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batsplat · 2 months

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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

youtube

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

youtube

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

youtube

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

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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

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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

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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!!

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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

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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!

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marija cicak world's hottest umpire

#this ask is SO sweet :(( love you too anon. really hope this is useful not overwhelming #typed out the words 'casper ruud' and now I'm gonna be stuck with an earworm for the next month #//#batsplat responds #tennis #i guess??#if people ask me more about tennis i'll create a specific tag for it lol #creative insertion of videos and pictures not just to splice up the text but also to circumvent tumblr's annoying block limits #tumblr's annoying limit on videos uploaded per post means I've had to limit myself just to stuff I could find on youtube I fear #also I ended up trimming a lot of bits out of this and just cut + paste them in my notes #so if YOU want to read more about any of the following:#the differences between the men and women's games in terms of tennis; my 'please watch women's tennis the misogyny it hurts so bad' rant;#my kinda negative takes on recent tennis rivalries which did feel like 'lore' but also got cut for length reasons;#the 'scheduling is a tricky thing for players to manage' paragraph;#my guide for what to watch out for in tennis to start differentiating players from each other;#and the 'wow tennis is brutal. especially in the head' paragraphs that got taken out of the intro....#then do shoot me an ask because that's like. two clicks of a button. it's already written

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what-the-flux · 2 months

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Commander Week Day 2: Profession

(once again, typed much of this up after a work day so I apologize again if it reads rough around the edges)

There was a deafening bang somewhere behind them, followed by the shriek of tearing metal as the entire airship started to list port-side as the massive undead dragon strafed beyond Vireskk's field of vision. He got his armored feet under him as he looked outside at the gunners stationed along the modified bowsprit from his vantage in the covered cockpit. One of the Pact officers posted on the airship with him, warmaster Oort, barreled inside covered in Risen gore. His deep voice was thick with adrenaline as he said, “In the clear, but only just. There’s more of the bastards closing in.” Before he could form a reply one of the ship’s ensigns, a young human of barely over twenty, ran in and stopped short in front of him, “Commander! Warmast—Sirs!” “Get on with it!” Oort growled. Vireskk nodded at the ensign, signaling him to continue. The man, already flushed from the continuous fighting, went scarlet as he said hastily, “Sir! We took a hit in the stern and we’re losing altitude, we got a transport that’s lining up to take the crew away, but the dragon might be back any minute! Visibility is poor and we’re dropping ballast as fast as we can.” The commander’s expression was grimly set as he weathered the news. “That dragon needs to be taken down, otherwise whatever ship we jump to is just going to be another fresh kill. Warmaster,” He leveled a steady gaze at Oort, “Take what supplies and crew you can and get off this ship, now. I will help them with the dragon.” The Vigil officer didn’t budge, ready to argue as he watched Vireskk go to a weapon rack and take a sizeable longbow from it. Oort gave him a look of open incredulity as he said, “You even know how to use that thing?” The commander smiled, a wan expression as he tried to pull a pleasant memory that at this point felt like a distant, faraway thing that happened to someone else in a different time, “I had archery lessons during my aptitude exams, I was a pretty decent shot at least. We shall see how true my aim has remained.” The big asura stared at his distinctly striped face and replied, a snarl in his voice, “Do you really think this is going to do us any good? Better to take it down once stationed on a fresh ship instead.” Vir returned the gaze with a stoic one of his own. He understood the officer’s penchant for rankling at following orders sometimes so he was careful with explaining the objective. “I acknowledge the merit in your words, however you and the rest of the crew are going to need cover fire and for the Risen to be occupied while you evacuate, they might try to capitalize on your vulnerable position otherwise.” The warmaster frowned and shot back, “You need more backup on here in that case. You, those guild members and a handful of gunners providing cover?” Vireskk’s mien became intense. Though Oort was much greater in stature and build, the gravitas of the commander’s whole demeanor and voice seemed to close the gap in physical disparity entirely. “We all knew and accepted the risks the very second of the Pact’s inception. You are to oversee the immediate evacuation of this ship and to rendezvous if our task is successful, or to press on if it isn’t. You have your orders.” Every word of his command rang like a gavel, decisive and brooking no argument. The Vigil warrior went silent and appraised him with an unreadable expression for a few heartbeats before nodding curtly, pushing past the dumbfounded ensign before the latter followed him out so they could proceed with offboarding.

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Wind was howling in Vireskk’s ears as he briefly conferred with the crew that remained outside on the deck of the ship. They were still losing altitude but slower now since the power backups were still operational. The evacuation was not a moment too soon as they saw the hideous forms of multiple dragons dive towards them. The gunners in position once again with the members of Destiny’s Edge keeping an eye on the deck, the commander held up his fist and began chanting a litany that grew in power, cadence and volume, preternaturally loud and strident so that to the crew even the dragons’ roaring seemed muffled. Silvery blue flames wreathed him and all on deck, his promise to them that as long as he stood, so would they. As the on-board magitech cannons powered up he nocked an arrow, sighting down it as he pulled back. The muscle memory from his lessons was still there, but there was still a spark of uncertainty within him and he worried if he really would be of much use with it as the chaos of battle started to surround him. Magic flames came to life once more as he narrowed his focus and slipped into a meditative state, the fire dancing and coruscating around his arms in eldritch patterns until it set the arrow on fire. There! Something clicked in his mind just as a Risen dragon wheeled around in full view of himself and the broadsides.

Onboard the airship nearby that was pulling into a strafing run to assist, Oort and the others saw along with the pulses of cannon fire streaks of fiery arrows collide with and ignite the corrupted, rotting flesh of the dragons that burned pieces away like scraps of parchment thrown onto a bonfire. The monsters shrieked in rage and agony and it wasn’t long until one by one they were routed and torn apart by the collective barrage from both ships.

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Later on back in Fort Trinity after the fall of Zhaitan during all of the spontaneous revelry that had gripped the Pact collectively, the commander found himself with a short-lived breather away from the nexus of it all. Warmaster Oort, also inclined to stick outside the orbit of everything, approached him and greeted him by way of a slap on the shoulder. Vireskk smiled and hid a wince as he held a bandaged arm. The larger asura wasted no preamble and said directly, “I glitched up, doubting you back there at The Humble. I admit I’ve been carrying around misgivings about you and all this in general for some time. I think you’ve proven me wrong on multiple counts now.” Vir looked out into the sizeable group of jubilant Pact soldiers before looking back at the warmaster, “Apology accepted, that’s quite a rare and precious thing coming from you.” He chuckled lightly before adding, “I do not blame you for your misgivings though. I did have to prove myself and show just how willing I was to not simply speak of virtue and sacrifice but to put it into practice. It is individuals like you that help shake me out of habits of wanting to observe and be reactive instead of proactive. So I encourage you to continue to speak openly.” Oort grunted a sound of affirmation, the most response he’d get out of the taciturn officer. The commander gave one of his uncommon playful smiles and added, “That still doesn’t give you free pass to argue with direct orders when we’re in the middle of a combat zone, however.” He turned to Vireskk and smirked lopsidedly, the closest thing he’d come to a proper smile and replied back, “Noted, I’ll work on that. But only if you say you’ll work on your terrible aim.” They both laughed together as they returned to the celebration.

#GW2 #Guild Wars 2 #gw2commanderweek #Asura #writing #my writing #my characters #Vireskk #A couple of DISCLAIMERS here #I took some liberties with how events transpired in the Victory or Death story chapter #wanted to add a little bit more complexity to the airship battle sequence #also I interpreted his ability to use a bow as a Guardian as something of a retcon in regards to weapon proficiencies #I understand that it wasn't A Thing during this part of the story in-game but I decided he's always known how to use one #so there

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ceejaykayess · 1 month

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SMTV:V Vengeance Route Minor Late Game Spoilers (and some minor Creation True Neutral spoilers)

I've been playing SMTV:V for the last month and finally got to put it down yesterday finishing all six routes after initially only wanting to do the True Neutral ending then grab both (or just one depending on how satisfied I felt) Vengeance endings. I liked it enough that I'm honestly kinda sick of it.

But a certain series of conversations in Taito with a certain character pushed me to make a post to push out a message to the sea of souls.

To start, let's bring up the original release of SMTV in 2021. Now, while plenty of people praised the gameplay, the game's story was near universally reviled, or at best ignored. The biggest symptom of this was the lacking, if not outright shitty, characterisation of our cast. The player was, ultimately, left with no real reason to care about any of these chumps on a personal basis outside of maybe Tao and Aogami (and Ichiro, but his shit went wack super hard so it kinda evened out), and could only really care about them in terms of what they think the game wanted from them. Comparatively, the demons in the game got much more of a spotlight, being almost entirely who you got sidequests from, as well as who you interact with the most, not even in a gameplay sense but in a cutscene one too. Bumping into Fionn over the course of the story was cool, and him eventually accepting you as his king was a nice conclusion. Amanozako, annoying she may be, turned out to, at least conceptually, be pretty interesting in her relationship to the protagonist. Plenty of the demons you met had strong personalities that, when combined with their gameplay styles, left a strong impression on the player, and made them more important to (You) as a person than the "main characters".

So, along comes the True Neutral ending of the game, the closest to a "definitive" ending in terms of gameplay experience, with the secret final boss showing off his chops as probably the hardest non-superboss. And in this ending, you... create a world for humanity alone. Which means you... get rid of all of the gods and demons plaguing your world, made more or less certain by absorbing the secret final boss' Knowledge. The gods and demons you've spent upwards of 50 hours running around for, fighting with, fusing, studying, refining, even just watching.

Even your partner, Aogami, who's the only reason you're still alive.

And people were... not exactly hot on it. Generally people thought all the endings weren't great, and none of them actually felt like they fit their supposed alignment, with Neutral and Chaos seeming mixed in their placement and Law being the most tame it's ever been since the franchise's inception, if the wiki didn't lie to me. Made for great angsty fanfiction at least, but... not exactly a lot to go around.

Now, this brings me to the alignment rep for Neutrality, Shohei Yakumo, and his Life, Nuwa. Nuwa herself wasn't too much of a character, as much as she was a couple pretty good lines and an attempted line of communication between you and Yakumo. Yakumo is the real star of the show here, and... what a star he was.

I don't think anybody liked this guy. Hell, I'm not sure anyone likes this guy even after Vengeance's addendums. He shows up, starts shit, accomplished nothing we actually see or that actually matters, then dies. In the Neutral routes, he dies to fucking Ichiro and Abdiel, like fuck off. His plan, with Nuwa, is to destroy the Throne of Creation, which will make it impossible for a new God to remake the world or rule over humanity (in this way at least, allegedly, but no secret final boss so maybe actually). When we attempt it, we get the Neutral ending, generally accepted as the worst ending, and even to me actively read like the bad ending to the story. The protagonist even has the same evil little smile on his face as when he uses Profaned Land.

Of course, when you fulfill certain conditions (read: have certain fusion recipes visibly unlocked in the World of Shadows) Nuwa will stroll up to you at some point and tell you that the original plan was to make a world for humanity alone, but that they didn't go with it for... some reason. That's the True Neutral ending. Out of universe, a boggling decision to make, and in-universe, one that actively tears at out protagonist's heart.

This leads me to the point of the post: In Vengeance route, we are given, implicitly, the reason why Yakumo and Nuwa did not approach the Throne with the idea of using it to make a world just for humans. It is because, in spite of Yakumo being the victims of demons, his parents slaughtered by a man whose will was weak enough to be possessed by them and resenting demons, as a teenager demons were the only friends he really had. Between him and a fellow in Jouin that tells us about his files, we know he often spoke with things nobody else saw and called them his friends, said that he was never really alone. He is described actively as a contradiction. Demons took everything from him. Demons were all he had. He hates demons. He loves demons. He wants to create a world without demons. He can't bring himself to follow through on that ideal and settles for a much shittier compromise: ultimately keeping the status quo and making sure nobody can really change it. Neutral is the bad end; it's the White Ending of SMTV.

But, don't you think all of that sounds a little familiar? Lost things precious to him because of demons, yet in a sense has demons as his closest companions. Wanting to make a world for humanity alone, yet crushed by the weight of erasing those he holds dear. A contradictory person, when you look at him all up.

Hey wait, that's just our protagonist.

That's right, I think they accidentally made Yakumo a strong mirror to the protagonist, as reflected metatextually by the True Neutral route. It is in this way, then, that I find it striking that the Vengeance route, the one praised for making the characters actual characters, and where you can actually say the MC became friends with his classmates and alignment reps, is the route where you can't choose to abandon demons. (Saying that, I have seen some people compare Vengeance Law to True Neutral in removing all demons, I'm not sure about that actually but I dunno) Instead, it's in the Creation route, where you don't make particularly deep bonds at all with your fellow humans, where demons are those most important, most interesting to you, that you can choose to destroy them.

And all of that made me think of Yakumo as incredibly interesting, actually. Nuwa said, in the diverging cutscene between Neutral and True Neutral, that maybe we could do what they (Nuwa and Yakumo) couldn't. In 2021, that would be read as finishing the fight they lost. But now, it reads like this: "You and Yakumo are incredibly similar people. But Yakumo can't pull the trigger on his ideals. I know you can, though. You won't betray yourself." Which is wild to say to a 17 year old God who probably has a history of flip-flopping on who he thinks is right at any given moment, but hey.

#smt v vengeance #smt #smt v protag #spoilers #shohei yakumo #true neutral #Not me fucking up and getting the Neutral ending instead of True Neutral because I accidentally didn't have Fionn unlocked #Did you know to have a demon counted as unlocked you have to do the prereqs to unlock them and have one demon needed to fuse them registere #Now you do #I think Aogami #that is Susano'o #is a perfect demon to represent a protagonist of an SMT game #Because that mf is actively contradictory in his own myths #and by the Lord can an SMT protagonist be contradictory #Even Atlus agrees with me #This is the second time a protagonist has been Susano'o

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mystic-blue · 2 years

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a quick little brainrot dump for @ashwii 's celestial au because i'm obsessed <3 also might have made it a hint angsty bc i'm incapable of anything else...fair warning i haven't written in a HOT minute because grad school has consumed my life so sorry if this makes no sense : D

Leo watched from a distance as Mikey chased Raph, both of them grinning brightly and bounding with endless energy. Mikey's laughter echoed through the space between nearby planets, bright and ringing. Donnie sat perched on Earth's moon, calling out the occasional encouragement, but it was unclear who he was rooting for.

Sometimes Leo wondered why they all chose to stay here. There were galaxies upon galaxies to explore, endless maps of stars and open space, planets and asteroid belts all begging to be traversed. Their sense of self and domain had expanded greatly since their inception over a trillion years ago, after all. Leo twirled a constellation between his fingertips and thought about the stars he could sense at the edge of the universe, creations he had never seen himself.

He was about to move closer, to join Donnie, when a sharp pain flared to life in his abdomen. Leo winced as a distant star caved in on itself, Leo attempting to block out the pain and the distant agony. He tried to describe it to his brothers once when they were younger, but they had only ended up distressed and terrified. A dying star was an excruciating experience, a piece of Leo burning away with a ferocious intensity, consuming anything within reach. When he was younger, the pain was an unbearable constant. Now, it was an old wound, a familiar sprain that never healed. Stars perished all the time, a chronic ache in Leo's celestial bones that he had learned to bear with time.

(Sometimes he looked at Raph and wondered how long they had.)

Leo's instinct was to flee toward the dying star, some fruitless attempt at getting there in time to make sure they weren't alone at the end. Realistically, Leo knew it would make no difference. The few times he had tried to do that when he was younger had not ended well. Either he never made it far because of the overwhelming pain, or he got burned by the proximity.

He longed to visit every star in the sky, to let them know that he was there, that he cared about them, knew them. But he and his brothers lingered here, instead.

Sometimes Leo wondered why they all chose to stay here. Leo thought again about the stars he could sense at the edge of the universe. They were newer, brighter, and endlessly chaotic in their naivety.

He yearned to witness them.

If he were being honest, Leo and Mikey were free to roam, unrestrained in the breadth of their domain. Mikey was like Leo in a way, wincing every time a meteor burned away from existence, going quiet and distant for a while. Leo understood the pain of it more than Raph and Donnie ever could.

Donnie's domain was not nearly as extensive as Leo's and Mikey's, contained to the moons within this galaxy. Even still, he had room to move, to explore. Sometimes he said he could sense moons outside of this galaxy, a gleam of insatiable curiosity lighting up his eyes. It looked a lot like the way Leo felt when he expanded his awareness to all the places his constellations reached.

Leo tipped his fingers forward, palm up, and watched a shower of stars tumble off the ends of his fingertips. Mikey crowed with victory and Leo looked up to find him perched on Raph's shoulders. He was already melting a bit against the flames on Raph's back, but Mikey wasn't in danger yet. Leo caught sight of Raph's indulgent yet fond grin and it all made sense.

They had the entire universe to explore, sure. But Raph was here. The endless expanse of the unexplored universe and all her secrets and adventures meant nothing if Raph wasn't there with them. It was cold out there between suns anyway.

The burning ache of the dying star went dull in Leo's gut almost simultaneously with the heady thrill of a new one being born at his collarbone. Leo grinned, his smile full of starlight and eyes composed of the cosmos.

He joined his brothers, dragging Donnie into the chaos, in time for Raph to remove Mikey from his shoulders and begin their game of chase anew. He wouldn't trade this for the universe.

#rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise of the tmnt #leo hamato #writing #my writing #raph hamato #donnie hamato #mikey hamato #idk what else to tag here bros #anyway you can pry the star!leo has chronic pain headcanon from my cold dead hands #rottmnt celestial au

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emotionalcadaver · 11 months

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Part 19: In the Bleak Midwinter

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Grace Burgess x OC

Summary: Tommy and Lucy must resist temptation after he is finally permitted to return home.

Word Count: 4,882

Notes: This was supposed to be a smutty chapter, but then they decided to be all fluffy and cute together and who am I to stop them? Warnings for depictions of sexual content.

Previous Chapter • Series • Fic • Next Chapter

Chapter 16: Fleeting Peace

The hospital finally allowed Tommy to return home just in the knick of time. Had they been instructed to stay any longer, Lucy was pretty sure both of them would have lost their minds from boredom.

Not to mention that the hospital room reminded her too much of what it felt like to be underground: dark and cold and smelling of damp earth.

Tommy was still instructed to rest, and a doctor would be by the house every couple of days to check on him for a while, but they could go home. Actually sleep in a real bed, play with Charlie, and eat more than just hospital mush. Lucy could have cried in relief.

Of course getting out of there was a headache on its own. The discharging process, with all its papers and instructions from the nurses and doctors, took nearly the entire afternoon, and then they had to make the grueling drive from London to Arrow House. Tommy still wasn’t cleared to drive, so she called one of their drivers, and as much as she liked the old man who picked them up, he drove very slowly. It was almost dark by the time they got to the house.

She barely passed the threshold of the front door, when a high, ecstatic squeal drew both her and Tommy’s attention.

The nanny was waiting nearby with Mary, Charlie squirming in her arms, his chubby hands reaching towards them.

“Dada!” he cried out in his little voice, and Tommy crossed in a handful of hasty steps to take him from the nanny with a grin.

“Hello, my boy. How are you, eh? Did you miss us?” he asked.

Lucy smiled, watching them adoringly while she shed her coat for Mary to take. There had been a moment, very briefly while she was sitting at Tommy’s bedside while he was sleeping, stuck with only her own thoughts, that she started to worry they’d been gone for too long and Charlie would forget them.

A ridiculous thought, in hindsight, but one that still plagued her after its inception nonetheless.

“Lulu!” Charlie caught sight of her from over Tommy’s shoulder, babbling and pointing excitedly at her. Finishing shrugging out of her coat, Lucy went to them, letting Charlie curl all five of his little digits around one of her fingers while she kissed his forehead.

“Hey, little man,” she smiled.

“Dada,” Charlie said again, patting Tommy’s cheeks with both hands. Tommy smiled at his son softly. Lucy wrapped her arms around his waist, giggling and cooing at the baby.

“We missed you,” Tommy told his son, adjusting him in his arms.

“Bah!” Charlie just babbled in response, reaching for Lucy’s hair. She laughed, pulling her head back to avoid getting her curls captured and tugged.

“Come here, you,” she chuckled, taking Charlie from Tommy so he could get out of his own coat. Rubbing her nose against Charlie’s to make him laugh, she started to carry him towards the closest sitting room, Tommy right behind her.

They were both in dire need of a bath to wash off the feeling of the hospital from their skin. And the idea of a real, substantial dinner was quite enticing.

But first they had a baby that they’d both missed deeply in need of their attention.

∗ ∗ ∗

She placed Charlie gingerly into his crib, smiling as he curled up, snuggling against his toy horse.

“Sleep well, sweetheart,” Lucy whispered, adjusting the corner of his blanket before tip-toeing out of the room.

She and Tommy spent most of the evening just playing and doting upon the baby, both taking brief turns to bathe before the three of them ate dinner together. It didn’t take long for Charlie to fall asleep thereafter; out like a light against Tommy’s chest, clearly exhausted from all the excitement.

It was safe to say that they both shared the sentiment.

Asher was hovering in the hallway, just outside the door when she stepped from the nursery. His fluffy tail wagged from side to side when Lucy reached down to pet his huge head. The dog had been more than excited to see them; barking and bounding around their legs, licking at their palms when they extended them out to pet his soft black fur.

According to Mary, in their absence the huge black dog had taken to sleeping outside the door to Charlie’s room, as if he knew that without Lucy and Tommy in the house, he needed to step up to guard the little boy from anyone who might want to do him harm.

With Hughes still alive and well, it wasn’t an unfounded fear.

“You’ve been a good boy, haven’t you?” she cooed, giving the dog a kiss between his eyes. “Kept the household all safe and in order while we were gone, hm?”

Asher’s tail wagging increased in speed at the praise, tongue lolling out of his mouth. His paws made barely a sound against the lavish rugs as he padded dutifully beside her on the short trip to her and Tommy’s bedroom.

Tommy was already laying in bed when she entered the room, sprawled out on his back with the blankets pulled halfway up his bare chest, eyes staring at the ceiling. Much as he may have tried to deny it, he still wasn’t fully recovered, and it had been a long day. She couldn’t begin to imagine how tired he probably was.

Closing the door, Lucy ambled about the room, coaxing Asher to lay down in his dog bed in the corner before stripping out of her clothes and into one of her nightgowns. She could feel Tommy’s gaze burning into her skin as he followed her movements, and when she turned to the bed it was to find him watching her lazily, blinking slowly while his tongue darted out briefly to wet his lips.

Flicking off the light, she climbed in next to him, Tommy lifting the blankets so she could slide underneath, immediately pressing herself into his side, head resting on his chest while his arm dropped to circle around her.

Mm. He was warm. She’d missed the feeling of laying against him.

His fingertips traced along her shoulder, uncovered save for the thin strap of her nightgown. Despite the heat of him, goosebumps erupted over her skin at his touch. When his hand began to smooth its way down her back, she tilted her head up to look at him, his pale blue eyes practically glimmering in the otherwise dark of the room.

“It’s good to be back home,” he rumbled, hand still sliding down her side, skimming over her breast. “Don’t you think?”

Her lips parted. He was so warm. And pressing against him like this meant she could feel very distinctly how he was only wearing a pair of cotton briefs. When he shifted, so that they were both laying on their sides with their fronts flush against each other’s, she could feel the firm bulge of his clothed cock dig into her hip.

“Yes,” she agreed, and he kissed her, slow and deep but not without a twinge of desperation. Already she could feel the mounting need building as an ache between her thighs.

Tommy’s hand started to creep along her thigh, pushing her nightgown up with it, fingers seeking out the prize between her legs. Lucy’s head spun, trying to right itself despite how hungrily he was kissing her, tongue stroking over hers when she opened her mouth greedily to him.

“Mm, no,” she somehow managed to get out, gently nudging his hand away despite the way her body all but screamed at her in protest. “Doctor hasn’t cleared you for sex yet, love.”

“Just for you, then?” he moved his mouth to kiss her neck, not at all helping to keep her thoughts in order, though his hand moved from her thigh to close around her hip.

The temptation to say yes was near irresistible. This was easily the longest they had ever gone without fucking, the ache to have him just simply touch her–let alone be inside her–was almost painful. And not at all helped by the flex of his muscles around her, how he smelled particularly good from his bath, or the firm brush of his lips on the sensitive skin of her neck.

“Tommy…” whatever she was going to say died on her tongue when he grazed his teeth against her throat, thumb still drawing steady circles around her hip.

“Hm?” he hummed in a teasing, silent question against her, waiting for her to give him the go ahead to slide his fingers or his tongue in between her legs and finally relieve the painful desire in her core.

But she could also still feel his erection pressing against her stomach, her walls clenching around nothing at just the thought of having him in her again.

“Mm,” she turned her head to capture his mouth in a kiss. “We both know we won’t be able to stop,” self restraint when it came to sex was never their strong suit.

And while he would probably be fine, she’d never be able to forgive herself if his recovery was at all impeded. Not to mention she would positively die of embarrassment if she wound up having to take him back to the hospital all because they couldn’t wait for the official all clear before they fucked.

Tommy chuckled, kissing her again before removing his hand from her hip to instead wrap his arm around her, drawing her deeper into his chest. “You’re probably right,” he kissed her forehead before pillowing his cheek against her hair. Lucy sighed blissfully, snuggling closer.

His heart thumped comfortingly against her cheek, and she swallowed hard. She’d been making an effort not to think too much about just how close she’d come to actually losing him. As if sensing her sudden spike of sullenness, Tommy rubbed his palm across her shoulders, spreading his warmth along her skin.

Head craning up to look at him without leaving her newfound pillow, she stroked her index finger along his cheek, taking note of the bags under his eyes.

“Besides, you look tired,” she added.

“I’m never too tired to fuck you.”

She laughed, kissing his collarbone. “I know, love.”

Rolling onto his back and taking her with him, Tommy situated them so she was still laying on his chest, both his arms around her with his eyes closed, head thrown back against the pillows.

“How long do you think it will be?” he asked.

“Hm?”

“Until the doctor gives me the all clear.”

“I don’t know. Not too long, I would think.”

Even in the dark, she could see him smirking. “You really think we’ll be able to hold out?”

She bit back a smile. “Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“Depends on if you’re still going to insist on parading around in nothing but your underwear while we’re cooped up here.”

“Oi! Those patients' uniforms they wanted to stuff me in were ridiculous. And itchy.”

“Oh, that was the reason for excessive nudity, was it?” she grinned up at him teasingly. His eyes narrowed at her playfully.

“Yes.”

“Mhm. You’re sure it didn’t have to do with anything else? Like, say, you being a massive fucking tease?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, love,” those big blue eyes blinked down at her innocently.

“Uh huh,” snorting, she stretched up, pressing her mouth to his, truly intending nothing more but an affectionate brush of their lips against one another. But his lips were soft, the faded taste of whiskey and cigarettes still clinging to them, and the way he smiled against her even as he moved to deepen the kiss made her never want to part from him ever.

She blamed him entirely for being just too fucking desirable for his own good.

His head angled slightly, kissing her more urgently, hands rubbing her waist, and when he licked into her mouth she whined. He groaned in answer, and of their own accord her legs slipped around to straddle his lap, nightgown bunching around her hips where his hands were still planted. A growl rumbled in Tommy’s chest, vibrating against where she’d flattened both of her palms, and she was suddenly deeply aware of just how dangerous of a position they were in: her coaxed into his lap with the tent in his boxers rubbing right up against her core.

“Mm…Lucy,” Tommy moaned in warning, somehow managing to wrench his mouth free from hers, chest heaving as they stared at each other, faces still so close she could feel his warm breaths fanning across her cheeks. For a moment, all she could think was how utterly ridiculous it was to even consider that he couldn’t handle sex when he was perfectly capable of kissing her like that.

Tommy’s hands raised from her waist to cup either side of her face, his forehead leaning into hers, smiling and chuckling softly to himself. He pecked her quickly and sweetly on the lips before letting her go, so that she could rather dramatically whine and bury her face into his neck, the scent of his aftershave alone enough to make her weak.

“I want you so bad,” she mumbled. Even without looking at him, she could tell Tommy had raised an eyebrow, expression amused despite the desire beneath it.

“You said–”

“I know, I know,” she pouted, deciding that maybe laying on him wasn’t the best idea if they wanted to avoid further temptation, instead moving to settle on her side next to him. He turned over to face her, arm still around her, and she tucked her head back into position on his chest, huffing. Tommy rubbed her back comfortingly. “This is going to be really fucking hard.”

“You’re telling me.”

She sputtered, catching a surprised cackle when it was already halfway out of her throat. “That wasn’t–that wasn’t funny,” she half wheezed, and when she looked back up at him, Tommy was smiling down at her, looking rather proud of himself for making her laugh like that. His grin, pulling widely across his face until dimples appeared in his cheeks, softened as he continued to stare at her, the arm around her drawing her up closer until he could kiss her. It started off sweet and innocent, but when his mouth parted slightly against hers, that innocence quickly started to give way to something more heated. With a giggle, Lucy pulled back, eyebrow raised.

“I will go sleep in another room if you don’t behave yourself,” she threatened. Tommy snickered, forehead nudging hers.

“No, you won’t.”

She bit her lip, trying–and failing–to hide her smile. “No, I won’t,” she agreed. Tommy’s arms flexed around her as he hugged her tighter to him. “‘S too comfy and warm here,” she snuggled back against him, cheek nestling between his pecs while her eyes slid closed.

“You know, sometimes I think you just keep me around as a second space heater.”

“Not just that,” she protested. “You make a good pillow too.”

“Ah, is that all I’m good for, eh? Warmth and a place to rest your head?”

“Hm…” she opened her eyes, cocking her head in mock contemplation. “Yes,” she said definitively, immediately dissolving into giggles at the sound of indignation he made, shrieking when he suddenly rolled them so her back was pressing into the mattress with him looming over her. His hands flattened on either side of her head, dark fringe falling forward to tickle her skin. It was getting a little long; he’d need a haircut soon.

He kissed her hard, to her amusement very obviously keeping his hips raised away from hers as he did. Like he knew just as well as she did that if he started rubbing against her it would only further test their self control. When he pulled back, she was met with a playful expression, though there was a glimmer in his eyes that made her thighs clench together, lips pulling up into a wide smile.

“Oh, you are in trouble the second I’m told we’ve got the all clear,” he growled.

“I think that was a given, love.”

He dropped his face to run his nose along the column of her throat, nuzzling. “I’m not gonna let you leave this bed for a week…” he growled into her skin. Lucy felt her insides flutter.

“You can’t…you can’t say things like that right now…”

He chuckled, pecking her neck one last time in apology before rolling them back into their previous position on their sides. “Sorry,” he said, though the expression on his face said that he was anything but.

They both settled deeper into the mattress, snuggling closer together. The heaviness of sleep was starting to pull at Lucy’s eyes. He must have noticed the way she was struggling more and more to keep her eyes open, because he kissed her temple, squeezing his arms around her. “Go to sleep, love.”

“Mm…” she could do little more than hum contentedly. He felt so warm and strong around her. It made her heart seize; to think of just how close she’d gotten to losing him. “Missed this,” she mumbled, stroking his chest.

“Me too,” Tommy breathed out, voice a soft rumble in their quiet, peaceful cocoon of darkness.

∗ ∗ ∗

She awoke to the press of lips against her neck, kissing delicately. All around her there was nothing but warmth, Tommy’s arms still tight around her and their legs entangled.

“Mm,” shifting without opening her eyes, she coiled her arms around his waist, hugging him closer to her. Tommy purred, kisses growing more fervent, peppering all along her jaw and throat, thumb rubbing small circles into her back.

“Lucy,” he said. His voice was an octave lower from sleep, the sound of it just about enough to turn her into putty in his hands. “Lucy, wake up.”

She couldn’t help the tiny moan that left her mouth. Certainly not when he very purposefully sucked on the spot on her neck that he knew caused her to see stars. And suddenly she was very aware of his morning wood where it was pressing insistently against her thigh. The arm around her tightened, squeezing her flush against him, and without even thinking she hooked one of her thighs over his hip. Tommy growled deeply, hips pushing his erection more firmly against her.

Eyes opening, she blinked at him lazily. Upon seeing that she was finally awake, Tommy smiled, kissing her nose before angling his head to slant his mouth to hers.

“Mm. Good morning to you, too,” she giggled against his lips, feeling as he laughed softly into her mouth.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he murmured. Lucy shivered in his arms, only causing him to draw her in closer to him. Who the hell gave him the right to be so charming? Especially so early in the morning.

He kissed her softly again on the mouth, head then turning to return to kissing her neck, hips shifting suggestively against her.

Lucy gasped, hand flying up to grip tightly at his shoulder. Tommy pulled back, smirking and brushing his nose against her cheek affectionately, and all she had to do was tilt her face up ever so slightly to give him a gentle peck on the lips.

Well…it was intended to be a gentle peck. But then his mouth opened to hers almost instantaneously, tongue sliding eagerly into her mouth, and then they were kissing feverishly, Lucy’s arms winding around his neck, pulling him closer to her. Tommy’s hands ran up and down her body, the heat of them seeping into her skin through the thin material of her nightgown. With a moan, Lucy tightened her leg around him, and then they were grinding and rubbing against each other, his white boxers the only thing preventing his swollen cock from sinking inside her.

Their mouths parted, foreheads pressed together, breathing heavy and haggard while they clung to each other, hips still rolling against one another, shamelessly dry humping.

Her eyes met his, the soft blue almost wholly consumed by the darkness of dilated pupils, his face so close she could easily have counted the freckles marking his cheeks.

And her mind finally caught up with the rest of her.

“Tommy, stop,” she dug her fingers into his shoulders, body stiffening as her hips ceased their movements. He seemed to awaken from his lust-filled daze, freezing mid-roll of his hips and blinking like he’d just realized what they were doing.

“Shit,” he pulled back from her, but only slightly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean–”

“It’s okay,” she nuzzled against his cheek to let him know that she meant it. It certainly didn’t hurt her ego, to know that even after so many years spent together he still wanted her so badly. “I forgot too.”

He sighed, face coming to rest on her shoulder, thumbs circling against her back soothingly. She pecked his hair, still holding him even as she removed her leg from around his hip and inched her pelvis away from his.

“How did you sleep?” she asked, smoothing her hand down the back of his neck.

“Good. Better than in a long time.”

“Me too,” she hummed. Tommy turned his face to press a few kisses into her neck, his thick thumbs rubbing up and down just above her hip bones. Smiling, Lucy tangled her fingers lightly in his hair, gently pulling his head away from her throat to look at him with stern, playfully narrowed eyes.

“I will strap a fucking chastity belt to you if I have to, Shelby,” she threatened.

“Me!? You’re the one who just about pounced on me!” he protested, even as his eyes shimmered with mirth.

“You woke me up by sucking on my neck!”

He grinned, not an ounce of regret on his face. Slumping back against the pillows, he closed his eyes with a soft exhale. Sitting up a little, Lucy traced her fingertip up and down his warm chest.

“You’re feeling alright?” she asked.

“Mm. Yeah. A few twinges here and there.”

“You want a dose of the morphine?”

“No,” he shook his head, drawing her back down to lay on his chest. “It’s not that bad. Besides, I need to start getting myself off of it.”

She thought back to the faraway look in his eyes when he’d just taken a heavy dosage. The medicine was helpful in managing the pain, but it certainly wasn’t something that would be good for him to be on all the time. He needed to have his head clear. “Yeah. Probably a good idea.”

He hummed, fingers running up and down her back, making her shiver and instinctually snuggle closer.

“We should get up. Check on Charlie and have some breakfast.”

“Mhm…” when she looked up, Tommy had closed his eyes, body sinking deeper into the mattress, and he looked so relaxed that she couldn’t bring herself to nudge him back to full wakefulness.

Letting her own eyes fall closed, she allowed herself to also slide into a gentle doze. They’d more than earned a chance to sleep in, after all. And it wasn’t like they had anything they needed to do. She’d made sure to let all the other Shelbys know to leave them alone for a little while longer.

Besides, he was warm and she was very comfortable.

∗ ∗ ∗

By the time they did manage to drag themselves out of bed and downstairs, it was absurdly late. At least by their standards. The nanny had already tended to Charlie, who was playing with her in the nursery when they came in to check up on him, and breakfast was already laid out at the table, kept under gleaming silver domes to keep warm until they arrived. Lucy eyed Tommy knowingly when he glanced over the spread of food, then rather predictably reached into his pocket, procuring his cigarettes and lighter.

“You should eat,” she tried to coax, plucking a pastry from a plate. Tommy made a face at the suggestion and she huffed out a sound half out of amusement and half exasperation. “Come on. There are eggs,” she nudged the aforementioned plater towards him after spooning a helping onto her plate. “You need real food. Not just nicotine and whiskey.”

“Whiskey is real food,” Tommy grumbled, but spooned a small helping of eggs onto his plate. Probably mainly just to humor her. How that man ate like a bird but managed to maintain his stockily muscled physique, she would never know. He stabbed at the eggs grumply, giving her a pointed look as he brought them to his mouth. Lucy smiled at him gratefully.

“Thank you,” she said genuinely, and he softened. Much as he may have an aversion for taking care of himself, she knew that he also didn’t want her to worry about him.

They ate in relative comfortable silence, cutlery clinking delicately against their plates. Lucy caught him staring at her while she licked traces of strawberry jam left over from her pastry off of her fingers. His throat worked when he swallowed, looking away quickly after he noticed she’d caught him watching her, his eyes hungry for more than food.

“I thought by now you would be throwing a fit over still not being allowed to return to work,” she said, trying to steer their minds elsewhere before she got too focused on how his shirt stretched across his biceps, or how his tongue darted out to wet his lips before speaking.

“Mm. Give it a day or two,” he set down his fork. “No fucking or working and I’ll go mad within a fortnight.”

She smiled, dropping a sugar cube into her teacup. “We’ll find things to do.”

At the suggestive raise of one eyebrow, she poked him under the table in the leg with the toe of her shoe.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do,” the way he half purred it was entirely unfair, considering she was still trying to convince her hormones to behave. Busying herself with stirring the sugar into her tea, she frowned, spoon tapping against the rim to displace any lingering droplets before bringing the cup to her lips.

“...You don’t really think it’ll be a fortnight before they clear you for sex again, do you?” she asked after lowering the teacup. Tommy laughed, leaning back in his chair, cigarette clutched between his fingers and smoke flowing seductively from his lips.

Unfair, was what it was. He was too handsome for his own good.

“Ah, so that’s what you’re worried about, eh?”

“Says that man who was just pawing at me less than an hour ago.”

“I think you mean ‘lovingly and seductively caressing,’ love,” he grinned at her, leaning forward in his chair to tap the ash from his cigarette into the ashtray. “No, I don’t think it’ll be that long,” he answered in a softer voice, those blue eyes blinking slow and lazy at her in a way that made her gulp. “The pain’s not so bad without the morphine,” he settled back in the chair. Beneath the table, she felt his foot graze down her calf. “And I’m feeling more than back in fighting shape,” the rumble of his voice dropped an octave, winking at her. Her thighs pressed together of their own accord, brow raising in an attempt to hide just how strong of an effect he was having on her.

“I’ve noticed,” she intended to say it dryly, but it came out more breathy and wanton. Tommy leaned forward, the hand not holding his cigarette stroking along her cheek with warm fingers. Lucy closed her eyes, letting her head lean more heavily into his palm. “We should go spend some time with Charlie,” Before we pounce on each other again, she added silently.

“Yes,” stubbing out his cigarette, he stood, reaching for her hand before she was even fully out of her seat. Lucy glanced up at him softly, squeezing his fingers as she let him lead her from the room.

“Then maybe we could go see the horses,” she added. He wasn’t cleared yet for riding, but they could at least visit and check in on them. “And after that we go for a walk…” the fresh air would do him good. Would do both of them good, actually. They’d been cooped up inside that hospital room for far too long.

Tommy shot her a look so tender it made her heart clench. “I’d like that.”

Unable to resist, she pulled them to a stop, stretching up onto her toes to kiss him. Their foreheads remained pressed together even after they parted.

“I, um…” she stuttered, suddenly very serious. Trying to figure out a more graceful way to verbalize what she was feeling than, I’m glad you didn’t fucking die. Drawing in a shaky breath, she lifted her eyes to meet his. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

His entire face softened, arms wrapping around her waist. He kissed her again, tenderly, forehead still pushing against hers even after they parted. “You won’t ever have to find out,” he promised, the back of his head, brushing along her cheek. “I’m not going anywhere.”

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#tommy shelby #tommy shelby x oc #peaky blinders #my ocs #my fanfiction #lucy winters #lucy winters x tommy shelby #in the bleak midwinter

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mikefaistinfo · 4 months

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After ‘Challengers,’ Cannes and the Chopard Trophy, Mike Faist Is Taking a Break

by: RHONDA RICHFORD 23 MAIO 2024

CANNES — It’s been a busy spring for Mike Faist. First came love, lust and tennis drama “Challengers,” costarring Zendaya and all the resulting hoopla from the film’s sexy scenes, followed by the Trophée Chopard and the Cannes red carpet.

Now the 32-year-old actor is taking a break.

“I need to take time, some time, any time,” he says, coming down from the media frenzy.

Stepping into “Challengers” with Zendaya and Josh O’Connor put him not only in the center of an on-screen love triangle but also of the media frenzy surrounding the film.

“I wasn’t prepared,” he says. “It was something that was really daunting, and it terrified me at first, and then it was about letting that go and just kind of showing up utilizing it.

“I kind of had to face the music at some point and say, ‘All right, how do I engage with all of this attention? And how do I utilize it so I can get to the thing that actually matters most to me, which is the work itself?’ But it was daunting, terrifying, scary, because I’m not hiding behind the character at that point.”

He bonded with fellow Trophèe Chopard winner Sophie Wilde on their fear of public speaking. “We’re terrified because we had to actually speak. We all have impostor syndrome is the reality of the situation. You kind of just start to question the validity of any of this. Like, ‘Why me?’ and it’s overwhelming.”

Faist recognizes the Trophée Chopard has gone to some stellar names: Gael Garcia Bernal, James McAvoy, John Boyega, Kingsley Ben-Adir, to name a few since its inception in 2001.

“The truth of the matter is, I feel very honored. And at the same time, it’s always an uncomfortable thing, walking a red carpet, having your picture taken,” he says. “It’s an honor to be here, and at the same time I can’t help but be like, ‘Oh my god, I just want to hide.’

“I think most actors are probably very shy — if you’re a good one. Putting yourself out there in that way is terrifying, and we all try to hide behind characters. That’s how we’re able to be our most vulnerable, is by clowning. By being able to put on a character, put on a performance, put on a different person’s skin, that’s how we’re able to express ourselves in our truest sense.

“It’s a mind trick,” he continues. “So getting on a red carpet, you’re actually not hiding behind a character. You’re just you, and that’s an awful feeling.”

Walking the Cannes red carpet, he also attended the screening of Francis Ford Coppola’s personal magnum opus “Megalopolis.”

“Francis Ford Coppola, Steven [Spielberg], Martin Scorsese — all those guys growing up in the ’70s directing and the actors that they used are major, major influences for me,” Faist says.

Notice that he’s on a first name basis with one on that list, specifically Spielberg, who he worked with in “West Side Story.”

Not just a first name basis, even a nickname. “I call him ‘kid,’ because when you’re on set with him, he’s just a child, he’s so youthful and has so much energy, and he genuinely loves this. And that energy is so infectious,” he says. That energy and enthusiasm has remained with Faist to this day. “He’s one of those examples that I’m like, ‘What would Steven do?’ in any situation.”

Those old school acting performances still resonate. He recently used James Dean in “Giant” to get into character for last year’s West End stage production of “Brokeback Mountain.”

“I felt very lost, and I wasn’t sure whether or not I was really able to do the play. I didn’t feel like I had a way in. Then I watched that movie, I watched his performance, and said, ‘OK, I think I have a way.’”

He reels them off: Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.

“They’re extremely informative in terms of feeding my own work and using it and taking it and scrambling it up a little bit and projecting it out there,” Faist says.

“Those are giants,” he adds. “I think it’s really easy to get swept up in a desire to be famous, but the reality is that none of those guys got into it for that reason; they got into it for the love of the craft and the work. If that remains your true north, that’s my goal.”

With the success of “Challengers,” there are projects brewing, scripts being read and roles being offered. But while Faist is riding the big media wave, he is cautious enough not to take what is being thrown his way.

“You can’t just say yes to everything,” he says. “I have to decide whether or not I’ve actually something to contribute.”

It’s a screenplay he has been working on since before “West Side Story,” but with that movie and all the ensuing work, the screenplay has been on the backburner. Still brewing, still stirring, and still adding little bits here and there. “It’s something I haven’t been able to let go of, which indicated that I need to see it through to its completion.”

Link: https://wwd.com/eye/people/challengers-cannes-chopard-mike-faist-1236397497/

#mike faist #cannes2024 #interview

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starseneyes · 5 months

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Two Seconds of a Cartoon Dog Made Me Cry

Spoilers Ahead for Bluey: The Sign.

Yes, that’s right. I have a very personal thing to say about a bloody cartoon dog that had me crying on the couch and my Eldest clutching my arm while I silently wept.

Did I mention there are spoilers for Bluey: The Sign? Okay, let’s cry together.

The entire episode was pretty special, of course. Matthew often says that Bluey is the show that makes him feel seen as a parent. But there were two seconds that sent me into a flood of tears.

Let me first remind you about Brandy—Chili’s sister. Last time we saw Brandy, she was visiting her nieces for the first time in years. We found out it was difficult for her to be around the kids because... Brandy couldn’t get pregnant.

As an infertility warrior, that episode always struck a familiar and painful cord. I had a lot of trouble being around pregnant friends or friends with kids while we were in the hardest parts of our battle.

Years of shots, surgeries, procedures, medications, and tests. Everything revolved around calendars and timelines. And still... no baby.

Yes, we now have three incredible kids. But I also knew the reality that many of my infertility warrior friends never conceived. I remember when I accepted that painful reality as my truth.

So when I saw Brandy on that television screen wishing for what she knew she couldn’t have, I felt all the familiar pangs. I remember when that was me.

Then, we watched The Sign. And as the Heelers and friends gather together for a special occasion, we see Brandy walking in... holding her very pregnant belly.

And, oh, how I cried. Because I remember that part, too. I still stare at my three incredible children with awe. Intrauterine Inception babies, all. Miracles of science and love, all.

I never expected Brandy to get her heart’s desire.

I remember when it was me... screaming within for the chance to raise a child. I remember accepting it would never happen. And I remember a few months after that acceptance when I saw my first positive pregnancy test after years of negatives.

And when my family saw Brandy walking with her beautiful pregnant belly, all three kids started cheering for Brandy. "She’s pregnant! She’s pregnant!" Because my kids understand that’s not the end to every infertility warrior’s story.

So even though she’s a bloody cartoon dog, I raise a glass tonight to Brandy. I’m so happy for you, girl.

#Bluey Spoilers #The Sign #Bluey #Bluey Cartoon #Bluey Brandy #Infertility #TW Infertility #CW Infertility #Spoilers #Bluey The Sign

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proceduralpassion · 1 year

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Depth Over Distance

Prompt: Day 1 Of Narcoctober - Create a fanwork about a canon character you’ve never written about/used before

Characters: Mika Camarena x Brother!OC (Michael Luna)

CW: language, discussions of grief/death

WC: ~2.2K

A/N: Hiiii friends, my first Mika fic! Credit to @nocturnal-milk-dud for the pic above. Also, if you've read my IWBSS series, you're probably already familiar with my OC Michael Luna, who's actually Mika's older brother. Had so much fun writing their sibling dynamic and a little insight into how Michael winds up in Colombia. Hope you enjoy 💖

“Just the person I wanted to see.”

“Michael!” Mika exclaimed in both surprise and excitement. It’d been a while since she’d seen her older brother, a steady presence in her life for as long as she could remember. His position as an agent for the Mexico Interpol field office kept him busy, but that wasn’t why he’d been keeping his distance.

The two of them basked in their hug before taking a seat next to one another and looking out at the baseball practice field. The park may as well have been a second home for her with how often she was here for her oldest son’s practices and games.

“How’ve you been? Work must be keeping you busy, mano.”

Michael shrugged, “It’s never not, unfortunately.”

She hummed in response. They were no strangers to sitting in silence, savoring how the quiet was an easier kind of forgiveness. Their relationship didn’t allow for conflict or discord. It was effortless even at its inception. Maybe it was the decade length of age difference, but Mika and Michael had never been the type of siblings to fight.

“How’s he doing?” Michael asks, nudging his chin towards his oldest nephew.

“Better. He’s been putting a lot more power behind those swings,” Mika sighs, “I’m glad he has the outlet. He needs it.”

She had planned on taking him out for the season after Kiki’s passing, but he begged for her to keep him in. Now, as she watched him pour every ounce of grief into his swings, she wanted to kick herself for ever thinking of the idea. Somehow, the conscience inside his little body craved for something he hadn’t realized he would need. An outlet.

Mika chuckles to herself, wishing she had one of those. Some kind of avenue to channel every emotion bouncing in the recesses of her heart and mind. But every second of every day was dedicated to making sure her boys would and could grow up without such a vital figure in their lives. Anything less than 100% was unacceptable to her.

Michael coming to these games might’ve been the only adult interaction she got these days. Her life had become a precise routine, down to the hour, and she never veered from it, too afraid that the facade of togetherness would shatter with any detour. She clinged to the sense of normalcy and warmth she got from their bleacher seat conversations, even if they were of the most mundane topics. And mundane they were.

Michael’s way of helping his little sister grieve was to simply not bring it up. She had more than enough people asking if she was alright, he figured. So he didn’t ask. He was patient with her and comforting during those moments when it all felt like too much and she needed a good cry. Otherwise, he carried on as usual. The first practice after Kiki’s funeral, Michael sat down next to her and started talking about some new television show he started watching called Murder, She Wrote and how he confused Angela Lansbury with Agatha Christie.

It’s the first time she bursts into laughter since she became a widow. She calls him an idiot and explains that they are indeed two different people, though Angela had starred in a film based on Agatha’s novel. Later that week, she watches an episode of Murder, She Wrote so she can discuss the episode with him.

Another week, he brings polvorones. He notices she’s losing weight and this is his silent way of getting her to recuperate her appetite. She’s never been able to resist the crumbly shortbread sweets and smiles to himself when she takes the bag from him and hogs them all to herself.

Ever perceptive, she knows the intentions behind the gesture, but doesn’t acknowledge it beyond obnoxiously licking her fingers after finishing them all.

“What if I wanted more?” He jokes.

“Too bad.”

He holds his youngest nephew in his arms as Mika rounds up her oldest, adrenaline-drunk son. He should be dead tired after the lively game under this scorching sun, but his team won and he’s still amped up as they walk back to their cars.

Her youngest babbles in baby talk and Michael indulges by nodding his head, as if actually following along with whatever the infant is trying to convey.

Mika catches it and remarks, “He could be telling you that he thinks your goatee looks like a ferret on your chin and there you are, nodding and smiling like a doofus.”

He looks at his nephew, seemingly ignoring his little sister’s comical dig, “What do you think, sobrino? No más polvorones para tu madre, ¿bien?”

Mika’s eyes widened, “Wait, nevermind. He said that’s a nice shirt you’re wearing today.”

All in all, she’s not sure she’d be keeping it together if not for her big brother. It’s only once a week that she usually sees him, but the other six days are filled with longing. It’s like she crawls desperately every day so that she can get to the day where she finally sees him.

He’s been less present this past month. Skipping practices and games, leaving vague voicemails on her machine in the aftermath. When she does get to see him, he’s more withdrawn which is saying a lot coming from a man of so few words already. She doesn’t breach the topic. Namely, it’s because she’s got a lot going on as a young widow and mother, but also because Michael’s not the kind of person you cajole or nag on. He’ll come to you when he’s ready but will blow away like a leaf if you push him too hard.

It’s annoying, but again, they’re the kind of siblings who roll their eyes at each other, rather than fully air their grievances and argue.

“I’ve got a job offer in Medellin, Colombia.”

When she learns of Kiki’s death, it’s like the noxious feeling that takes over you when you jump out of a plane with no parachute. Your stomach doesn’t drop, but your senses are swiped from you. You can’t see because grief is like the air that blasts into your eyes. You can’t hear because your ears have just been violently assaulted with the worst news of your life. If you touch anything, it’s like you’re grasping nothingness because how else are your hands supposed to act when they know they’ll never touch their lover again?

When Michael tells Mika he’s leaving, it’s more like a rollercoaster. There is a drop in her stomach. She feels nauseous. Her stomach roils in spirals.

With her husband’s death, it was a long, unidirectional descent that left her fractured in pieces when the news landed on her.

With her brother leaving, it’s like the sudden drops, the highs and lows, and loops of a rollercoaster.

She’s proud because she knows how hard he works at his job.

Loop.

She’s angry because he’s leaving for an entirely different country and that solid mass of reliance that she’s had for the past four months is leaving with him.

Loop.

She’s scared out of her mind because how is she supposed to function now that she’s realized he’s become a crux?

Another fucking loop.

She only nods when she finally digests the news enough to form a response.

But when he follows her home, something he hasn’t done before, she slaps him two steps into stepping into the house.

And then she goes to grab him an ice pack in short order, because shit she didn’t mean to do that even though it kinda felt good. He takes it and they sit on the couch together once the boys are in bed for the night. Michael hasn’t taken the ice pack to his face at all in the couple of hours since she slapped him. Finally, she takes it from his grasp and holds it in the hand that she striked across his face. All this time, it’s been sore and she presses the mostly water but still somewhat chilly pack onto it.

“That shit hurt, didn’t it?”

Mika laughs and laughs until the queasy feeling in her stomach is replaced by aches from the overuse of her accessory muscles in snickering loudly at his comment. She cackles even more as she notes the red hand print forming on his cheek, knowing that it probably hurt as much for him as it did for her. He’s just too fucking prideful and that’ll never change.

Once her laughter finally leaves the room, Michael heaves a heavy sigh.

“I don’t have to leave for another month. And Christmas isn’t that far away when you think about so… I’ll be home, then.”

Christmas is six months away and she already struggles through the other six days of the week that she doesn't see him.

She could tell him not to go, but to her, that would be admitting weakness and he’s already the one person that doesn’t pity her or treats her with kid gloves. And she is feeling pretty weak right about now, and she knows that he knows it, but it’s different when you have to verbally admit that.

She also tells him not to go because she knows that he’ll stay.

When she was six, she watched a horror movie called El Monstruo resucitado even after the warnings from her parents not to. They were out having dinner with friends and only her and Michael were home. He comes out into the living room to see her cowering in the corner at the image of the disfigured creature who possessed the eponymous character. Sure, like any other sixteen year old brother would do, he laughed and teased her for being afraid of some dumb movie, but later that night, his face veers into resolute seriousness when she finally breaks and tearily begs for him to sleep at the foot of her bed so that the monster man doesn’t come to hurt her.

His back feels like shit the next morning and he still continues teasing her when she gets in trouble from her parents for watching the movie, but she knows then that he would do anything he asked of her.

She had a will right now, in the present day, not to break no matter how much the rope of her composure bent. And damn, did she want to break.

But if there was anything else that kept her glued into one piece these days, it was rage.

Rage at the ones responsible for her husband’s death. Rage at the existence of drug cartels. Rage that they wielded such strong enough power to rot out the heart of entire families. Leaving them in shades of gray and blue from the lack of oxygen and the rush of anguish and despair that came in to replace it from the air.

The drug trade was as interconnected and intricate as the labyrinth webs that spiders spun. And their touch was just as covert and venomous. There were ties between the Guadalajara cartel and Medellin cartel that necessitated relationships between the law enforcement agencies trying to sever them. A man with Michael’s accomplishment and knowledge was the perfect person needed in Colombia as the cobwebs grew.

If that led to the takedown of not only the men who murdered her beloved but also all the other scum just like him, then she opined that he absolutely needed to go.

Michael knows that his little sister will stand on her own two feet and continue carrying herself, carrying her boys forward into this new, harrowing chapter of their lives. He doesn’t doubt for a second that they’ll be okay and he acknowledges as much when he says, “Do me a favor and make an individual tres leche just for me on Christmas. Don’t tell her I said that, but I hate when mamá puts all those mangos in it.”

And because that’s their “thing”, she jokes, “I’ll tell her and put extra mangos when I make it for you.”

She’s not sure where she goes from here, but she’s got two young boys relying on her and a husband whose demise deserves retribution.

She leans on her brother as they watch an episode of Murder, She Wrote together while night blankets the sky outside. If there’s any source of strength that she can gain from what’s probably their last night of one-on-one bonding, she’s quick to cipher it for all of its worth.

They’ve said “I love you�� to each other maybe a handful of times in their lifetime. They don’t say it now. It doesn’t need to be said.

She can’t see what the other end of the tunnel looks like.

The light’s too dim and she’s all alone. But if she closes her eyes and listens closely enough, she can hear him, hear Michael’s voice.

Where life takes her next, she’s gotta do it alone. But she knows he’ll always be the one to catch her before she falls. The one who protects her from monsters and demons, even the ones taking hold in her head.

Two thousand miles of space between them could never change that.

It was always depth over distance for them.

Click here if you want to be added to my taglist! Taglist: @asirensrage @narcosfandomdiscord

#narcos mexico #mika camarena #mika camarena x oc #narcoctober #c: michael luna

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nightcall99 · 5 months

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Notes from 17.4.24

We're not making shit up regarding these signs. I mean, in the dream, there was no feeling to say that the things we took note of were 'right' or 'true', necessarily (because that's only the case for that moment). But it was definitely pointing toward the fact that we should take notice. I got confirmation of this today. A bit over a month ago, I had a dream where I suddenly had the knowing that AL had been on date with someone and kept it secret from me. In the dream, I didn't care that she hadn't told me, I was very detached. Today, this basically happened. She told me she has been seeing some guy, I think, for a couple of months now and I didn't care, when usually I'd be gutted. I thought, Shit, these dreams are for something.

Another weird thing happened. So I told my co-worker about the birthday cake picture dream, and how the doctor had addressed it to her and I. Then she launched into telling me about the dream she had this morning. So for context, she lost an expensive ring yesterday, one that her partner had gotten her only a few weeks ago and she was stressed about finding it. She said in the dream, SM had appeared with his partner and he announced that they had just gotten engaged. And then they showed her the diamond engagement ring. She ended up finding the ring for real this morning between the mattress and the bed base, it had fallen off while changing the sheets. I don't know what I'm supposed to take away from this.

Honestly, I felt really bad today. Yesterday night, my HS prompted me to watch the film Past Lives and I was sobbing for hours afterward. It gave me the same feeling that I got after watching Everything, Everywhere, All At Once and reading Normal People. Everything is just pointless. And we just continue. Each moment is not new, each second has been completely stripped bare from it's inception, and I pretend otherwise. It's fine. I mean, I have everything I need and we're on our way out of here, I just feel my own ridiculousness. The hypocrisy of every waking moment. The games we play, being chained to each pole, which are as far apart as can be and the chains, pulling. I'm taut. I'm snapping but hastily glued back together because I have to, I have to play. Today I met the new placement student and I've never had so much in common with someone. The thing is, I don't even know why I'm talking to her, it's just that I can't help it, while knowing it's for absolutely nothing. What can I do? Nothing. I can't do anything. Except be as I am. I apologise, I make up the difference, I endure. I try to ignore. I try to unsee. I'm sick of my reflexes, my instincts, my nature. Sick of all that I am, always reflected back to me. I hate that I am everything. I'm so, so on edge.

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deep-hearts-core · 1 year

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A post about the Loreen thing,

which I'm making separately so that it isn't hidden under the cut when I do my yearly review.

First of all it is necessary to state that I don't hate Tattoo. I have it fifteenth for the year. I liked Euphoria and I like some of Loreen's other music. I am not jumping on the hater train because I hate Loreen or hate the song. She sounded good on the night and the staging was, as we expect of Sweden, showy and mostly visually interesting.

HOWEVER. I think that there are two reasons that people are angry right now and both of them are justified. Firstly, it's because of the way the voting system works currently and what narratives work well on a television show (which Eurovision, ultimately, is). Secondly, it's because some more discerning fans are picking up on some of the circumstances surrounding Loreen's participation and win and have gotten out their red string.

To point one: This is the first time since the split voting system was implemented in 2016 that the winner of the jury vote won the contest. We've previously had entries who won neither, but there was too big of a split between the jury and televote winner (2016, 2019), an entry who won both votes (2017), and entries who won the televote (2018, 2021, 2022). Eurovision has changed a lot since its inception and in some ways the juries are a holdover from when it was a song contest rather than a performance contest (they were also reintroduced to combat bloc voting and then just made the bloc voting worse so do with that what you will). These days, the people like to vote!!! The people also like an underdog, which we went into the contest knowing that Finland was--or at least, the only other contender with a fighting chance of beating Queen Loreen. So seeing Loreen absolutely sweep the jury vote, country by country, with a margin of over 100 points, got boring and frustrating real fast.

I'm not saying down with the juries necessarily. I'm a somewhat serious musician who often loves jury bait songs and the juries have played an important role in supporting the songs I really like. And sometimes, the tension between the jury vote and public vote is okay! Sometimes it's interesting and makes for good television! But last night was not, narratively, good television.

I mean, maybe it was for some people.

Which leads me to point two: the red string. Now, I am not usually a conspiracy theory person at Eurovision. I mean, my first Eurovision was 2016 and I remember how the Russia fans got about that. My second Eurovision was 2017 and I hated APD with a burning passion at the time and I didn't get out the red string then.

But this... I think a lot of more serious fans are looking at the big picture. So, when a country wins, they get to be on the reference group and participate in decision-making about contest rules and such. The last time Sweden won was 2015. This win put them at 6 total, one behind Ireland. Sweden has made being good at Eurovision part of their national identity. The split voting system was introduced the following year, at the 2016 contest, hosted by Sweden.

Fast forward to this year. Sweden have placed 5th three times, 4th once, and then 7th and 14th which are less interesting, in the years since. Objectively very good results. But this year, the contest final was due to take place on Johnny Logan's birthday (Johnny Logan being the first, at that time only, competitor in history to win twice). The fiftieth anniversary of Abba's win is next year. And Loreen decided to come back to Melodifestivalen.

Loreen had previously tried to return in 2017 with the song "Statements" but wiped out in Melfest's second chance round. So it wasn't necessarily guaranteed that she would sweep. However, many fans felt that this year's Melfest entries were really weak songs, which made it easier for "Tattoo", with its flashy staging and name recognition, to soar to a win. In a real monkey's paw moment, I said after watching Melfest that the only way I could accept Loreen winning Melfest was if she Johnny Logan'd. Lol.

Even before Melfest, though, there were also the new voting rules. For the first time this year, semifinal qualifiers would be decided only through televote, not based on the juries. As I noted last night, this meant that the televote would likely be split among many songs--we'd still have a televote winner, but if the jury coalesced behind one song, the jury winner would win the contest. This... happened.

It's also worth noting that the current executive supervisor of the contest is Swedish, and that even before the voting sequence there were references to Abba and Johnny Logan throughout the night. That, in addition to the weak Melfest, timing of both voting changes, and the timing of the contest, adds up to a conspiratorial picture, for those who are so inclined.

And, lastly, I also think some of us are having fun arguing with Loreen fans, especially those who are like "well, YOU voted for her, so you don't get to complain!" Reader, I did not vote for Loreen. I in fact voted for Finland, among others. Most of us who are complaining did not, in fact, vote for Loreen. And look I don't wanna be like last year's Spain fans who to this day say that Chanel was the true winner of the 2022 contest but it is pretty fun to be a hater.

At the end of the day, it is what it is and there isn't anything we can do to change it, but it's fun to be angry in the meantime, and I personally had fun assembling all the reasons why people are angry into a nice little tumblr post for you all. Thank you and goodnight <3

#shispeak #esc reviews #eurovision #full contest review + top to come later #wanted to do this first #ALSO: the circumstances in part 2 can easily be explained away #or taken as a GOOD tv narrative where loreen comes back and takes her rightfully destined second win #i have my own opinions but i'm not the arbiter of what is true #and if you're happy for loreen: i am happy for you. i can be happy for you and also angry at the tv narrative.#so don't come for me!!!!!! lol

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shamera · 10 months

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NaNo day 27

DID IT, this is where I originally envisioned part 1 of the hunter AU ending, lol. If anyone has read the manhwa, they will now know which one had a ginormous influence on this story.

unedited, part 1 came in at 46 pages and 27,447 words. (i am FEAR) I guess I should go back to the time loop story tomorrow, especially since I'm in no rush now that I passed the NaNo goal, so i can take my time to try and get as much done as I can in the next two days before November ends!

It was nearly two full days before Fang Duobing was allowed out from under watchful eyes and got his things back. Two days of interviews, interrogations, doctor check-ups and psych evaluations to ensure his injuries would heal properly, especially the poison in his legs. Two days of deflecting when asked what happened in the dungeon, telling things accurately all the way up until everyone else left and it was only him and Li Lianhua.

He didn’t know what to say. How could he tell anyone what actually happened?

To the world at large, Li Xiangyi disappeared and supposedly died ten years ago. Fang Duobing could change that supposed fact now, he could rub in the faces of disbelievers who all thought Li Xiangyi actually perished fighting a dungeon boss. As if! How could the founder and leader of Sigu Sect, the one who took out reams of dungeon bosses, be felled by one?

(Especially when Fang Duobing just watched Li Lianhua defeat one in just a little over a minute.)

The news from the television in his hospital room kept covering the sudden and unexpected dungeon, the first one in China in two years, and the shock when it opened only to close again within an hour of its inception.

The first dungeon, in fact, to close in the past decade.

It brought about plenty of questions, especially since no one understood what happened, and the number of dungeons throughout the world was close to reaching its starting point. The common theory was that once the earth held enough dungeons as when the event initially occurred, then unexpected dungeons would stop appearing, and there would be a sort of stability and civilizations would stop having to worry about unexpectedly being pulled into a gate the same way Fang Duobing did twice in his life now.

He didn’t know if he believed that theory. It sounded nice on paper, but there was evidence to back it up, and it just— didn’t feel right to him.

So. He feigned amnesia for the duration of his time in the dungeon. Terrible side effect, so sorry, and it only prompted doctors to do extra tests and scans that came up with nothing.

(Besides, there were plenty of other people from Wansheng Sect within the dungeon all the way to the end, searching for people, and they should know far more than he did!)

Every time he asked about Li Lianhua, the answer was the same.

He hadn’t woken up yet.

When his parents came to visit him, sitting by his bedside as he tried to protest that he felt fine, that he was okay with only surface wounds that would heal within a week or two, they stayed quiet with a strained smile, their hands white in their laps.

His father had to leave after half a day being the busy man that he was and the fact that he would be the one taking care of any media slip-ups from this incident, and Fang Duobing only breathed a sigh of relief when his father gave him a comforting squeeze of his shoulder and was ushered out the hospital room by his harried assistants who already had things they needed him to read over and liaisons that were searching for him.

His mother, on the other hand, stayed the entire time with a grim countenance.

“We could have lost you,” she murmured as she held onto his hand, running her thumb over his wrist over and over again. It made Fang Duobing feel horrible, remembering all the times during his childhood where his mother would sit by his bedside doing the same thing at the height of fever or recovering from treatments. “I would ask what happened, but… we won’t talk of it here. Once the doctors release you, I’m having both you and Li Lianhua transferred to private care.”

Fang Duobing couldn’t prevent his tense frown. “...He’s still not awake yet?”

He Xiaohui’s hand tensed over her son’s and she gave him a stern look. “No. He’s… we won’t speak of it here.”

A government liaison gave him back his things when he was finally discharged with orders to report in the moment he remembered what happened within the dungeon. Within the plastic bag were his dirtied and ripped clothes and his cracked phone.

Fang Duobing gave a hollow smile at that moment, glad for the one privileged of being a Hunter that allowed him to conceal items on his person at all times like an invisible Qiankun pouch. He didn’t want to be questioned about the wooden dagger he had.

In the western countries, it had often been compared to video game inventories, but for Fang Duobing the space had been too small to be of proper use. He tended to only shove his wallet, keys, and phone in a space that amounted to a tiny purse (along with whatever might end up in pockets normally so he tended to have a napkin or piece of candy and some paper bills now that he got used to living with Li Lianhua). His cracked phone had been shoved into his pocket on instinct as they ran, a holdover from before he Awakened as a Hunter.

The government liaison gave him a squinty look as Fang Duobing attempted a polite smile back, but there was no law yet requiring Hunters to empty out their inventory and Fang Duobing was prepared to refuse if asked.

He didn’t have anything to hide, not really, but it was a matter of privacy. And if forced, then he could show what he had and turn the situation into one where he wasn’t trying to hide anything, but rather that his rights were being violated.

(It was a suspiciously Li Lianhua thing to do.)

With the tower of Tianji Hall still under surveillance, not the mention a portion of the building still gone and the surroundings cordoned off as workers demolished the top of the building so that it wouldn’t fall on unsuspecting civilians before it could be rebuilt— Fang Duobing found himself bundled up back to his childhood home rather than the apartment he had been renting away from his family.

(It was a bet, really, and a concession. Living away so he wouldn’t be pressured by his family on the regular, but also proving that he could live away on his own. Proving he could be the person his family wanted him to be, but that he just didn’t want to— that had been his way of proving to them that he had the capability to choose his own path rather than having it chosen for it. It was only meant to be for a year, just long enough to drive the point home.)

The home of the Fang and He family was a lavish and luxurious one, one that He Xiaohui inherited and her husband moved into despite his own prestige and wealth. Fang Duobing knew he was lucky in this way, to have parents so content with each other, who were in a happy and harmonious relationship in an era of divorce, especially for the families of wealth and status. While his father was extremely serious with his job, he was far more relaxed in his home life, often content to leave decisions to his wife and support whatever she wanted.

Pulling up into the ridiculously long driveway and beyond the gardens specifically designed to both look beautiful and hide deadly traps for anyone who might think their family easy to infiltrate, Fang Duobing had a moment where he wondered if all his adult years had been just one fever dream.

There were people in the gardens tending to the plants, and Fang Duobing parked carelessly along the driveway, slipping on his sunglasses against the bright afternoon before he left the vehicle, taking even that basic level of protection against the barrage he knew he was about to get.

“Fang Xiaobao!”

And there it was. He tried not to cringe as his aunt shouted, somehow coming up behind him even though he hadn’t seen her on the drive in. Fang Duobing mustered up a sweet smile, hands up placatingly as he turned to face her.

“You sure do have some nerve, not responding to any of my texts! Do you make a habit out of making trouble for me, while pretending to be a good son for my sister, huh? I had to take care of all the clean-up and the PR with your dad, and shareholder meetings since my sister obviously deserves to spend time with her injured son, but what about me? If she hadn’t been keeping me updated on if you were okay, I would have thought you died in the hospital! Maybe the doctors strangled you to death for how annoying you can be!”

“Xiao-yi,” he pleaded, “I just got my phone back today, I swear. I wasn’t even allowed out of my room the last two days, how could I have contacted you? I was being watched around the clock! Didn’t they do the same for you? So you have to be a little more understanding for your favourite nephew, alright?”

She took a step forward to jab a finger at his chest, and he was glad to see that she looked far healthier now, merely a bandage on her arm exposed by the sleeveless sundress she was wearing and the dramatic makeup gone now to reveal a more familiar look.

“Oh, you think you can sweet-talk me, mister? I ought to—”

“Xiaobao.” They were both interrupted as He Xiaohui called out from the front door. “Do come inside before you catch a cold. You too, Xiaofeng.”

Fang Duobing wanted to give his mother an incredulous look as he glanced up at the blue sky. Catch a cold? In this weather? But his aunt was already dragging him forward by the arm, and he only protested mildly, letting her get her way.

After the door closed behind them, Fang Duobing realised that there were no servants in the foyer to greet them. Even his aunt calmed down immediately, her earlier expression of indignation fading away fast enough for Fang Duobing to grab that it was a front all along.

“Anything outside?” He Xiaohui asked her younger sister, who shook her head.

“Not that I can find.” He Xiaofeng responded, unusually serious. “But we wouldn’t know all the abilities that they have at their disposal.”

“What is this about?” Fang Duobing demanded, pulling off his sunglasses. He looked between his mother and aunt, remembering the wording while he had been in the hospital. “...Are people spying on us?”

His mother, her mannerism impeccable even now, merely pursed her lips in response, the muscles of her jaw tightening.

“There’s no proof of it.” She admitted, and ushered him along down the hall to the main room. “But there have been some suspicious inquiries being made. On what happened to the dungeon, of course, and on whether Tianji Hall had anything to do with it as it appeared right in our building, and then disappeared before a Sect could confirm that it would have been a harvesting dungeon.”

With dungeons placed in different categories and ranks based on how dangerous they were, harvesting dungeons were the most convenient for people, with weaker monsters to allow for Hunters to go on and look for goods they could bring back to the world. It meant the location would be protected for the Sects to use so long as they logged the items they brought back and paid a portion of it as taxes.

That meant, however, that Tianji Hall would lose their entire building location to the Sects due to that.

“Why would anyone think that?” Fang Duobing demanded. “It wouldn’t benefit us at all! Not to mention, it was our people who got harmed in the process— who do they think they are? No one can predict, much less command the location of new gates—”

A whap to his ear halted his complaints, and his mother responded fondly, “Of course all you say is true. But rumours are hard to dispel once it’s been released.”

“Not to mention,” his aunt added, “just how unusual it is for a dungeon to disappear like that. It’s the first time it’s happened, so people have a right to be suspicious, even if we had nothing to do with it.”

Fang Duobing stared between them.

“Actually.” He said, then halted. Then he thought better of saying anything, but then thought at least they should know. “About that.”

He Xiaohui held up a hand. “Explain later. I know there was more to your story, Xiaobao, but there’s someone you should see.”

Fang Duobing’s childhood home was large and sprawling, situated just outside a metropolitan city for quality real estate, and there was an entire wing dedicated to when He Xiaohui felt like working on her unusual inventions at home. That meant there was also a makeshift medical room besides her laboratory, in case of emergencies. It had been something her husband asked her to build, worried about her burning or electrocuting herself. He fitted it with hospital worthy equipment, and no one questioned its existence after He Xiaohui’s experiments nearly shut down the city power grid when Fang Duobing was thirteen.

Now, the room was renovated yet again, with another occupant in mind.

Fang Duobing felt his breath catch as they entered.

“I took the liberty of securing Lotus Tower out of harm’s way,” His mother said quietly, settling behind him. “Your aunt made sure to visit him when she could since they didn’t have him as tightly guarded as you, and the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong. The Hunter specialist they sent in thinks there might be signs of a curse, but they dismissed that soon after. After several… suspicious individuals were found around his room, she called me and I made the arrangements to have him brought here instead. As he didn’t have any family listed, a more determined organisation would be able to keep him until he woke otherwise.”

“You think someone would have just stolen him away?” Fang Duobing asked, his eyes still on Li Lianhua, connected to several machines and resting atop a makeshift hospital bed. The man was so still underneath the connected wires and breathing tube that the only consultation was the heart monitor steadily ticking away.

“There were a few fake names on the visitor registry,” his aunt said darkly. “I left Zhan Yunfei to keep watch, and they were definitely there for Physician Li. We didn’t manage to see their faces in the hospital, but… well, I have people checking the identities against CCTV. They should get back to me today.”

Fang Duobing had the nagging feeling that someone knew.

After crossing back through the gate, Fang Duobing barely had a moment to breathe a sigh of relief, of being safe now, before Li Lianhua just. Dropped. Next to him. Dropped like his strings had been cut, nearly bouncing on the ground before Fang Duobing noticed and dropped to his own knees painfully on the uneven pavement as if he could still catch the man.

Everything had been fine right before they crossed the gate— and for a single shameful moment, Fang Duobing imagined that Li Lianhua arranged something like this just so he could get out of the conversation he promised.

Then he noticed the blood staining his mouth underneath the darkness that was still fading away from where they had originally been drenched, and the panic turned very real as Fang Duobing made to carry Li Lianhua the rest of the way to the paramedics.

He thought perhaps it was the fight that caught up to the man, the exertion that Li Lianhua usually could not expend. But the doctors could take care of that, couldn’t they? They would fix him and he would rest, and then Fang Duobing would be able to confront him about what happened in the dungeon.

“Xiaobao,” his mother said gently. “The two of you were the last ones out of the dungeon. I know how you are when you lie, and you’re not very good at it. And with Li Lianhua like this…”

“It really does look like a curse.” His aunt interjected very quietly.

Fang Duobing could understand why the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong, and why the Hunter specialist might dismiss the idea of a curse. Curses only applied to Hunters, mostly because civilians tended to die immediately rather than be afflicted. Yet a curse shouldn’t have— shouldn’t have taken him down like that. Not when Li Lianhua had no trouble battling the dungeon boss, not when he could yank Fang Duobing from the darkness, and not when he was just fine as they left.

All sects had curse specialists, the way they aspired to have healers. Too many times Hunters would come back from dungeons with a debilitating curse that would need to be seen to, sometimes taking the specialist months before they could figure out what it actually was and how to break it.

“Did the two of you… encounter something? Something unusual, something out of the ordinary? Did he touch something or, god forbid, accidentally eat something—”

“Not like that.” Fang Duobing interrupted his mother. “But we… The entire dungeon was unusual, wasn’t it? We found a place that… well, everything he touched, I must have as well. But I’m fine, nothing’s happened to me.”

“You’re a Hunter,” his aunt said quietly. “It could be different.”

So is Li Lianhua, Fang Duobing thought, but did not say.

“Whatever it is,” He Xiaohui gave a frustrated huff. “So far I haven’t figured it out. And I wanted to bring you first because events at the hospital were far too fishy, and because— Xiaobao, you might have to prepare yourself. He’s not doing better—”

And then he thought of letters he had seen in Lotus Tower before, that niggling feeling when his mother said Li Lianhua had no one to claim him from the hospital.

“He did have someone.” Fang Duobing said suddenly, realising only in that moment he had sat next to the man’s bedside when he had to look up at his mother. “He often wrote to… a temple. A monk. Not even emails or anything, but actual real letters.”

That must have been a close friend. Li Lianhua certainly never wrote him letters before the times Fang Duobing had been dragged back home, not even emails.

Once more, Fang Duobing was struck by the idea that he had never really known Li Lianhua.

Above his head, the He sisters exchanged troubled looks. The silence stretched for a long moment until He Xiaofeng’s phone alerted her of a message, and she hurriedly pulled it out in an effort to focus on something else.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, checking through her message. “It’s an alert—”

And then she quieted, and Fang Duobing looked at his aunt when she didn’t continue. “What?”

“I’ve got hits for three of the people who tried to visit Li Lianhua at the hospital.” He Xiaofeng said, eyes glued to the glow of her screen. “All three are ex-Jinyuan Alliance members.”

Fang Duobing stiffened. Jinyuan Alliance. The very reason for Li Xiangyi’s disappearance, now looking for Li Lianhua.

“All the more reason to keep him here.” His mother said firmly. “Whatever specialist he needs, we can bring them here instead. I’d like to see anyone try to send a spy here or break through my defences. I’ve been needing new test subjects for my experiments.”

“And I keep telling you that you can’t say things like that aloud if you don’t want the lawyers to come down on us,” He Xiaofeng grumbled with a pout. “Xiaobao, what happened in the dungeon? Do you know why it closed suddenly or why the Jinyuan Alliance is now sticking their nose where they don’t belong?”

It made sense for the Jinyuan Alliance to investigate this. They disbanded a decade ago just as Sigu Sect did, when the last dungeon had been closed. And now ten years later a new dungeon appeared and closed. If Li Xiangyi hadn’t died in that disastrous event back then, then what about the Jinyuan Alliance leader Di Feisheng who was said to have died alongside him, was said to have killed Li Xiangyi…?

“I don’t know,” Fang Duobing admitted. He turned his attention to Li Lianhua, far too quiet and pale and still on the bed. “I’m still working that out myself.”

It must have been enough of the truth to pacify his mother, as she only sighed and laid a hand on his hair, fingers curled to sift through the strands above the ponytail.

“Don’t take too long.” She told him. “In fact, sort through your thoughts today and tell me by tomorrow if you can. Whatever you can manage, that is. Whatever this situation is, there are forces we’re not aware of at play here and I’d like as many details as I can to better prepare. Tianji Hall can’t sit on the sidelines this time, not when we’re right at the centre of it.”

“I know, mom.” Fang Duobing told her.

“Find me those letters,” she continued. “Not to read through it, but so I can send a message to this monk to tell them what happened. And don’t spend all day in this room. You need to eat a good meal and take a shower— you smell like the hospital. You know where to find me if you need me.”

Then she pressed a brief kiss against his hair and left.

“I’ll be back in the evening,” his aunt told him.”First I have to follow up on those three— Jinyuan Alliance doesn’t even exist anymore, but if they had anything to do with this dungeon, then I’m going to find out about it.”

She followed her sister out the door, closing it carefully behind her, and then it was just Fang Duobing left.

“And then there were two,” he said to himself, sitting back against the chair (and did they have to imitate the hospital so much that the chairs were uncomfortable as well?) to relax his knees as he stared at Li Lianhua’s form. “...You were supposed to tell me everything by now. I still don’t know…” he trailed off, uncertain as to what he meant to say.

He reached behind his waist toward his belt where he usually reached for his inventory, and pulled out the wooden sword, which looked more like a dagger now that he was all grown up. Despite using it in the dungeon, hacking through thick monster carapaces, the wood was still smooth and polished, entirely blunt and safe enough for a child to practise with.

The name ‘Li Xiangyi’ was carved into the base.

“What’s the truth?” Fang Duobing mumbled to himself, smoothing his thumb over the characters. “You old fox, always avoiding me when I need to hear from you. Even now you’re running away.”

He spent so long— more than half his life, even, chasing after the ideal of Li Xiangyi. To be just like his childhood hero, to live up to him, to continue where he left off… It was really no wonder he felt such a connection with Li Lianhua when he thought about it. It wasn’t that much of a stretch that he could anticipate Li Lianhua’s words and actions when he spent so long scrutinising every detail of every interview and observed moment in Li Xiangyi’s life. Fang Duobing spent his teenage years daydreaming of finding the Hunter again, of perhaps just… meeting him where he stood, and Li Xiangyi would look at him and remember him, and he would smile and look proud and—

It was a silly dream, especially when he couldn’t even make it into Baichuan Court.

He didn’t know how long he stayed there, sitting vigil over Li Lianhua and lost in his thoughts of just how he really should have recognised him, have realised everything, from the fact that despite how very different Li Xiangyi and Li Lianhua were (and they were so, so different), at the core of it all, Li Lianhua threw himself into danger the same way Li Xiangyi did to help other people.

And wasn’t that the crux of how he influenced Fang Duobing’s life? Wasn’t that the very same will, the strong instinct to protect, that Fang Duobing was chasing after?

He couldn’t reconcile the two, not really. They stood different, they moved different, they looked different no matter how similar. Li Lianhua had tics and habits that Li Xiangyi definitely did not have ten years ago, and one was so earnest and truthful most people took it for arrogance and disrespect while the other lied with a silver tongue in such a way that he always got his way.

To Fang Duobing, they felt like two entirely different people.

“Li Lianhua,” he said quietly. “Just… be okay.”

Even if he never got his answers, Fang Duobing would rather be angry at the man for years and years more than to think he might come to some conclusion only to have him leave forever.

He sighed, listening to the calm pulse of the heart monitor, and tucked the wooden sword back into his inventory, frowning when he found barely enough space for it.

Why…?

There was something there that wasn’t the usual, and it felt heavy now that he was paying attention. He grasped at it, the item small in his hand, and pulled it out of the inventory, feeling the weight of it like a metaphorical thing.

It wasn’t physically heavy, but it had such a presence that Fang Duobing couldn’t believe he didn’t realise it was on his person before now. It was round, and as he put it to the light, he could see it looked like pearlescence caught within a ghost. Like a shimmering aerogel shaped into a sphere where the core was denser as it went in, visible despite being only the size of a bottle cap.

It wasn’t the same, but he recognised that feeling of metaphorical weight. Of the denseness, the heavy presence.

It was the very same as that black ball that prevented them from exiting the dungeon. Sure, all dungeons had drops, but he had never seen anything like this before. Tianji Hall specialised in Hunter gear and materials, and that included all materials brought back from dungeons.

“What?” Fang Duobing asked dumbly, raising it against the light.

“I told you,” Li Lianhua’s tone was cranky, the same as when Fang Duobing used to wake him up too early in the morning. “Not to take anything out of the Black!”

Fang Duobing snapped his head to the side, elation running through his veins for a single moment before he registered the sight.

Sitting on the edge of the bed next to the prone and unmoving body, was the irritated ghost of Li Lianhua.

(Fang Duobing would later deny the shrill scream that brought his mother racing back into the room.)

#NaNoWriMo #mlc nano 2023 #THIS IS IT! that's part 1 of the Hunter AU #despite this whole ordeal now I kinda want to continue #I was mostly writing silly and directing it toward my own interest #and a lot didn't make sense and I forgot to write things and wrote in the wrong order but #I dunno I still kinda enjoyed it despite the hours staring blankly #because it was not going how I thought it was going #I *know* how it continues just like I knew how this part ended #I have ideas for political intrigue #Shan Gudao and Jiao Liqiao and maybe even bringing in Princess Qiaoling #not to mention DI FEISHENG in the next part #but god this is long #and I feel like I barely just started the whole story #do I wanna invest months and months more into this #CAN I do that without losing interest despite wanting to do my murder mystery?

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