🫵🫵🫵 you! 🫵🫵🫵 yes u,🫵🫵🫵 hrpf lover, YOU should be able to see ur favorite romantic narrative as platonic n be able to seperate rpf from ur sports narratives actually
I'm still mostly not writing and instead spending all my time watching the Olympics, which has spawned this.
I don't even go here, etc., but if you'd like a snippet of Matthew Tkachuk (Team USA, Beach Volleyball) meets Leon Draisaitl (Team Germany, Fencing) in Paris (City of Lights, and also of Love), you're in luck.
Happy wip wednesday!
Disclaimer: Matthew's gal pals in this story are American beach volleyball duo Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth. Just to be clear that the Taryn mentioned below is not of the Tkachuk variety. Carry on!
The metro ride is short, and surprisingly uncrowded.
The wait outside the Grand Palais is much longer, and unrelentingly rainy.
The inside of the venue is sick as promised, and shockingly loud.
Matthew isn’t aware, until he’s seated in the sparsely populated athlete’s section watching two masked men dancing around and swiping at each other with steel blades, that the French are apparently really fucking serious about their fencing.
There’s a lot going on at once, multiple pairs of dudes fighting—or sparring or dueling or whatever the fuck they call it—all along the raised competition platform.
“The piste,” Kristen informs them, “that’s the little landing strip where they stand.”
She reads the first few sentences of the fencing wiki article out loud, but there are too many French words and they don’t really care about the rules, anyway. They scream their heads off for the American who beats a French guy, do their best in a losing effort for another American who gets beat by a South Korean.
“Good try,” Matthew hollers, like he’s got any fucking idea if it was a good try, “good game!”
“Pretty sure it’s a match, not a game,” Taryn says, as if she really thinks Matthew gives a shit.
The whole event is set up tournament-style, with the winner of each match advancing to the next round. The last remaining American gets housed in the round of 16, despite all their loudest and most obnoxious cheering efforts, so they turn their attention to the German and the Frenchman dancing around each other directly in front of them.
The German scores a point and does a little fist pump, yelling from inside his mask. Matthew claps and whistles.
“Shouldn’t we be rooting for our hosts?” Kristen elbows him, but Matthew just shrugs.
“My allegiance goes to the best ass,” he says, matter-of-fact. “If Frenchie wants my support he needs a better squat routine.”
The tight white pants and the little g-string that goes on top of them are easily Matthew’s favorite thing about fencing, so far.
The two guys in front of them keep dancing, shuffling forward and backward in tandem like they’re doing a choreographed routine, their swords—sabres, Taryn informs him the third time he says it—held out toward each other, lunging and stabbing at each other like the Three fucking Musketeers.
Matthew can’t tell what the hell is happening, but the scoreboard says it’s a tight contest, the two exchanging points over and over before the French guy finally goes up two, to the delight of the crowd. But then the German scores, then scores again, and again to go back on top. The German does an athletic little leap and lunges forward; the crowd gasps, then groans. The Frenchman says something to the referee, complaining—the ref just shakes his head. The German fist pumps again, shoves his mask up and off and lets out a yell.
“Oh, fuck,” Matthew suddenly sits up taller, “look what we got here.”
Taryn pulls her eyes away from her phone for the first time in at least half an hour, peers curiously down at the piste.
“German dude is hot,” Matthew says, “and I don’t just mean his ass.” Unfortunately, the German in question puts his mask back on too fast for them to get a good long look, but his name’s up on the board, next to his score and his country: Draisaitl, Leon.
"ohhh philly is where gay love goes to die ohhh philadelphia destroys ships" wake UP. wake UP!!!!!! gay melodrama is the natural and inevitable byproduct of gay LIFE. all things in life END or TRANSFORM. do you pick up a beautiful seashell off the beach and say damn the ocean is where mollusks go to die??? this franchise is the crucible where three generational shakespearean ships went supernova in the last thirteen years and i'm supposed to think that's anything but high camp??? open your eyes!!! glory and decay go hand in hand!! paris the city of love is built on 2,000 acres of catacombs!!!!!
happy return of race week I’m making them all do something else instead :)
Esteban: tennis
this isn’t entirely bc I think he and Pierre should get challengersed but it’s not not about that. he has so much limb I think he could cover a lot of ground on the court well
Pierre: football/soccer
I just think he wants this and so I want it for him. allez
Fernando: football/soccer
not to double up right away but I could see him as the old guy national team legend type. signed a big deal w the MLS but only plays games when he feels like it
Lance: hockey
basic but that’s my truth. he would do numbers on hockey tumblr. qmjhl star. is he a defenceman or a large winger i can’t decide
Carlos: cycling
he already has the little outfit! I recently started learning abt tdf and I truly knew nothing like wdym that’s a team sport. but I think that’s nice so he can have a group of friends. anyways domestique carlos who dreams of one day being a team lead.. something to me
Charles: diving
he has been practicing his form since monaco time to go pro charles! I would mourn his leg hair but seeing him do his little tricks would be fun. welcome back tom daley
Kevin: kayak cross
idk if anyone else watched my new favourite Olympic sport but the men’s gold medalist was a guy they called THE BUTCHER (his last name was butcher). anyways I think it would be a fun opportunity for kmag to conduct violence in a new medium
Nico: curling
the beautiful game… I can picture him in the outfit gliding down the ice w the rock that’s all I have for u
Lando: rugby
for better or for worse one of the times I was most interested in Lando’s whole thing was when he hurt his nose and was all bandaged up. at that moment I knew I wanted him to be a scrappy little scrum half. he should prob play 7s
Oscar: skateboarding
I’ve become besotted w the idea of olympic skateboarder oscar due to paris olympics convos w @testarossa. most normal guy ever does cool guy thing is beautiful to me
George: beach volleyball
I mean come on… he’s long and he’s a show off (affectionate)
Lewis: sprinting
100m/200m.. was trying to think of something high drama for him and landed here. glory every 4 years is maybe not the right vibe… but maybe his impact gets more ppl into year round track and field. maybe I should just choose fencing for homosexual reasons idk!
Max: basketball
he’s a doncic/jokic type euroleague guy. you ask yourself “does he even like playing basketball” (he does) and he drops a casual 40 on you and then goes out for a beer afterwards. he would like to be home playing his video games but a job is a job. swagless in a way that ends up seeming kind of cool
Checo: golf
dad sport! also a solo sport where he can be free of teammate drama rumours etc maybe that would appeal atp
Valtteri: afl
i don’t really know anything about afl except that every few months instagram would like to show me some guy who does it. but I think this is brand synergy for valtteri and he would have a good time
Zhou: basketball
truly don’t know if he’s actually tall but he has a tall vibe to me. and I need to see his nba tunnel fits STAT. he’s league fits first team for sure
Daniel: nfl (kicker)
he would have so much fun being surrounded by all those large men and he could wear his beats™️ while locked in on the sidelines practicing to do his one special job each game
Yuki: rugby
I actually would also love to see yuki play rugby what can I say.. get him back in the big long sub jacket on the sidelines! let him tackle someone! I envision him as a hooker but his props would also need to be short I think lol
Alex: baseball (catcher)
(he could also be george’s vball partner BUT) was thinking recently abt who has the best baseball player sounding name and Alex Albon is really up there for me!! he can be a catcher w a good reputation for handling rookie pitchers. great in the clubhouse. wearing a backwards hat is also part of the job so that’s important
Logan: the type of football they were playing on the beach in top gun maverick. or maybe spikeball
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