations! you are now caught up on 'tennis'. you've done it! that's all there is to know. job done

anyways, look. like I said at the top, it's tough to give a sort of concise 'lore' intro, because the thing about tennis is that there's always going on. and the 'always' element is the good bit!! it really is all about the variety, it's going into tournaments with an open mind, it's definitely not just gravitating around a few top players. we could get into plenty of old matches and old drama and old unsung heroes... an endless litany of minor beef, both very recent and slightly less recent, that may one day be lost to time. like tears. in the rain

last point as I wrap up this worryingly long post - obviously, if you have any questions on anything technical or historical or just like. hot takes. please feel free to send an ask. talking about tennis is fast and free and easy if you've been a part of that world for way too many years. but the main thing is to just watch and forge your own hot takes! it's easier to get the hang of than it looks from the outside - and from my years of observational studies, once it hooks you, it sure does hook you. have fun!!

congratulations! you have accidentally clicked to find the 'read more' section!

this is the section of 'shit I decided would make the main post not streamlined enough, but still felt like was relevant enough to include here'. basically, what I've thrown in here is a bunch of non-match stuff you can check out in your journey getting into the sport, my quick fire 'hey here's some players you can check out' list, as well as a relatively brief take on some players I haven't already covered above. like a teensy little intro.

anyway, to the non-match content:

dasha's vlog: okay. so daria kasatkina is currently ranked top fifteen in the world and for the past year or so her and her girlfriend (retired figure skater natalia zabiiako) have been releasing a vlog of her life on tour. genuinely dasha is doing more than the troops (certainly more than the wta) to actually promote the tour... the vlogs consist of like. her travelling, her training, her and her girlfriend chatting to other players and interviewing them (mainly women but men too depending on the event), the matches... and also dasha and natalia just being incredibly cute. they're in a mix of english and russian with english subtitles. fun, gives you a sense of both how fun and how not fun life can be for professional tennis players (plenty of depressing losses), an inside look in pretty much all the major tournaments... and you do get introduced to a smattering of other players. she recently won eastbourne so happy ending to that one!!

various tennistv videos: unfortunately, the wta does not produce similar content. they have a lot of match highlights, but they also have like. compilations. 'meme' videos for a given value of the word. 'funny moment' compilations. these vary in quality, some stuff will make you cringe, but unlike Certain Organisations at least they're trying. so for instance you have a video from rome 2021 that's a mix of people falling over on clay and throwing racquets and complaining about shit and also djokovic staring out at the endless rain. or specific features like atp players reacting to videos of amateur players playing tennis, y'know, that sort of thing

gill gross: so you want to learn a little more about how tennis works, maybe some match tactics or common discourse points? gill is a good place to start I think, most of it should be relatively accessible and watchable. there's monday match analysis videos, which tend to be the finals of the week before on the men's side, individual match analysis videos especially during slams, and mailbag episodes - those are the ones I'd start with. unfortunately, most of the content is focused on men's tennis, though gill does also talk about women's tennis in the mailbag episodes. available both in youtube form and podcast version

tennis abstract: this isn't really 'content' per se, but it's the resource that I thought I might as well include here and does include a very interesting blog proponent and some very eclectic content. basically, tennis kinda sucks in providing you with stats, so some enterprising minds just do it themselves... tennis abstract might not be the friendliest website to get on with at the start, but I think it's worth checking out just to give yourself a bit of a sense of what's out there. how you measure tennis! you can compare players by a bunch of different metrics, like how many return games they're winning per match or average time per match. there's also the individual player sections, which lets you filter their results by various criteria... and then there's the individual match charts and the data based of those, which is entirely volunteer-produced match coding to give you far more in-depth stats than the general tour product (which I have done a bit of myself, it's fun!!)

tennis podcasts: right, I'm gonna be honest I'm not really a regular listener to any of these for various reasons so I can't REALLY vouch for them. you have no challenges remaining, quite well-known journalists with that; there's the tennis podcast, which... controversial, they easily annoy me too, but around slam times the media day + daily podcasts are pretty good content, quite surface level but good entry level probably? there's the body serve, which I think is quite good, it's just got an editorial slant towards certain players I'm not big on. there's backhands and compliments, which is a fan podcast by female fans... just about atp tennis though. I'm not really the target audience for this one, but if you want something quite casual and fun, think this could be good! tennis & bagels is pretty good, they're only this low down because they're not currently regularly posting. talking tennis is very much a mix of content but one I regularly check out, again more on the analysis side of things, but yeah!

I also can't really vouch for this content myself - but I should mention that morgan riddle, the girlfriend of top twenty atp player taylor fritz, is a social media influencer on both instagram and tiktok. I'm not active on either platform so I only really see what she posts second hand, but well it'll be stuff relating to her boyfriend and also fit checks for watching tennis, I suppose? I do know people who enjoy her stuff, think it's quite good!

tennis majors: I'm a little loathe to include this because the site is basically a patrick mouratoglou pr outlet that moonlights as a serious news site? and look. mouratoglou we are not getting into here, but he's a very annoying famous coach. site's got some good content though. also tennis.com which is another news website that's like. fine. I don't really check it a lot tbh, good as a starting point I reckon

players tribune has a few pieces by tennis players - iga, jpeg, foe... obviously not that many but the ones who have contributed a piece are well worth checking out!! for a bit more thoughtful content

popcorn tennis: this is a blog that updated irregularly with a mix of opinion pieces, player profiles, and match reports. another one where I easily get irritable at a lot of these pieces, but that's sort of the point with think pieces innit

some more technical analysis on thread of order, which unfortunately again is heavily biased towards men's tennis. there's match analyses, generally of big finals, but also some really interesting pieces on technique. this one on forehands is probably like... a bit much for entry level fans, but it should be quite accessible as a read! then you've got the sadly discontinued matt racquet blog, which still has an archive worth checking out - mix of match analyses and more big picture think pieces. here's a good accessible one on the early 2022 men's top ten with their strengths and weaknesses displayed in a video game-y way, obviously a bit out of date both in terms of who it includes and what it says about them, but... good as a starting point of how to think about this stuff. also, I love radar charts

on the same site, there's also this on the equal pay debate with regards to best of five versus best of three at slams, and what still remains the best analysis out there of why alcaraz's drop shots are so incredibly effective. again, less on women unfortunately, but some pieces that withstand the test of time on why iga is so damn good (x, x). also, the good old What's Wrong With Tennis piece from 2020, many of the same things are still wrong with tennis now

as long reads go, this piece on federer from the time of his retirement is pretty hard to beat in terms of what tennis writing is out there. does a good job of capturing why people go so crazy about the guy, a very engaging read. also liked this piece in the guardian about return positions from last year, and back when 538 was a thing they had a few interesting tennis articles. and yeah, again, tennis abstract is a super useful site but the blog is also fun analysis, good up to date stuff especially on players who are finding more success and like... explaining what's changed, the pieces on demon and boulter this year for instance are worth checking out. and here's an essay on talent and prodigies and losing again and again.... not too long but quite thoughtful and I vibe with a lot of it. plus giri nathan of the defector is one of the best current tennis writers

and if you're on twitter, the number one follow recommendation I'd give is @/josephwofford - when he's active, he does a lot of fantastic live analysis of matches and post-match threads. definitely not a neutral fan, but the passion and eclectic selection of faves is the best element. plus, you'll never believe this, there's actually a pretty much fifty fifty gender balance. here, giri nathan did an interview with him entitled 'an interview with the biggest tennis sicko I've encountered at the us open'. my type of guy

there's also like, fan-produced wta content on youtube, but it's a real mix between stuff that's done with love for the tour with all its quirks and stuff that feels very mean-spirited, misogyny central, so it goes. not always easy to distinguish between wta drama (fond) and wta drama (look at these bitches). anyway there is some kinda nice stuff out there.... like idk naomi osaka 'funny moments' or iga swiatek 'being a meme for 4 minutes straight' or aryna sabalenka 'funny moments', that sort of thing

not going to get into a tennis bibliography here, but if I had to recommend one tennis-related book it'd always be agassi's autobiography. will probably always be my favourite sports autobiography, and I promise you that you do not need much of a tennis background to find it a worthwhile read

^dasha and natalia... look up photos of them I promise you it's a good scrolling experience

and here's my lil list of players I'd consider giving a watch, see what you vibe with. I haven't included any top five players - you will be brute force introduced to that lot anyway - and generally not players that I consider... surefire bets to reach/remain at the top of the game. they're still mostly relatively high profile! a bunch of different playstyles, career trajectories, personal stories, and so on... again, this is just a bit of a random list and only very loosely correlates to players I myself root for, but I reckon I still stand by the names here in terms of giving you a good range of interesting players with interesting stories:

paolini, kasatkina, zheng, krecjikova, fernandez, collins, ostapenko, svitolina, m. andreeva, garcia, kenin, andreescu, osorio, haddad maia, avanesyan, bouzkova, putintseva

davidovich fokina, de minaur, musetti, tiafoe, korda, etcheverry, baez, machac, arnaldi, norrie, sonego, hanfmann, munar, berrettini

okay, some more wta players - so so many you could get into here but I've just tried to give the top 35 like. a few lines of summary (not including anyone already featured above):

this would feel like a bizarre sentence to type out a year ago, but I suppose the first player you have to mention here is jasmine paolini! how did that happen! at age 28, her game has suddenly Clicked and she's won a 1000 title, plus become one of the few players in history to have gotten to back to back slam finals at roland garros + wimbledon (the 'channel slam'). short, somehow generates some crazy power, plus she's such a scrapper and grinder, a lot of determination and spirit to her game.... she's having fun, you're having fun watching her, who knows what she does from here

jessica pegula/jpeg - billionaire's daughter, late bloomer, perpetual slam quarterfinalist, injury blighted season, plays doubles with gauff a lot, big fighter, deceptively good... like you don't always know what makes her so dangerous, she's not super powerful or super fast or super anything really. but the strokes are consistent and fairly powerful and she's incredibly tenacious

qinwen zheng - reached her first slam final at ao this year, and she's been tipped as a big star for a while now, also very much got the celebrity juice and lovely magazine shoots and all that. the results are still quite inconsistent though, we'll have to wait and see. tall with a quirky serve motion, big forehand, really likes to take the ball on and step in, still trying to kinda bring it all together

maria sakkari - the most beautiful biceps in the game, very fit (in every sense of the word), also kinda quirky technique that's like... effortful, quite tense. renowned for being a massive choker but won her second title last year. she's one of those players it's super rewarding and fun to be a hater of, less rewarding and fun to be a fan of. so don't do that

danielle 'danyell' collins - announced her retirement so she's going to be gone by end of the season, but since then she's had some very impressive results including a 1000 title. plus a lot of great matches. she's a bit of an underdog hero, no sponsor and all that, also a number of physical ailments that makes it hugely impressive what she's achieved. struggles with rheumatoid arthritis and endometriosis. known for her powerful game and her KAMANNN yells

jelena ostapenko (aljona/penko) - 2017 rg champion. don't try and predict her results, you just won't know. WHACKS at the ball, amazing angles, distinctive return position (way way too close sometimes lol), can generally be counted on to generate some drama. gets into a lot of fights with electronic line calling. very much a force of chaos in the women's game, check her head to head with world number one iga swiatek. doesn't have a sponsor and comes up with some memorable outfits

daria 'dasha' kasatkina - I Was A Fan Before I Knew She Was A Dyke. a pusher, little firepower but WILL run for every ball, loops and slices it back. very very very slow serve, great returner though. it's a very sad serve. tends to get overpowered especially by top players, and is probably a bit too defensive these days. it's definitely not a game for everyone, but idk if you're into different ball flight trajectories and a lot of running, she's a good watch. plus she does play some very long matches. when you have players who are shite at serving and great returners, you tend to get a lot of matches where they're either handing out or on the receiving end of bakery products (6-0, 6-1 sets) (because the serve becomes little more than a neutral point starter on average, so the bit that matters is who's winning off the ground)

ludmilla samsonova (samsung/samsonite) - ... she's top twelve? oh, I checked and I'd forgotten she reached two 1000 finals last year, those were great runs fairs. another player who's quite honestly a mystery, goats some stretch of the calendar and then has a series of horrific chokes. big power player, I like the shape of her groundies

madison keys (madi) - she brings a certain kind of 'approaching tennis like it's baseball' vibe to the tour, going by some of her balls' trajectories, got to rate it. boy can she smack that ball though, pretty cool when she's actually getting it between the lines. has broadly underachieved career expectations, got to one slam final that was Not a good experience for her, seems lovely as a person so a lot of people root for her. retired from the best match of the tournament this wimbledon :( (against paolini)

emma navarro - another billionaire's daughter, possibly didn't exist before last year. honestly, I haven't watched enough of her matches to have a great read on what her deal is... but now she's top twenty

ons jabeur - trailblazer as a tunisian tennis star, reached three slam finals and didn't really show up for any of them. (like, psychologically, she didn't literally skip them.) a magician on court with a game that some would call creative and others undisciplined. got nicknamed the 'minister of happiness' in tunisia and outside of it, but has been fighting a lot of demons - injuries, the slam final chokes, her desire to become a mother and so on. a lot of people are cheering for her but her window may have passed (dude, seriously, not a good fan experience, don't get invested)

anna kalinskaya - oh yeah another flat hitter who igatha has struggled with. got to a 1000 final this year... look I hate to do this but I suppose I should mention one of the main associations people have with her right now is that she started dating men's number one sinner this year

marketa vondrousova (maky) - another mystery. has some big runs in big tournaments and then disappears. won wimbledon last year, has barely won a match on grass before or since... one of those crafty czech players, y'know. fun game to watch when it's on! lovely lovely slice, just an incredible amount of tools at her disposal, some of those angles pheww.... really likes her cat

marta kostyuk - had a breakthrough very very young, things have been tougher for her since then... not made easier by the impact of the russian invasion of ukraine. outspoken on the subject. last year things increasingly clicked in her game, started winning against t10 players, deep run at ao this year. bit of a messy game at times but she's a fighter

victoria azarenka (vika) - two time ao winner, already got mentioned above. fantastic returner, spottier server, lovely lovely backhand. gotten involved in some classic wta drama over the years. still goes on some deep runs, but reaching the end of the career

donna vekic - breakthrough young, had a hard time since, now 28 and was a first time slam semifinalist this wimby. a few things you could get into here which would take more time, but really an engaging watch. some of her down the line and inside out shots... man, they can make you gasp

beatriz haddad maia - do you want to watch four hour long matches with fifty thousand momentum shifts? boy do I have a tennis player for you. pusher with a serve, definitely a fighter, makes for some epic matches... not having a great season. a Dedicated brazilian fanbase

leylah fernandez - us open 2021 runner up as a teenager... her run to the final was genuinely bonkers, one three set classic after the next. it's all been messier since then and with her height and game the worry is she'll always be underpowered. she is SUCH a vicious fighter with a charming grin after the fact... a great character and a henin fan (taste) but yeah... can be frustrating

caroline 'caro' garcia - okay so look. she has her good seasons and her off seasons and her last good season was 2022. she's very aggressive, very.... uncompromising, including in her return position, sometimes it works out and.... it may also not. had past familial coaching drama. mentally a bit up and down. when she wins she has this whole 'fly with caro' thing where she runs around like a plane. but so help me lord I resisted leading with this - quite possibly one of the hottest women on this planet and when she speaks with that french accent paired with one of history's cutest smiles... in the most feminist way possible. call me

dayana yastremska - she's top thirty...? another mystery, had a breakthrough young and then struggled, ukrainian also impacted by the war, also a character you can sometimes get some quality Drama out of

linda noskova - still very young... very powerful, beat iga at ao, one of a million good czech players. jury's out as to what her potential is

ekaterina alexandrova - madrid specialist! well, no, not really, but she's definitely a bit of a peaky player.... flat hitter, very nice stroke production

diana shnaider - still quite young, HUGE forehand (like. huge. huge), bandana!! looks cool, cool kid, left college to turn pro, still need to see where the ceiling is

yulia putintseva (poots) - again, her results.... nobody can explain them, but boy can she be a joy to watch. also, and I cannot stress this enough, A Character. beat iga at wimbledon (she did also win a warm up event so not completely random). sometimes gets involved in the messiest matches on the planet

elina svitolina - bit of an old school pusher! a counterpuncher, even! very strong record against her fellow pushers. she came back from having a kid last year, been having quite a successful comeback though she would have been hoping to win last wimbledon (got to the semis). underpowered, felt like her ceiling was slam semis but y'know... great fighter and match player. also vocal on ukraine

mirra andreeva - baby goat! younger sister to erika, who is currently still in scrub land. mirra made rg semis, she's had some big runs. very much a Tennis Fan who studies a lot of old matches, very crafty, tactical game, deeply charming but also has a temper and is not adverse to the odd tantrum. might lack the weapons to 'make it'

anastasia pavlyuchenkova (pavs) - kinda a perpetual slam quarterfinalist, but she made the rg '21 final. she really works at it, I suppose quite workman-like game (some creative descriptions here)... out with injury for most of 2022 but she was back at it last year. she's sweet!

katie boulter - bri ish. uh. kinda been having good results this past year.... hate to do this again but she's dating de minaur. very low margin game and now does hit the court a few more times? um. bri ish. beef with fellow brit harriet dart

elise mertens - round three streak slam goat!! unfortunately the streak is very much broken, and she's - uh I thought she was old but apparently she's only 28 oh god. never mind! hugely successful doubles player, kinda fun creative game

karolina muchova (karo, mucky) - dude. if only she could not be injured for more than two minutes. reached the roland garros final last year, lovely matches against sabs in the semi and then against iga in the final. this is for the connoisseurs, you can get all pretentious here, really for the lovers of slices and lovely looking strokes and nice touch and feel and unfulfilled potential and all that shit. crafty czech player y'know. plays guitar, should be playing for our team (dykes)

okay I think that's probably enough for now

I'll do a few of the men too... this one's got fewer main protagonists so I'll limit it to twenty. the problem with men's tennis is that these guys are all relevant but basically none of them are likely to win a slam like. ever. just to warn you

right. first one we haven't covered in the rankings is alexander zverev. the main thing you should know about zverev is that he has been accused of domestic violence by two different women. one of the women never went to the authorities, the other ended up settling in german courts. the atp has done nothing about this, the players haven't spoken out - and if anything, the most prominent players in the sport, the beloved big three, have either defended him or said it wasn't any of their business. quite a few of the most popular players, including rublev and thiem, are close friends with him. many have explicitly declined to speak out. as a player, he's tall, big serve, great backhand, mediocre forehand, should use his offence more but resorts to a lot of pushing. he used to be seen as a sure fire world number one and slam winner, and came within a set in the 2020 us open where he was up two sets to love (this was a while before the allegations came out). he got injured badly in 2022, last year was his comeback season, this year he's been playing well but losing slam matches from winning positions. one of the most tedious strains of tennis discourse equates his playing style/mental strength to his morality or attributes his lack of slams to karma, but I have no interest in doing so. he's a very good player who may win a slam, he might have too much mental scar tissue and might be gatekept away from them. if I had to bet on any player I've listed here to snatch one, it'd be him. he also shouldn't be allowed to play

alex de minaur (demon) - dude he's? tf do you mean he's number six? I've really not checked the rankings in a while, bloody hell. yeah, he used to be the next big australian sensation, the new lleyton hewitt... but like, he didn't quite have the game. very very fast, not necessarily much in the way of firepower, some midcourt finishing attempts that make you wince. used to have an awful record against top players, it's looking up now and he's using his forecourt game a lot better these days (still not great at being aggressive off the ground but he's always been quite handy at the net, just needs to get there)... having the best season of his career. got injured match point of his round four wimbledon, so had to withdraw next match - rough rough luck if he has to withdraw from the olympics too. dating katie boulter

hubert hurkacz (hubi, hubertus, I feel like I'm not really distinguishing between 'real' nicknames and 'things I personally call these players' but whatever): very tall. very very good serve. polish. not as good as iga, obviously. gets bullied a lot by polish fans (in a fond way) (I think), seen as a bit crap. comes across as nice and normal but has had a slightly mental exit in the last two slams where. well. some interesting behaviour there. lovely backhand, extremely non-lovely forehand. poor returner. a good mover, not med/AZ levels though. keeps playing longer matches than he should. very tragicomic vibes

andrey rublev: has a lot of fans, plus a lot of neutrals who also have a soft spot for him (including journalists one feels). one-dimensional game, mainly reliant on the big forehand... very poor second serve, which is one of the main thing other players exploit. got the record for the most slam quarters reached without winning one. uh, he's quite cheery off the court, vaguely emo-lite vibes I suppose, but also he does have... issues on the court with managing his temper. he takes this out on himself a lot of times, like bashing his knee and head with his racquet. fun quirk of the tennis rules: you're not allowed to damage your racquet or the court but apparently you're allowed to do whatever you want with your limbs. quite close friends with med, godfather to his daughter. he's had a poor year apart from winning madrid kinda out of nowhere (since then he's gone back to losing). a lot of like, the fun quirky videos the atp produces heavily feature him, he's very good at them

casper ruud: la la la la la la la casper ruud.... seen as a 250 clay merchant, but he won a 500 this year so it's all fixed. very much a hard work pays off kinda guy, had his breakthrough 2022 where he reached two slam finals... big forehand, great serve, the other bits of his game aren't always up to scratch, not fantastic defensively (though he's actually made Proper Improvements to the backhand, apparently it's possible) (and he's not like, taylor fritz slow). this year he's really committed to being aggressive and going after his shots and it's helped him get over last year's slump. comically, comically disinterested in playing on grass. gets involved some of the funniest and most random drama, like jaaaaaa gate (he was accused of shouting 'jaaaaa' in another player's face by said other player). big nadal fan. seems nice and normal and should be drama free but is also like? judgy. maybe that explains it

grigor dimitrov: ah yes, lostgen. there's one guy on twitter who always calls him a 'bisexual balding bulgarian', quite possibly the funniest slander name I have ever come across. he's had the balding issue fixed at least. bit of a style over substance player, the one hander is a nice shot though.... decent slice, at times flaky forehand, a lot of natural talent and a good watch in terms of athleticism. used to be called baby federer, bit of a cursed nickname. dated sharapova for certain, rumoured to have dated serena too. he's kinda nice I suppose, low drama, but like. don't bet your life savings on him actually delivering in a match is what I'll say

taylor fritz: oh he's the american number one again... also quite a one dimensional game, big forehand big backhand good serve... worst mover at the top of the men's game. also in the variety department he's sometimes a bit... yeah. he's got one type of ball trajectory and it's a good type, just don't expect him to switch it up too much. one of the og nextgen lot. in the most polite way possible, he's probably around where his ceiling is. tennis influencer girlfriend

stefanos tsitsipas: super og nextgen, he was really seen as one of The Guys back in the day... beat federer at a slam back in 2019, won the tour finals that year.... he's reached two slam finals and he's been within a set of winning one but. yeah. not happening. game's stagnated since his breakthrough - he's big on the forehand and serve but the one handed backhand is super exploitable. and the thing is, if you have a one hander it's a good idea to actually develop a slice as your defensive tool which he did... not do. deeply dysfunctional familial coaching situation. also too likely to be posting a misogyny on social media. dating fellow player and former world number two paula badosa

tommy paul: another american. he showed up drunk to a us open doubles match he had a wild card for years and years back, and the national federation cut his support. rockier rise to the top! there's like... a lot of nice bits to his game, like it's good shot making, but it's missing the top player x factor (that forehand in particular can be a liability). has reached a slam semi (that bit of the draw collapsed is all I'll say)

ben shelton: another american, but he's younger and he's seen as super promising, was a very successful college player. so might be worth investing in! he's very energetic, plays to the crowd a lot, big on vibes... big big serve. small warning, I personally think that's not a game that'll take you to the top of the men's game these days and I'm not convinced by the package, but who knows! a lot of people would disagree with me

ugo humbert: fifteen??? FIFTEEN in the world????? the fuck. well. um. he's got big weapons! he's also got french brain. french tennis players, especially the men, are known for.... uh. I don't want to say it's a nation of chokers, but I wouldn't say they're seen as the mentally sturdiest? well anyway I'm not sure how humbert got this ranking, good on him though, very good watch when he's on

lorenzo musetti (lore): oh thank god, finally a one handed backhand that's better than the forehand. stylish game. lovely slice. a working father. quite young, he's still kinda known for that 2021 roland garros match where he was up two sets to love against djokovic and ended up retiring in the fifth when he was... losing badly... listen, again, I wouldn't buy the musetti slam stocks and he is NOT consistent throughout the year, but absolutely a good watch

holger rune (holgah): sheesh, seventeenth? well, he was higher a while back! listen, he's super marmite. very close to alcaraz's age, also super promising junior, absolutely a brat, has had some very exciting early success like beating djokovic in the paris final in 2022... incredible drama queen, as are his mum and coaching set up. got a lot going on in his game, has no clue what to do with it. he's... yeah he's a character. at the moment he's not looking like he's part of the same category as sinner and alcaraz, but some would feel he'd be a welcome presence at the top of the game. accused casper ruud of screaming 'jaaaaaa' in his face. you'll either love him or hate him, but at least he's never boring

felix auger aliassime: still quite young, but god did people used to think he was gonna achieve great things... big serve, big forehand, great athlete, unfortunately the backhand is... yeah. he was also dealing with a bunch of injuries last year. had this whole coaching set up with nadal's uncle.... anyway, look there's been a lot of stagnation there. also some real scar tissue

sebastian baez (sebi): argentinian clay court specialist, from a country that produces quite a few of those especially on the men's side. very watchable tennis! quite short, not much in the serving department, uses his forehand a lot and grinds away from the back of the court proper clay court fashion. tends to be quite streaky, but boy can he put together some title runs (we're talking 250s and now one 500) - then sometimes he disappears for months

alejandro tabilo: omg he's top twenty, good for him!! already in his late twenties and like... this is probably the ceiling as his rankings goes, but it's so cool he's made top twenty. beat djokovic this year. his strongest surface is clay, but weirdly his two tour-level titles are on hard and grass. lefty, I do quite like his backhand motion, very compact. good underdog to root for who's having a career best season!

marija cicak world's hottest umpire

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Take Your Time | Choi Yeonjun

Summary: Yeonjun asks out his Noona the first time he speaks to her and she surprisingly says yes. Pairing: fem!reader x Choi Yeonjun Word Count: 3.4k~ Warnings: Tiny bit of suggestive language and four year age gap but that's about it. a/n: Requested by one of my lovely anons. Sorry it took me so long to get it out! But trust me, there will definitely be a part two ;)

Growing up I never was one to stand out from the crowd, let alone the one anyone batted an eye at. I always thought of myself as being average, just a face in the crowd and I was okay with that. No one has ever really taken a special interest in me, so why do I find myself being chased around by a young guy named Yeonjun?

He's one that some might classify as "popular" but titles like those don't hold as much weight in college as they did in high school. No matter where I turn, if I find myself sitting in the library, eating lunch out in the sun, spending time with my small group of friends or even walking to my classes I can always see him coming. Doesn't help the fact that he's at least a head or two taller than most of the students here so it's kind of hard not to notice him.

We do have similar majors I'll give him that so we share a couple of classes and because of that I'm bound to run into him but why has he taken to me so strongly? He hasn't asked me to tutor him so he must not want to use me for my brain. Nor has he tried to hit on me, he just seems like a genuine guy who for some reason has become somewhat infatuated with me.

Maybe it's our age gap that he finds attractive, and the fact that there isn't much competition he would have to deal with. Guys like him do seem like they would want to go for older women, ones that are more experienced so to say. Little does he know that this Noona he's chasing after isn't much more than she seems.

"Noona, you dropped this!" I hear someone say and I turn to see Yeonjun holding up the pen I had just been using. "Oh thank you Yeonjun" I say and take it back getting hit with a faint jolt of electricity when our hands touch. "You know my name?" he asks clearly surprised. "Well yeah I'm your TA for this class so it's kind of my job to know everyone's name" I say laughing at his confusion.

"Oh yeah, I guess you’re right. How are you?" he asks clearly trying to find a way to continue this conversation. "I'm fine thanks, how are you?" I ask returning the sentiment. "I'm doing great. I just wanted to see if I could ask you something" he says and I can see the tips of his ears turning red which could really only mean one thing.

I hum in acknowledgment and wait for him to continue. "Do you think that maybe you might want to go on a date with me sometime?" he asks now looking down at his feet. "What was that?" I tease, hoping to ease up the tension. "Will you go on a date with me?" he says making eye contact after taking a deep breath. Looking at him a bit closer I can see how young he is and how honestly adorable he looks. He is an attractive guy so I guess one date might not hurt.

"Sure" I say with a soft smile. "Wait, really?" he says now making hard eye contact with me, searching my features to see if I actually meant it. "Yeah why not? Don't tell me you're backing out on me already" I chuckle, loving the reactions he's giving me.

"It's just that, I didn't think you would actually say yes. Does Saturday work?" he asks quickly solidifying our plans. "Saturday is fine, do you have a car or would you like me to come pick you up?" I question knowing that it's not common for a college student to have a car where we live. "I could just meet you there! I don't want you to go out of your way" he says, cheeks blushing at the thought of me picking him up instead of the other way around.

"It's okay Yeonjun, just send me the time and your address and I'll come get you" I say and hand him my phone so he can put in his number. He takes it with two hands, clearly still showing respect for my age which is a good sign and saves his name as Choi Yeonjun keeping things formal, to which I change it to Junnie making sure he sees it.

"Junnie? No one has really called me that since I was a kid" he says scratching the back of his head. "Oh it's okay I don't plan on calling you that, I just like to have cute nicknames in my phone for my friends" I say saving it and putting my phone in my pocket. "Friends huh?" He says looking a little disheartened.

"I guess we'll find out after that date" I say and ruffle his hair before I make my way to my next class. "See you later, Junnie" I say giving him a kiss on the cheek before I leave. I glance back and see that he's still facing the other way with his hand placed on the cheek I had kissed and laugh a bit at the sight. He's a cute kid.

I get a text later on in the day from Yeonjun telling me the time but for some reason he wont tell me where we're going.

'Can you at least tell me how I should dress?' I send shaking my head.

'Comfortable but not too comfortable. Some sort of jeans and t shirt combo would be good' he replies simply. 

'Oh and you might want to wear a black shirt or something because we might get a bit dirty ;)' he finishes and gives me no more information after that. I huff in semi annoyance but I'm actually quite excited to see what he might have in mind.

"Hi Noona" Yeonjun greets hopping into my car, he makes an effort to lean in towards me resting his arm against the console to balance and gives me his cheek. "What are you doing?" I giggle feigning innocence. "Noona you gave me a kiss last time" he lets out, pouting slightly at the thought of being denied the kiss that he was clearly hoping for. "Settle down and put your seatbelt on" I say laughing at him and he does as he's told but while he's busy doing so I lean in and give him a quick peck on the cheek as I had done before.

"I-" he says again placing his hand against the spot where my lips had just been, clearly catching him off guard again. "So are you gonna tell me where we're going or what?" I say sitting back in my seat and then offering him my phone to pull up the directions which he fumbles with for a second and then hands it back to me.

Once we pull up I'm surprised to see that we're in front of a pottery studio, "Really?" I say teasing him, pretending that I'm uninterested. "What you don't like it? I thought I heard you talk about the ceramics class you had last year that you really liked so I-" "Yeonjun I'm kidding, I love it!" I say grabbing his hand trying to show sincerity.

"Loosen up a bit love, I like to tease people a lot" I say giving his hand a squeeze and pulling him into the shop. "We’re gonna have to have a talk about you listening in on my conversations though" I say pretending to scold him. "I'm sorry I just wanted to make sure to take you somewhere you would like to go. Not some lame movie date" he say looking down at his shoes.

"Jun" I say hoping to bring his attention back over to me. "You really don't have to be shy with me, I promise I'm just playing around" I say hoping he'll understand me a bit more. "I'm sorry it's just, well I've never gone out with a girl that's older than me so I wanted to be respectful and we don't know each other well yet so I wasn't sure if I should be formal with you or not" he explains and I notice again how red his ears have gotten.

"Take a deep breath with me okay?" I say and encourage him to follow while we wait our turn in line and a few seconds later breathe out. "We're on a date right?" I question him to which he nods. "So let's drop some of the formality, still be respectful but you don't need to walk on egg shells around me. Got it?" I ask hoping now he'll start to loosen up. "Got it!" he says giving me a bright smile that I know is about to become one of my favorites.

As we start our pottery lesson I notice that the instructor keeps on making eyes at me and it's very apparent that Yeonjun does as well. The instructor seems to take a special interest in me and makes sure to compliment me and come to my aide when I'm struggling. Honestly isn't it unprofessional to try to flirt with customers so openly?

"Hey Yeonjun come here" I say with the intention of asking him to 'help' me. "Do you think you could help me out? My hands seems to be getting pretty shaky so it's hard for me to get it to look as nice as yours looks" I pout trying to make him feel a bit better showing him that I need him.

"Sure Noona how did you want me to..." he questions not really sure how to go about it. "Oh if you want to get behind me and place your hands on top of mine to guide me that might help" I say sneakily creating the 'Ghost' scene. He awkwardly agrees and helps me just like I asked him with his chest up against my back and him whispering in my ear praising me for getting it down so quickly which honestly has me feeling a bit flustered.

"Thank you love" I say placing another kiss on his cheek "I think I've got it from here" I say and send him back to his station and make it a point to send a tight lipped smile to the creep, making sure he saw our interaction. Even if Yeonjun and I aren't in a relationship I want to make him feel secure in himself and see that I really wanted to come on this date with him and he's the only guy I care to pay attention to.

"You okay?" I ask as we make our way out of the studio, taking a hold of his hand while we walk back to my car. "I didn't like the way that guy was looking at you" he says clenching his jaw a bit, now being given a bit more freedom to express his emotions.

"Hey, I made sure the guy knew that we were together and he did back off a bit after that so don't worry. Plus I made sure to talk to the manager about him so I don't know how much longer he'll be working there" I finish, walking over to the drivers side of the car.

"You're literally the coolest person I know Noona" he says amazed at my simple actions. "I know" I say smiling at his sentiment and get in the car and again hand him my phone for him to put in the next address for the second stop on our adventure. 

"How did you know I like rollerskating?" I question, finding his attention to detail adorable. "Well I thought I saw a bumper sticker on your car a while ago that has a pair of roller skates on it so I figured you might want to go!" he says with a bright smile, happy he was right.

"Plus it gives me an excuse to do this" he says and places his hand in mine. I find myself a little flustered at the action as this is the first time he's initiated some sort of physical touch and it somehow gets my heart racing. I guess since it's my first time going on a date in a while, him making moves on me might effect me a bit more. 

"Come on let's go!" he says cutely, excited to get started and I trail along behind him with my hand still firmly in his grasp. As we get inside I reach for my bag to find my card so I can pay for the entrance and skate rental, "No it's okay Noona I'm paying!" he says proudly swiping his card before I even have a chance to find my wallet.

"Are you sure? You already paid for the pottery class" I say feeling a bit unsure of if I should let him pay, especially since I'm older than him. "Yes I'm sure, I asked you on a date so it's my responsibly to take care of you" He says and guides me closer to the counter so we can both get our hands stamped, showing we've paid the entry fee. He takes a hold of my hand after that and leads me towards the skate rental counter to pick up ours for the day. 

"If I would've known we were coming I would've brought my skates" I say laughing at how chipper he seems. "But that would've ruined the surprise!" he says, stating the obvious. "I'll let you know next time..." he says trailing off leaving it open ended trying to see if I would want there to be a next time. "Okay, next time" I say squeezing his hand hopefully showing my sincerity.

He smiles down at me and it's just now that I'm taking into account our height difference and for some reason it has me starting to feel shy. Our eyes lock for a moment and I see him start to study my features and he glances down at my lips for a moment before the kid at the counter hands us our skates. 

We sit down to start putting them on and before I can say anything he's kneeling down in front of me helping me tie my laces. "Hey you don't have to do that!" I say laughing at his clumsiness with the extra long laces. "I know, but I want to" he says and looks up at me now almost being eye level.

My phone buzzes and I mentally groan at another interruption and check it but before I can protest he's helping me put on the other skate. "Who was that? If you don't mind me asking" he questions tentatively. "My boyfriend, he's wondering why I haven't been answering his calls today" I say rolling my eyes and throwing my phone in my purse after putting it on silent. 

Much to my amusement Yeonjun ends up choking on air and almost toppling over from his crouched down position but I end up reaching out in time to help steady him. "Boyfriend?" he says between coughs. I smile at him and see how pink his cheeks have gotten clearly embarrassed by what he believes to be new information about me. "Yeonjun, what did I say about lightening up? Of course I don't have a boyfriend, it was just someone liking my story that's all" I say rubbing his back waiting for him to stop coughing. 

"Okay good" he says clearing his throat. "Now come on handsome let's get your skates on too! This is my favorite song!" I say happily standing up to stretch a bit before kneeling down and doing the same for him. "Noona you don't-" "Shhh you helped me now let me help you" I say simply and once done I stand up to reach for his hand and take him towards the rink where 'Oh shit...are we in love?' by Valley is blasting through the blown out speakers.

Once I step onto the rink I notice Yeonjun's hesitation to do the same, flinching a bit watching someone wipeout on the polished wood. "You're fine, come on I'll teach you" I say reaching out for his hand which he reluctantly takes. 

"Have you never been roller skating before?" I ask while I guide him to the railing running across the wall that encases the rink. "I have but umm-" he's interrupted by almost slipping before I help him regain a bit of his balance, "it's been a while" he says awkwardly laughing at his efforts of recovery. We go around the rink a few times and he starts to get more comfortable with each completion.

"You think you got it now?" I question, confident that we won't have any Bambi on ice moments again. "Okay you stay here and I'll go skate to the other side and wait to see if you can skate all the way to me without using the wall. You think you can do that?" I ask hoping he's gained some confidence. "I think so" he says giving me a nervous chuckle. 

I nod and skate over to the agreed upon area and wave him over to me. He struggles for a moment or two but then my mouth drops seeing him skate towards me like a natural, even turning around and skating backward and makes a circle around me when he catches up.

"Yeonjun! That was amazing!" I say and punch him in the arm which he grabs instantly and rubs it afterwards. "Hey what was that for?" he pouts, acting like I actually hurt him. "That was for lying to me, you are really good at skating. Maybe even better than me, maybe" I say smirking at him a bit before punching him again. 

"Noona!" he whines this time actually feeling a bit of pain, "and that was for yelling at me" I say crossing my arms over my chest. "What else was I supposed to do? You caught me off guard when you punched me" he says still rubbing his "injured" bicep.

"Aww do you want me to blow on it?" I say leaning down to blow some cool air on it before I feel him grab my jaw and bring my face back up to his. "I could think of something else you could blow" he says dropping his voice and octave. Now I'm the one choking on air.

"Yeonjun!" I say scolding him to which he just laughs, watching me try to catch my breath. "Look how the tables have turned, two can play at this game you know" he says with a devious smile, now having flipped a switch. "You've just been playing the role of the quiet nervous boy haven't you?" I say making my way to get out of the rink  to go sit back down.

"Who said I was playing? I really was nervous and I still am, but you're really cool and I like the way you joke around with me so I wanted to fight back a bit. Did I escalate it too much? You just made it too easy" he says brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. 

"N-no that's fine, I don't mind, you just caught me off guard that's all" I say admitting to my shock. "Okay good. Are you tired? I was thinking that we could go and get something to eat and then maybe go to the drive ins?" he says clearly excited at the prospect of continuing the date. "No I'm not tired but I'm definitely hungry! Did you wanna get something from the snack bar or…?" I question trying to see what he had in mind.

"I actually had a place I wanted to take you to, is that okay?" he questions giving me the option. "Sure, you're two for two on the places you've taken me to so I would say that I trust your judgement" I say smiling when I see how happy he is after hearing my praises. 

"Shall we?" he says dramatically putting his arm out to escort me to the car after having returned the skates. I shake my head and smile at him while I grab a hold of him, "You're adorable you know that right?" I say looking back up at him. "Let's see how much longer you'll be calling me that" he mutters more to himself. "What was that?" I say tilting my head catching onto what he might be implying. "Oh nothing don't worry about it" he says and opens my door for me once we're back at my car.

Part 2 coming soon...

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[puckpocketed]

18/01/2024 - SEA @ EDM

Tuna and his soft hands -> Dumo - clipped all the way back in January before I even knew how to make gifs. a bit of a season obit + thoughts about Tuna under the cut.

ooough this is gonna be very off the cuff and unedited so here goes!

this clip is from the oilers match that ended the kraken point streak. it was a strange, tense match. filled with penalties and scrums. this is where we lost Yanni to a charging major and 2 game suspension. as an aside: I don't think about players and their hits the same anymore after this. at the time, I was pretty much on the train of "well, he didn't hurt the guy", but since then I've done a lot of thinking. every player has thrown a questionable hit, or has the potential to - including all of my favourites. on principle: if a bad hit delivered by a random opposing player is wrong, that standard has to apply to my faves too. anyway. everyone was getting sick around this time, and if i remember correctly we lost a bunch of guys to illness during the pens match just days before this one. the vibes were high up until then, and it feels like we never really recovered. I know the season hasn't panned out the way we wanted since, but I still look back on those times so fondly.

a little breakdown of the clip:

there are two people bearing down on Tuna here. Darnell Nurse (#25) gives a pretty half-hearted effort after he realises Tuna isn't going to rim the puck along the boards. Tuna cuts into the middle - I wonder if he's looking for a cross ice pass to Ebs (#7) here? he stops pulls the puck in so so quickly - avoids the sweeping stick check from Evander Kane (#91), and shovels a backhand pass to Dumo from such an awkward angle that I'm baffled as to how he even did it. he opens himself up for a pass on the blue line after, which I'd have liked to see. but oh well!

thoughts on tuna which have been rolling around in my head like those lint balls in the dryer:

i'm always thinking about Tuna and the little things he does. he's one of the most interesting kraken (to ME). i don't like to play favourites but i have to admit that games just don't have the same shine when he's not in </3 I like that he holds on to the puck a little, I like that he's got good hands in tight spaces, I like that he shoots with accuracy over explosive power. I like that he has a tiny bit of grit to him. I like that he's opportunistic - what I noticed most about him was his habit of just... being in the right place at the right time. he'll probably never be one of those guys who can generate chances on his own unless he miraculously makes a late leap in development, but if there's a chance then he'll be there to finish on it.

he's a quiet player in terms of hype around the league. a journeyman, a depth acquisition. hot on the market when his contract is up, but rarely spoken of otherwise. I felt some kinda way when I saw him answer that question about staying with the kraken. he's been shuttled from team to team, seemingly unable to find a home for so long - and I know this is common, I know that's how this league works for the vast majority of players who aren't franchise altering superstars. whatever. it still hit me that he could simply leave, and this team would just be another team where he couldn't put roots down. there's an article from the 2010s naming him a 'core' player of the red wings, did you know? and since then, he's just bounced and bounced around. i know this league is a business, i know teams just need to do what they have to in order to win. I don't care. let him rest. let him find a home. god.

i've said this about my other teams too, but 23-24 kraken will always be special to me. my lovely losers who fought and stumbled and failed. my first wagon. my little cobbled together family of leftovers. this team won't ever be the same again and I'm trying to be okay with that - but to contradict myself... I hope Tuna stays with the kraken. yeah, okay he's just some guy, but to quote that one tumblr post: hes MY just some guy. i am woefully attached, and it's such a long shot but I hope he can be a part of this team growing and blossoming into something strong for the next couple of years. hockey gods if you are listening - I hope he retires a kraken.

failing that, maybe he goes to one of my other beloved teams in need of a solid middle 6 winger. shark girl summer? haha? <3

[quiverwingquack]

🔥common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing🔥

choose violence.

25. common fandom complaint that you’re sick of hearing

THE SCROOGE AND WEBBY TWIST WAS NOT OUT OF NOWHERE! I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH! Welcome to my fucking TED Talk!!!

Look, I’m autistic. This show is my special interest, my comfort media, the thing that’s been there for me through it all. I know most people are not nearly as obsessive about it, and haven’t watched every episode like six times, which I have.

But to brush off a twist that you don’t like, simply because you didn’t see it coming, isn’t right. The foreshadowing was there as early as the pilot, with Webby mirroring the Scrooge statue. It’s in Toth Ra, when Scrooge desperately searches for her and calls out her name, even though Louie also got lost with her. It’s literally the plot of Confidential Casefiles, where Scrooge realizes she’s as bold and adventurous as he is and immediately starts to build a bond with her.

It’s in Last Crash and Treasure of the Found Lamp and Nightmare on Killmotor and the end of Moonvasion. It’s right there in their subplot in Double O Duck, it’s in Webby’s worry for her family in Phantom & the Sorceress and her need for his approval in New Gods. It’s in the Fight for Castle McDuck, where she brings the family back together, and in Foreverglades and Santa Stole Christmas where Webby parent-traps Scrooge into mending his relationships with his exes.

That’s just what I can come up with from reading the episode titles off Wikipedia, and I guarantee you I missed some! It’s so engrained in the show that you find it in almost all their interactions. Webby is so much like Scrooge and wants to make him proud and Scrooge loves her more than anyone else and is always so proud of her even if he struggles to say it.

The reason no one saw it coming is, I think, a mix of the show being cut short and good writing. Webby’s plot definitely could’ve—and should’ve—had more to it, but they were trying to pay off a lot(the resolutions for their entire ensemble cast, the Disney Afternoon references and plots they’d planned, the plot with Bradford that started as early as the pilot). If they’d had more time things would be different! But also, this was an incredible writing crew! Frank Angones worked on Wander Over Yonder before this, and Dana Terrace made Owl House afterward. From what I’ve read in interviews and the art book, they kept the twist to the writer’s room and told David Tennant, to support his performance as Scrooge. And then you get to the end and it’s like “oh yeah, we told Kate Micucci the day she came to record that episode” or something like that. Not even the crew knew what they were foreshadowing! But if you take the time to rewatch it after you’ve found out, it’s literally all over the series.

Anyway, as Frank Angones once said, “I must establish an elaborate series of callbacks and payoffs or else I simply vanish.”

[benjingler]

I hate being autistic why did I get the cannibalism special interest autism instead of the good at math autism

I was listening to Sofia the First music when I wrote a mini-essay on cannibalism what the hell 🥳

Yeah anyways rant time I fucking hate the romanticization of cannibalism in media holy shit ohmygod. If I see one more person say they want to eat someone's flesh for horny reasons I'm going to explode oh my god!!!!!!!!

Wannabe cannibals when real cannibals pull up I kid I kid

Maybe it's just because I'm mentally ill and a gatekeeper I kid I kid but yeah cannibalism in a fucked up mentally ill way is better than cannibalism because "I love you so much I'm gonna eat you" EWWW

No! When you're done they come out as poop! You turned them into poop!

Idk where I'm going with this

Um yeah 😖

Kuru isn't even like, the only concern with eating people... Humans are at the top of the food chain, and thus take in a lot of gross material and chemicals. Your body is a magnet for lead, mercury, arsenic, plastics, etcetera etcetera.

It won't immediately kill you but eat enough and yeah boom dead

Not to mention parasites, which are, quite common. By the way. Tapeworms specifically can live in your gut for YEARS before you know about them. I guess you'd clean them out before eating someone but a lot of cannibal true-crime stories don't... Then again they got caught and usually aren't all there in the head. I'm sure there are some real-world cannibals that prepare things well, past or present.

Also, romanticizing cannibalism also just feels fucking disrespectful. Look at Issei Sagawa. Do you know the amount of fame that richkid cunt got from that whole crime? Crazy. Got away with it because of his dad too.

And when Jack Webber or whatever the fuck his name is did that interview series with Nico Claux, a small but sizable amount of people got interested in him too even though he was like an edgy 20 year old homophobe when he did all that. (Tbh I follow him on Instagram but still!)

Oh and Dahmer I guess. He's probably the biggest guy people think of when they think of cannibalism, if not a disgusting stereotype of brown "barbarians" in cartoons. I fucking hate that incel though

I guess if I say romanticizing cannibalism is bad because it's disrespectful, I should also say romanticizing murder and stuff but I'm a hypocrite and don't really care. I just like being different lolz

Anyways

I'm still listening to Sofia the First music while writing this but admittedly it's just that one song Elena sings it's so good

[hekateinhell]

this is from a while ago but you mention on that poll about armand's love interests you have a few different ways you interpret the blood communion speech armand gives lestat about loving him. i'm curious what your takes are, if you don't mind sharing :) as a daniel/armand shipper, i've always read a lot into the fact daniel isn't name-dropped - as though he's an exception or what they have is something more than just love... though the out of universe explanation is probably just he was forgotten (also apologies if you answered this before and i missed it)

Actually, I know I talk about Lestat and Armand a lot and I've certainly spoken about that scene plenty, but I don't think I've broken down my various interpretations in post form before. I don't mind sharing but remember, you asked! ♥️

I have four basic interpretations, the first of which I use for meta purposes and the others for headcanons/fic as needed.

Interpretation 1: Armand does love Lestat the most. This is the canon read and the one I default to because it's quite literally in the text. I know with VC we tend to selectively 'read between the lines' (I'm guilty as hell), but there's also times where Anne meant exactly what she wrote and I do find it extremely consist with Armand's characterization up to this point.

I'm not saying it's necessarily a healthy love, or even a romantic one though! In my opinion, it's at least in part related to the fact that Lestat's almost always present when Armand's going through some of the most traumatic events in his life (neither of them exhibit anything close to a healthy attachment style). Because these are not two mutually exclusive things, I do tend to read them as having more of an all encompassing, soul-connection type of love. Both can be true.

From 'does anyone else know the size of your soul?' to 'in my wanderings, I always return to you' to 'I have loved you more than any being in all the world whom I’ve ever loved' -- Armand simply does not talk to or about anyone else like this in canon. The depth and intensity of Armand's love for Lestat has been a very persistent thread since TVL through to BC and it seems to be rooted in a genuine passion and appreciation for Lestat's character, flaws and all (because oh boy, can Armand list them all or what?).

I adore them as a ship, but this is not the scene in BC that has me kicking my little legs with glee (honestly, I find it tragic for all involved):

“Fool,” he said again. His voice was roughened now by emotion he couldn’t suppress. “I have always loved you,” he said. “I have loved you more than any being in all the world whom I’ve ever loved. I have loved you more than Louis. I have loved you more even than Marius. And you have never given me your love. I would be your most faithful counselor, if you allowed it. But you don’t. Your eyes pass over me as if I don’t exist. And so they always have.”

“I hate you as much as I have ever loved you,” he said. [...]. I understand the very definition of ‘hate’ when I think of you.” ~ Armand, BC

Like, it's heartbreaking! I don't want this like this! Your ask is related to Armand's POV and I've already posted at length how the text (and Anne) very clearly states that Lestat does, in fact, love Armand very much so I won't get into that further here, but... yeah, yikes. I want better for Armand, I want Louis. 🤧

I'm sad now.

Interpretation 2: Armand does not love Lestat more than Louis, Marius, (or Daniel). This seems to be the more popular read and I totally get why, and I can work with it in theory!

If Armand wanted to shock Lestat back to life and into reacting and doing something about the situation, throwing Louis's and Marius's names around seems like a decent bet. Loving Louis and Marius deeply is something that Lestat can understand, it's something he and Armand have in common; it's yet another thing that bonds them together for better or worse.

Daniel isn't anyone particularly special to Lestat, what would be the point in Armand bringing him up at a time like this? He's a cunning guy, he's choosing his words carefully.

Interpretation 3: Armand's straight up traumatized and broken thinking Marius and Louis are dead and gone, and he's desperately trying to cling to Lestat for dear life because he's the only one he has left (channel Anne and forget about Daniel for a second here). Unfortunately, all their issues that have been festering and compounding since 1791 rear their ugly head and explode rather spectacularly.

What you get is a combination of 'I love you more than anyone; I hate you more than anyone.'

RIP.

Interpretation 4: Armand loves Daniel most of all. And I think I typically tie it into the second one. Yes, Armand loves Daniel more than Lestat, Louis, and Marius. No, he's not going mention him to Lestat for reasons listed above and/or he's not going to downplay his love for Daniel like that. He's a gentleman!

Bonus Interpretation 5: Anne forgot Daniel, plain and simple; I waste years of my life.

All that being said, I don't think Armand walks around with a hierarchy in his head of everyone he loves. He obviously has an abundance of love to give and he loves so fiercely! Pick your read and run with it, I sure do ;)

[17magpiesinatrenchcoat]

TELL US YOUR PK HEADCANONS!!! (if you wanna)

Oh HELL yeah

I’ve already said a bunch of these on ig… but you guys get to have more 😈😈

putting a cut here bc it’s fuckin long lol 💀💀

My fan name for him is Astennu!! Means god of the moon.. and WL’s name is Faraway :D

pan/polygamous: ]

autistic ofc bc I love projecting he's very bad at masking too, he's good at keeping up one specific persona (typical cold ruler mask..) but as soon as someone doesn't act the exact way he expects them to do he doesn't know how to react, and the mask slips, very practiced and good but only in very specific circumstances, another reason why he's so antisocial

he is good at heart and has strong morals, but they're usually overpowered by fear, so he usually just does what's easiest instead of what's right, even though it hurts him more in the long run

he doesn't give a shit about gender, everyone just started calling him a guy and he was like "ok lol"

likes singing and is quite good at it too!! (or. in the case of my au, he was before his voice got messed up)

NO spacial awareness whatsoever, always gets lost in thought, constantly bumping into shit, , he has a bunch of gnarly scars just from that

his godly powers are too much for his mortal-ish body, he regularly gets sick bevause of them, and it was even worse before he used most of them to create hallownest, he was basically permanently in pain lol LOSER

he can't control his glow, so it betrays his emotions a lot (and he can accidentally flashbang people when he feels really strong emotions)

refuses to be vulnerable at all. pushes everyone away, somewhat consciously too, believing himself to be a burden and that they'd be better off without him

drinks literally nothing but coffee {or the hallownest equivalent to it anyway)

very bad memory (projecting again)

he doesn't know how to interact with. people. much less be a parent. he's a terrible parent LOL he tries but he's just not good at it whatsoever

kind of a shitty immune system due to his powers making him sick so often, another reason he's reclusive

ameteur painter (he doesn't understand it much but it makes lurien really happy so)

his special interest is just. inventing intricate technology in general, he completely hyper focuses on it and would spend literal days doing it if it wasn't for wl dragging him out of his workshop LOL

EXTREMELY deadpan and can be very rude without realising it

Stuff always gets stuck in his horns and he usually doesn’t notice until it gets pointed out (which usually take hours bc wl and lurien think it’s funny lol)

Literally does not know how to make connections with people whatsoever every connection he has made has been accidental

dating both lurien and wl obviously 🫶🫶🫶(wl is also dating dryya but I haven’t put much thought into that one yet I should) the gods do not care for monogamy

Hmm.. for his relationships with some of the other characters..

realising that I have not fleshed out his relationship with wl really omg what’s wrong with me I need to fix that ☹️☹️ but uh here’s the other characters for now lol

him and lurien are both deranged autism buddies <33 lurien does not take any form of authority seriously at all, and doesn’t like taking orders (pathological demand avoidance, autistic thing, pretty sure I have it lol) and so.. he never like. acted like pk was a god. he just treated him like a normal person. and pk had no clue how to react to that so he could not keep up his mask around lurien at all.. so eventually they ended up realising they have common interests and ended up becoming friends.. and later.. hmmm?? they are both incredibly awkward and socially inept lol so it took way longer to happen then it should 💀

but yeah they have a very funky dynamic LOL they can talk for hours about their common interests <3 and hmm.. their dynamic is basically this

He never thought that much of herrah other than being vaguely scared of her;; but she fucking hated him LOL she thought he was an inept cowardly moron

but.. the more time she spent as queen, she grew to understand him a lot more as she felt how much that role and pressure could tear someone down

She still doesn’t like him that much, but she understands why he is the way he is now, and tries to be nicer bevause she knows how it feels

He and monomon have a very weird relationship.. they’re kinda friends but also kinda fucking hate each other LOL;; like;; theyre really fucking mean and hostile to each other but it’s not really genuine, it’s more out of habit than anything, and they do care about each other and look out for each other, it’s just sort of the manifestation of them both being emotionally inept assholes who don’t know how to communicate, so they sorta take it out on each other, but neither of them mind, they know neither of them actually mean it

so yeah sorta like;; idk weird ass friendship where they both pretend to hate each other to vent at how shit the world is but they both know neither of them mean it bevause the anger isn’t directed at each other at all, and it’s kinda become a game between them who can come up with the most ridiculous insults LOL

Uhhh I guess that’s it lol!! Yeah I said there was a lot 💀 if you have any questions or more headcanon ideas for me… well you know where to find me 💜💜

[lcvemiyuki]

Hi!!! Could I request a haikyuu matchup? Can I be 🐢 anon if it’s not taken!

I’m a Sagittarius and my mtbi is infp I would say I’m a very quiet and shy person around people I don’t know but if I’m around my friends or people I’m close to I tend to be very talkative, I try to step outside of my comfort zone and talk to a person first. I’m also a little sarcastic and short with people sometimes my friends say that I look unapproachable, but I love getting to know new people and learning about their interests and seeing what we have in common.

Some of my hobbies are playing softball, reading,crocheting/crafting, and listening to music. I really like going to aquariums and museums, I also like discovering new coffee shops and going to them with friends. Being in nature/being outside and taking walks are also things that I enjoy doing an I often am outside in my free time.

My love language (giving) is gift giving love getting people gifts that remind me of them or making people things that I think they would like, and my love language (receiving) is words of affirmation.I don’t have an ideal type but the only things I look for is someone who is vey kind, laughs at my dad jokes, and is willing to listen to me rant.

Thank you!! 😊

𓂃𓂃𓂃𓊝 ࿐𓂃𓂃𓂃

a message in a bottle washes ashore with your name written in bold...

𓇢𓆸 "🐢" anon your match is. . .

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

yuu nishinoya!

𓇼 nishinoya is a ball of energy ima tell you that. this dynamic pairing would surely get you out of your shell!

𓇼 he likes that you love to meet new people and step out of your comfort zone to do so!

𓇼 if you do introduce yourself first, he would be stunned. your effort and boldness to do so leave a lasting impression on him. his face would start to flush as he scratched the back of his head. this would surprise all of his friends as noya isn't one to go quiet

𓇼 his outgoing and “go-getter” mentality makes him a risk-taker; be prepared for him to get every chance to talk to you lolol

𓇼 it won’t be long till you feel at ease with him as he has such an effect on people; the more he gets to know you, the more he unravels a new side of you and he loves it. he’s all for surprises

𓇼 come at him with sarcasm and he would honestly get a kick out of it, you don’t gotta worry about his feelings getting hurt

𓇼 he loves exploring new places and the outdoors. you guys would go on so many outings and not know where it’ll lead you, but as long as he’s with you— nothing matters

𓇼 stumbling upon a new coffee shop or scenic spot spontaneously is the thrilling part of it, laughter and fun fill the air

𓇼 let’s say there’s never a dull moment with him. he brings the adventurous part of the relationship

𓇼 i can just see noya at an aquarium or museum and it’s honestly amusing. he’d probably try to impress you by totally knowing what that fish is over there or who painted that piece

𓇼 “oh yeah that was definitely picasso’s best work” his head lifted high with confidence and a thumbs up in approval for the artwork

𓇼 “that’s just a potted plant on the ground” you say walking past him

𓇼 ….yeah he’s just gonna laugh it off and pretend that definitely never happened😭

𓇼 nishinoya is exceptionally athletic and would keep up with you in a softball match. it’s an activity he would enjoy playing with you!

𓇼 “batter up babe, third times the charm.” he boasts while sporting a tenacious smirk and a “three” with his fingers

𓇼 he would definitely catch it on the third try. don’t question it, just know he eventually would😭

𓇼 i know noya and reading is not really the best combo, but he would show genuine interest in your activities. he loves trying new things (who knows you might just get this guy to read something)

𓇼 he thinks it’s adorable that you give him little gifts. the sentimental value it has behind it would make him feel so special and coming from you—he’s gonna treasure it

𓇼 he isn’t afraid to show how much it means to him too! you gonna make him cry fr

𓇼 he’d show it off to everyone on the street if he’d have to

𓇼 “i don’t see you with a very intricate crocheted piece” he’d brag about it to all his friends

𓇼 he loves showing his affection for you in any way possible. his supportive and encouraging nature makes him excel at communication

𓇼 he would be the type to show he’s thinking of you by sending pictures of random cute things and saying it reminded him of you

𓇼 at random times he would just stare at you and zone out. expect him to compliment you out of nowhere

𓇼 physical touch is also another big one for him. wherever you’re at with being physical he would make sure you’re comfortable with it though

𓇼 he loves to be hand-in-hand with you in public and swing your arm back and forth

𓇼 his playful personality brings laughter everywhere he goes and loves that you love it too

𓇼 tell him a dad joke and he’d laugh his ass off

𓇼 “no!—say it again—for the whole class!” he could barely finish his sentence as he continues to laugh his ass off (the class in question is just his friends who don’t know why he’s laughing THIS much)😭

𓇼 don’t be afraid to depend on him as well. his ears are always open for you and is someone you can rely on whenever. he’d take your side no matter what

𓇼 you being a sagittarius and him being aries means a highly compatible match! they have an electric attraction and intensify with shared values and traits

𓇼𓆉𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟 𓆉𓇼

a/n: i hope you liked it!! there was sm options but i felt like noya suited you perfectly 🐢🐢

[colesupermacyidontmaketherules]

I smile as I watch the news on the Prince of Ordo, sighing softly at a few of the glory shots.

God he’s so hot. I’ve had a crush on him since I was small and it’s evident from the posters on my wall.

I get an idea and quickly move to execute it, humming to myself as I put it all together.

He’s a manly man, and Mandalore is lacking what they’re known for. Maybe he’ll appreciate a little dragon egg. And that would surely set me apart from other admirers, right?

Prince of Ordo,

Please enjoy this small gift of my affections, you looked hot in your recent interview.

Ever pining,

A Jedi that is one year younger than you.

Cole receives the package after a long day of press and takes it, along with the rest of his mail, back to his quarters once he retires for the evening.

He settles in with a soft sigh and starts to sift through the mail, always enjoying to hear from people across the galaxy. It... makes him feel special. Feeds his ego a little bit.

Some of the letters are from children who find him inspiring, others are requests for help from different planets. And, every few letters, he also receives a proposition for marriage or a confession of love.

Your box in particular, though, catches his eye.

Not only is it a box, which. means it must be a gift larger than what can fit in an envelope, but the return address is from none other than the Jedi Temple.

He carefully opens the box and grabs the letter off the top, reading it out loud but quietly to himself.

His eyes widen and he breathes a laugh at the flirtatious note, slowly opening up the box-

And wholly freezing at the sight of the dragon egg sitting peacefully inside of it.

"Holy shit- DAD!" He shouts, grabbing the egg and the note before hurrying into the common space, "DAD!"

"What?" Chernan looks up from his book, concerned. "Are you alright?"

"I- I got a gift from a Jedi," he breathes, grinning as he holds up the egg. "They said I'm- I'm hot and that they wanted me to have this gift."

Chernan slowly gets off the couch and makes his way over, studying the egg in awe, "Oh my gods. It's a dragon egg... a true dragon egg... A Jetii sent you this?!"

"Yeah," he nods quickly, "I think- it was like a secret admirer type thing. This is - I need to go buy things!" He moves to grab his boots and coat, saying goodbye to Chernan as he hurries out the door.

"Well why don't you- anddd he's gone." Chernan chuckles and grabs his comm, working to send everyone he knows a text about a Jedi being interested in his son.

Over the next week or so, Cole spends his free time setting up a room for the dragon, starting with the incubator while it's still an egg.

When the dragon hatches, Cole races around Ordo showing everyone the gift he was given, letting the little thing explore his new habitat before sitting to draft a statement for the public.

It's the only thing he can think to do that may get the message back to his secret Jedi admirer.

To the Jetii it may concern,

Your gracious gift was well received and I admit I have been spending all of my days admiring this little dragon. He has a safe home in my quarters, with an entire room to himself. I have brought in plants, rocks, and other things for him to climb around on. I have also given him baths, fed him milk, and taken excellent care of him.

His name is Zephyrion. Or, as I like to call him, Zephyr. Please feel free to come visit, if you would like to meet us.

With love,

Cole Ordo.

He sends the statement out immediately, ensuring that it comes across all comm devices, datapads, and news outlets.

Unless you live under a rock in that Temple, he'll get that message to you today.