(this wants with all its heart to be a multichapter fic but i need instant gratification sooo)
He likes to read.
He likes to read and Kent likes him, and he really doesn’t know what to do about this fact.
Kent ran into him – well, ran past him, really – on a morning jog, in a usually deserted area of the community park where trees have been planted and are carefully watered to give the appearance of a verdant, lush grove in the middle of sunny, dusty Nevada. He was standing against a tree and reading, and when Kent jogged back to ask what he was doing, the man laughed and pointed to his book. Walden.
Kent’s never read it. The man shrugs. “It’s about a man who gave up his whole life to go live in the woods,” he says. “I used to go to Walden Pond and re-read it once a summer. But now I’m here and, well… this is as close to the woods as I can get.”
His name is James. He’s a high school English teacher. He shakes Kent’s sweaty hand and asks his name, what he does for a living.
Kent blinks at him hard. “You…” he starts. He was about to say, you don’t know?
“Me? You do me?” James cracks a smile. “Is that a pick-up line?”
His smile is sunny, and Kent breaks a little bit inside. He finds himself quickly enough to say, “Would it work?”
Part 1, 7k, zimbits, homophobia warning, generally fluffy though, Samwell Men’s Hockey Team
Okay, so back to this Dan Erikson guy.
It’s three years after he wrote his article on Jack Zimmermann’s college experience and, look, he’s generally too busy to obsessively stalk one hockey player because his day job involves roaming the country and doing all the feel good stories that go on that last page of Sports Illustrated, but every once and awhile, he takes a night to watch Jack’s interviews and he’s not looking for clues, per se but…
Well, he is a journalist. And the answer to the unspoken question of the Blond boy in all the photographs itches at him. Because… journalist.
So for three years now, he sort of drawn his own conclusions. He notices how Jack never brings a date to events and he finds the blog of a certain Southern Baker and notes how there is an abrupt shift from sadness to ‘barely contained glee’ after graduation. And he notices that the “friend’s kitchen” Bitty shoots his most recent videos at is very nice. Very spacious. And so when Dan Erikson gets told that the Falconers want to meet with him (and that they asked for him by name), he has a flash of “they know I have been stalking Jack Zimmermann and I am about to be sued,” which, frankly, makes no sense but he still shows up to the meeting in his best suit and manages to look like a nervous idiot in front of all the publicity interns and if he thought it was bad then, it’s nothing compared to when he is shown into a conference room.
Because Jack Zimmermann is already there. Like… in the room.
It’s a good thing 50% of a journalist’s job is acting neutral in the face of anything because that’s all that keeps Dan from freaking out. But he manages. Admirably if he does say so himself. He shakes hands with George and then with someone from the Falconers legal team and then with Jack Zimmermann and they all sit down.
And the legal person- Michelle, he thinks her name is – she jumps in and starts talking about how this information cannot leave the room until written in an official article and they’ve already discussed this with Sports Illustrated and – honestly he sort of stops listening because Jack Zimmermann looks like he does when the Falconers have just won Game 1 of a playoff series. Aka he looks intense and focused and it’s not that he’s unhappy, per se, but he’s not celebrating quite yet.
Also, his fingers drum once against the table before he stops them and that reads as nerves.
Dan wants to tell him he already knows. That he saw the pictures three years ago and he’s suspected and this proves it and he still has no idea what he’s doing here.
Finally, Michelle goes quiet and there’s a beat of silence before:
“I’m gay,” Jack announces. “I’d like you to write the article.”
Dan blinks once because that makes no sense. For good measure he does it again before managing to push a word out. And then that word is simply:
Okay, I’d like a fic where a reporter, maybe for a smaller online publication or maybe someone used to writing Sports Illustrated’s more “personal interest” pieces decides to go back and examine Jack Zimmermann’s college years through his assignments and by interviewing his professors.
So, first and foremost, he has to ask permission because Samwell – well, they’ve never really had this situation before, but professors do keep student’s work on file and they decide that if they get permission from the student (in this case NHL superstar Jack Zimmermann), it is fine for them to show this work to outside parties. (real talk: no idea if this is how this would work, in fact, for thesis papers i think they are automatically available to the public… ANYWAY)
So this reporter (lets call him Dan) asks for Jack’s permission and, honestly, Jack is a little confused by the request but also a little bit excited because no one seems to take his time in college all that seriously and it drives him crazy. So he says yes without thinking about it and figures that the man will get to read a beautiful 30 pages on sports during WWII and maybe there will be a little blurb about it and that will be that.
That is not that. Because Dan here is thorough and after he reads Jack’s thesis (which was much better than he expected and if he’s being honest, he expected some stupid jock paper that passed only because well, what college is going to fail Jack Zimmermann??)- after he reads the thesis, he is interested. He chats with Jack’s thesis advisor who has nothing but great things to say (”Always turned in his drafts on time, took great notes and listened to suggestions, hard working kid, I hear he’s playing some sport now?- oh! you’re a reporter, is he doing well then?”) (sorry, this is a history professor, he probably had no idea who Jack Zimmermann was while he was advising him and less of idea who he is now that he is gone… ah, spacey nerdy history professors, my fave, ANYWAY) and so Dan decides to go seek out more of Jack’s work and talk to more of his professors and this means–
He finds the Photography professor.
And, more than that, because Jack had given him permission (he has the paper and everything!) he is supposed to be allowed to see Jack’s projects. Aka the pictures he turned in for a grade.
And, for the first time, a professor gives him a hard time about letting him see Jack’s work.
people in fanfiction are so good at identifying v specific smells. I literally struggle to identify vanilla when I’m sniffing a candle labelled “VANILLA” how are these kids getting woodsmoke, rain, mint, and a whiff of byronic despair from a fuckin tshirt
Once I read a fic where they were like “he tasted like” and I’m expecting the typical formula (1 cooking ingredient + 1 natural phenomenon + “something uniquely [character name]”) but instead they said “he tasted like mouth” and it was one of the greatest fic moments of my life
click and drag to find out what your shitty fanfiction kiss tastes like
Oops, looks like I’m drowning in another rare pair, so expect ficlets. I’m p sure there’s like 5 other people in the omgcp fandom that ship Snowy/Tater, but we’ll all go down with this ship together, I guess.
Tater
had been pacing behind the couch for the past five minutes, arms gesticulating
wildly as he ranted. Only half of what he said was in English, changing over to
Russian when he wanted to be more detailed about the bodily harm he wished to
inflict upon the guy who had rushed Snowy. It was sweet, but Tater’s voice had
an especially resonant thunder to it when he was angry, and Snowy’s head
throbbed.
“Tater,
can you sit the fuck down? You’re making my head ache worse.” Snowy pressed the
ice pack harder against his head, wanting to release some of the pressure he
felt building up behind his temples.
Tater
froze in his pacing, looking for a moment as if he didn’t know what to do with
himself. Snowy patted the spot on the couch next to him, and Tater sat down
gingerly as to not jostle him. Snowy wasn’t even that hurt, just a bruised head
and split lip, but any injury at all always had Tater being extra careful with
him. His shoulders slumped and he stared down at his hands, looking more like a
chastised puppy than a 6’5” defense-man. Snowy leaned into his side, and Tater
gratefully wrapped an arm around him and pulled him close.
“Hey,”
Snowy said softly, shoulders finally relaxing as Tater ran a soothing hand up
and down his arm, “thanks for sticking up for me today.”
Tater’s
lips dropped into a pout again. “I not even get to punch rat in face. Thirdy pulled
me away.”
Snowy
set down his ice pack so he could lean his head farther into Tater’s shoulder.
He placed his hand on Tater’s chest, and a chill ran through the Russian at the
cold of it. “I know, but it’s the thought that counts. Also, seeing you pull
Parson out from the bottom of a dog pile and shake him around was hot as fuck.”
Tater
brightened, staring down at him with excited brown eyes. “It was?”
Snowy
smiled up at him and nodded, though carefully, as to not disturb his head
wound.
Tater
smiled as well, so bright, always so bright, and nodded to himself. “Next time,
I throw him clear across rink before he can reach you.”
Snowy
laughed into Tater’s shoulder. Tater pressed a soft kiss onto the crown of his
head. “Sounds like a plan, big guy.”
The
hints around Snowy and Tater’s respective apartments were subtle. One wouldn’t
be able to find them if they didn’t know where to look. Still, they were there,
those little pieces of evidence that showed just how much time they spent at
each other’s places.
There
was gold cleaner in a cabinet in Snowy’s bathroom. The gold chain that Tater
took off only to shower and to sleep was one of the few things he brought with
him from Russia. It was his grandfather’s, and he was meticulous in its care.
In
Snowy’s bathroom was also Tater’s preferred stick of deodorant, and in Tater’s
there was a pencil of Snowy’s brand of eyeliner. Tater also hadn’t owned a blow-dryer
until Snowy started staying over.
Snowy’s
dog, who he’d rescued from the pound and Tater had named Puck (“Like a hockey
puck?” Snowy had asked incredulously. Tater had laughed, a big, booming thing. “Yes,
but also like Midsummer Night’s Dream. Your favorite, no?”) had both a Snowden
and a Mashkov Falconers jersey. In public they joked that Tater had gotten his
own jersey for Puck and would sneak him into it whenever some of the team was
over, but in truth Snowy had gotten it for him. When he was especially missing
Tater, usually when he went back to Russia to visit family, Snowy would put his
own Mashkov jersey on and the two of them would match.
Tater
was probably also Puck’s favorite human. His runs were longer than Snowy’s, and
he gave the best belly rubs. Puck was a small dog, and Tater had no problem
carrying him around like he was a baby. He loved it, tongue lolling out of his
mouth happily while his big brown eyes gazed adoringly up at Tater. Snowy
sometimes wondered if he looked the same, when Tater would pick him up against
his will and carry him around the house. He hoped not.
In a
drawer of the bedside table at Snowy’s apartment was one of Tater’s favorite
children’s books in Russian. On nights that he was over and they weren’t
exhausted from a game and Snowy could feel his love for this man swelling in
his chest he would ask Tater to teach him more Russian. He would lean back
against Tater’s chest in bed with the book spread out in front of them, spine
creaky and letters large, and Tater would go over the Cyrillic alphabet with
him and teach him a few words. Sometimes his pronunciation would cause Tater to
smother laughter into his hair, but Snowy didn’t mind much. He blatantly
laughed in Tater’s face every time he said “pumpernickel” and “discipline”
anyway.
There
was one of Snowy’s extra large coffee mugs in Tater’s cabinet, for when they
had to pull themselves out of bed for morning practice. Snowy kept his back up
anti-depressants in this mug, shoved to the back of the cabinet so no one would
find them, but relevant enough to his morning routine that he wouldn’t usually forget
them.
Forgetful
days were hard, made him feel like he was being crushed by the weight of the melancholy
in his chest, made it hard to breathe. Tater usually noticed quickly, but there
wasn’t much he could do in public. He would hover, checking in periodically to
see if Snowy needed a break from everyone. He was especially protective on
those days, checking even well-meaning team mates if they got too close or too
bothersome. He always made it look like an accident, but Snowy knew it was
deliberate.
There
were other days too, days when they had nothing to do and no one to see, when
Snowy could just let himself feel. It was a relief sometimes, to let all the
emotions flow, and he would lay on top of Tater on the couch while Cosmos with Russian subtitles would play
on the TV. They were days tinged with the overabundance of sorrow inside of him
that sometimes needed to leak out, but they were good days all the same. Tater
would pet his head, make sure he ate, and smile at him even when he couldn’t
smile back.
Inside
Snowy’s dresser was a periodically changing t-shirt of Tater’s, given back when
it no longer smelled like him in exchange for another. It was great for lonely
moments, when they had to be apart either due to travel or keeping up
appearances. Tater had a different method, instead forcing a teddy bear in a
Falconers jersey onto Snowy every time he came over. At first Snowy obliged him
if only because of his puppy dog eyes, but eventually it became natural for him
to carry the bear around Tater’s apartment, nuzzling it in attempt to leave
some comfort with his partner. He offered to spray some of his cologne on it as
well, but Tater said he liked the smell better when it was directly from him.
There
were some careless things they always left behind as well, unmatched socks,
ties, books, belts, the occasional toothbrush. There wasn’t much they couldn’t
claim as their own, or write off as left behind after a drunken night spent at
a friend’s house. The things that couldn’t be treated so blasé were well
hidden, but even so they were good friends, everyone knew that. There was
nothing that couldn’t be explained in some way, so they left pieces of
themselves behind for the other to find, to look at, to love, and felt so much
closer for it. In a way it was almost domestic, and it was certainly love.
I agree, all men should learn about women’s sexuality by reading My Immortal.
Hi friend! Foz here. Just a couple of points:
– I’ve specified good fanfiction in literally the first tweet. While this is, obviously, a value judgement wherein YMMV, My Immortal is famous for being arguably the most terrible fanfic ever written, and is therefore demonstrably not what I’m talking about. Similarly, I’ve seen other responses to this post bring up 50 Shades, which, despite its popularity in mainstream circles, is pretty much universally regarded as being not just terrible fanfic, but an excruciatingly bad and dangerously inaccurate portrayal of BDSM that romanticises abuse. So no: these are not the droids you’re looking for.
– Here’s the thing, though: you already knew that. The decision to respond to this post with a flippant reference to a fic that’s notorious precisely because of its poor quality is exactly why I used up precious Twitter characters to specify good fanfic, even though I shouldn’t have had to. Every mode of artistic expression is composed of good, bad and mediocre works, but when it comes to genres that are traditionally viewed as less worthy or literary – like fanfiction, or romance – we have a reflexive tendency to conflate the bad with the whole, such that the good is implied to be either exceptional or nonexistant. I specified that I’m talking about good fanfiction, not because I think such fics are an exalted minority, but to pre-emptively combat the assertion that they are, and then you’ve gone and made it anyway. So, thanks for that.
– But while we’re on the subject of quality, let’s make a very important distinction. Though fanfic is a largely unmediated medium, it’s not bad; it’s amateur, in the very literal, dictionary-definition sense of engaging or engaged in without payment; non-professional. While there’s a stereotype that lots of ficwriters are teenage girls – which, why is that always wielded as an insult? oh right, misogyny, carry on – a lot of us are, in fact, grown-ass adults of varying genders, some of whom also happen to write professionally in other contexts; like me, for instance. I’ve read fanfics that are unquestionably as good as, if not better than, many professionally published works I’ve read, some I’ve simply enjoyed or felt meh about, and others where I’ve mounted up on my Nopetopus and ridden off into the sunset after the first paragraph. It’s a grab bag, is what I’m saying, but if you think that’s an inherently different spectrum of enjoyment over quality than applies to any other medium, then I’d politely invite you to reconsider the matter.
– In conclusion: fanfic might not be your bag, but it has its own culture of editing, collaboration, publication, criticism and dissemination, its own conventions and subversions of same, its own extensive history and trope awareness, and, yes, its near-unique status as a medium invested in female sexual desire. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other things straight dudes can do to learn the mystical ways of What Women Want like, oh, say, talking to them, always bearing in mind that women are not a goddamn hivemind, but given that there are a frightening number of guys out there whose first or primary exposure to any type of porn is whatever degrading mainstream het they can scrouge up for free without virusing the hell out of their PCs, then yeah: I’m gonna go out on a fucking limb and suggest they maybe balance it out with some fanfic.
This might be the best summary of the power of fan fiction and its inherent lessons about women’s sexuality that I’ve ever seen.
And if you look to your left you’ll see a well written, well thought out piece “In Defence of Fanfiction”.
I LOVE THIS SO SO MUCH
“ends in cuddling/conversation” this made me cry. I just want to be cuddled and be able to talk about things after, not left on my own. (goals for the future i guess?)
I was cruising through the net, following the cold trail of one of the periodic “Is or is not Fanfic the Ultimate Literary Evil?” arguments that crop up regularly, and I’m now bursting to make a point that I never see made by fic defenders.
We’re all familiar with the normal defenses of fic: it’s done out of love, it’s training, it’s for fun. Those are all good and valid defenses!
But they miss something. They damn with faint praise. Because the thing is, when you commit this particular Ultimate Literary Evil you’ve now told a story. And stories are powerful. The fact that it wasn’t in an original world or with original characters doesn’t necessarily make it less powerful to any given reader.
I would never have made this argument a few years ago. A few years ago I hadn’t received messages from people who were deeply touched by something I wrote in fanfic. So what if it’s only two or three or four people, and I used someone else’s world and characters? For those two or three or four people, I wrote something fucking important. You cannot tell me that isn’t a valid use of my time and expect me to feel chastened. I don’t buy it. I won’t feel ashamed. I will laugh when you call something that touches other people ‘literary masturbation.’ Apparently you’re not too up on your sex terminology.
Someone could argue that if I’d managed the same thing with original characters in an original world, it could’ve touched more people. They might be right! On the other hand, it might never have been accepted for publication, or found a market if self published, and more importantly I would never have written it because I didn’t realize I could write. The story wouldn’t have happened. Instead, thanks to fanfic being a thing, it did. And for two or three or four people it mattered. When we talk about defending fanfic, can we occasionally talk about that?
I once had an active serviceman who told me that my FF7 and FF8 fic helped get him through the war. That’ll humble you. People have told me my fanfic helped get them through long nights, through grief, through hard times. It was a solace to people who needed solace. And because it was fanfic, it was easier to reach the people who needed it. They knew those people already. That world was dear to them already. They were being comforted by friends, not strangers.
Stories are like swords. Even if you’ve borrowed the sword, even if you didn’t forge it yourself from ore and fire, it’s still your body and your skill that makes use of it. It can still draw blood, it can strike down things that attack you, it can still defend something you hold dear. Don’t get me wrong, a sword you’ve made yourself is powerful. You know it down to its very molecules, are intimate with its heft and its reach. It is part of your own arm. But that can make you hesitate to use it sometimes, if you’re afraid that swinging it too recklessly will notch the blade. Is it strong enough, you think. Will it stand this? I worked so hard to make it. A blade you snatched up because you needed a weapon in your hand is not prey to such fears. You will use it to beat against your foes until it either saves you or it shatters.
But whether you made that sword yourself or picked it up from someone who fell on the field, the fight you fight with it is always yours.
Literary critics who sneer at fanfic are so infuriatingly shortsighted, because they all totally ignore how their precious literature, as in individual stories that are created, disseminated, and protected as commercial products, are a totally modern industrial capitalist thing and honestly not how humans have ever done it before like a couple centuries ago. Plus like, who benefits most from literature? Same dudes who benefit most from capitalism: the people in power, the people with privilege. There’s a reason literary canon is composed of fucking white straight dudes who write about white straight dudes fucking.
Fanfiction is a modern expression of the oral tradition—for the rest of us, by the rest of us, about the rest of us—and I think that’s fucking wonderful and speaks to a need that absolutely isn’t being met by the publishing industry. The need to come together as a close community, I think, and take the characters of our mythology and tell them getting drunk and married and tricked and left behind and sent to war and comforted and found again and learning the lessons that every generation learns over and over. It’s wonderful. I love it. I’m always going to love it.
Stories are fractal by nature. Even when there’s just one version in print, you have it multiplied by every reader’s experience of it in light of who they are, what they like, what they want. And then many people will put themselves in the place of the protagonist, or another character, and spend a lot of time thinking about what they’d do in that character’s place. Or adjusting happenings so they like the results better.
That’s not fic yet, but it is a story.
But the best stories grow. This can happen in the language of capitalism—a remake of a classic movie, a series of books focusing on what happened afterwards or before—or it can happen in the language of humanity. Children playing with sticks as lightsabers, Jedi Princess Leia saving Alderaan by dueling Vader; a father reading his kids The Hobbit as a bedtime story as an interactive, “what would you like to happen next?” way so that the dwarves win the wargs over with doggie biscuits that they had in their pockets and ride to Erebor on giant wolves, people writing and sharing their ideas for deleted outtake scenes from Star Trek and slow-build fierce and tender romance with startling bursts of hot sex between Hawkeye and Agent Coulson.
A story at its most successful is a fully developed fractal, retold a million times and a million ways, with stories based on stories based on stories. Fanfic of fanfic of fanfic. Stories based on headcanons, stories based on prompts, stories that put the Guardians of the Galaxy in a coffee-shop AU and stories where the Transformers are planet-wandering nomads and stories where characters from one story are placed into a world from another. Stories that could be canon, stories that are the farthest thing from canon, stories that are plausible, stories that would never happen, stories that give depth to a character or explore the consequences of one different plot event or rewrite the whole thing from scratch.
This is what stories are supposed to be.
This is what stories are.
Fandom and fan creations are a communal act. They do not disguise how they are influenced by each other. They revel in it.
Literature was once a communal act, too. Film as well. It’s only once we decided to extend and expand the idea of copyright and turn stories into primarily vehicles for profit that we rejected this communal structure. The literary canon shouldn’t be all dead white men. They didn’t build the novel. They didn’t build theater. They took what was already there and said “This is mine now,” and we believed them.
Creativity is communal. There is no such thing as the lone genius on a mountaintop. Ideas are passed around, handed back and forth, growing all the time. Fandom is what human creativity looks like in its normal form. Fandom is like this because humans are like this.
We didn’t just borrow the sword. We remade it because we saw in it the potential for something better. And we did that together, all of us.
Kudos to fanfiction writers for writing about all the trauma and emotional and mental turmoil that the original content creators dont acknowledge when putting characters through hell
just moving along like everyone else 