extemporally

all the ridic stories that a Regina Spektor song makes me want

ridic figure skating stories?

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yes. /o\

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tell me more!

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dance anthem of the 80s

1. The Regency AU where Johnny enters the Season with all kinds of disadvantages stacked up against him because of his reputation, and Galina's his chaperoned. At some point "meat market" is referenced, and Johnny smirks meaningfully and everyone else groans because this doesn't really help his chances of getting a husband.

2. The one where Evan watches Johnny sleep. What, plot?

(No, but seriously, I love that scene in the accidental marriage fic where Evan watches Johnny sleep surreptitiously, but really he just looks creepy and confused.)

3. The lame boppy high school AU where Johnny isn't a cheerleader, and Evan doesn't play football. Johnny decides that relationships are so lame, and that he'll just "go solo" until he graduates! Everyone lines up to change his mind.

4. The melodramatic one where Evan stumbles down a street like a drunk but-not, like someone sad but-not. And Johnny sees him, and even from a distance he can tell Evan's lumber is different from what it usually is. Normally this wouldn't worry him (since when does Evan Lysacek ever worry him, anyway?), but Evan's seriously lurching, so he goes over and says -- "Hey. Hey. What's wrong with you?"

"What do you mean?" Evan mumbles. "What's wrong with you?"

Drunkenness means there are no personal boundaries, so Johnny can feel Evan's breath fanning hot on his neck.

... etc, etc.

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I WOULD READ ALL OF THOSE BUT ESPECIALLY THE RECENCY ONE AND THE SLEEPING ONE. *___________*

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Right?? The Regency fic needs to exist right now. There are even pictures and everything! I'm not sure if it should be Johnny/Stephane or Johnny/Evan. THOUGHTS PLZ.

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i always vote for stephane, but i'd honestly read either.

plus, there are the eight million prince charming costumes. maybe he is a ~mysterious foreigner from the continent? so he's new in town, and he wasn't around for Johnny's scandalous period (even if gossip tells him them all anyway) so he's a better hope for johnny since he didn't actually witness johnny doing whatever johnny did? and johnny is a little bit distressed by the thought that his only hope for a marriage is with some random swiss guy. (and no one knows his name! he's just 'that swiss guy'!)

fyi, i know NOTHING about regency, not even as filtered through fandom and romance novels so i'm just making shit up without any thought as to plausibility ('plausibility').

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Ooh, yes! And the thing is, he's so hard to figure out. Johnny came into this season primed for bitchy repartee and thinly-veiled gossip! And this guy's just interested in, like, getting to know him. Couldn't he have just looked it up in Burke's Peerage? All the stuff about his family is in there.

Then they get caught in a compromising position (oh, Stephane, you seriously have to stop cuddling people), and have to get married. :( O SHIT, Johnny Weir. He doesn't even want to live in Switzerland.

I know very little about the Regency period too! But what you've got so far is definitely workable I think...

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why is stephane in england looking for a marriage? (is this even set in england?) his family sent him there to get married because....idk. maybe johnny has a large fortune and their families either arrange or strongly encourage it? (maybe it's through Galina? if we knew why stephane went to jersey to train, we could borrow that piece of canon.)

and stephane cuddles everyone, it's just he got caught with johnny, and johnny knows about that but doesn't know if he's special or just unlucky or what.

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I think he wouldn't be looking for marriage! He just wants to hang out, but then he stumbles into the middle of the Season and suddenly there are all these people wanting him to marry their brothers/sisters/sons/daughters, and the nuances of this might be lost on him. He's just like, "Everyone is so welcoming! :D :D"

Idk if Johnny would have a large fortune. In the light of his recent "trophy wife" remarks I'm reading him as the one who has to marry for money, only that's kind of difficult given that his reputation is what it is.

Stephane cuddles Johnny in a dark place, and Johnny, for once mindful of the maiden virtue he has to preserve, tries to shrug him off! Only in the midst of this struggle someone comes upon them and interprets it as sexytimes? :D? (Oh my god, Stephane would feel so guilty about this.)

Also, on listening to that damn song for the like 50th time: ridic story #5: Hooker AU. I DON'T KNOW OKAY. /o\

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Jumping in to say OH MY GOD I want this fic so badly now.

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I THINK YOU SHOULD WRITE IT. Yes.

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noooo it's less fun that way :(

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It's for the common good!

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yeats.livejournal.com

i'd be happy/thrilled/yoursforlife if you just told me the background of the lingerie story.... like, i absolutely love where johnny and stéphane are as a couple, but a part of me is dying to know how they got there, in london, together the way they are.

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Okay, so!

I think what I enjoy most about Johnny/Stephane as a pairing (besides the fact that it could TOTALLY happen, look at my tinhat) is the fact that they've known each other for years and years and years. (I really enjoy the dynamic of a relationship where you can't really pull dress up or perform or bullshit the other person without them seeing through you at least a tiny little bit.) But more to your point, I think my personal canon for Johnny/Stephane in any vaguely canon-adherent story I write would be that they probably hooked up a whole bunch of times while they were both competing, but it doesn't mean anything, and probably they're more fuckbuddies than anything else. They keep things light for a couple of reasons: a) they have no reason to think that the other person could be anything more, it's just Stephane, I've known him for years! and b) they're competitors. It's a stupid idea.

This probably changes at the Olympics. I read and really enjoyed this fill over at the kink meme and it made me go, "oh, shit" because once they both retire, I guess there isn't that frame to them meeting regularly/hooking up. I like to believe that they'll remain friends and won't fail at keeping in touch after the Olympics, but who knows! There probably would be an added urgency to actually making something of this thing they have.

I am also really bad at thinking about and writing about people Talking Things Out, so in my head they don't really do that. I'm pretty certain, though, that Johnny says, "You should just live with me," out loud before realising that he doesn't actually intend it in jest as much as he thought it did, and Stephane says, "Why not?" in a way that suggests that he's thinking about a far-off world in which it actually is possible. Then they both realise that this IS possible, since they're both retiring anyway.

I don't think that their getting together is a very bombastic occasion, basically! It's just a combination of things suddenly becoming possible and them realising that these things are possible, and in my head this is kind of related to the way Stephane says he just wants to skate in ice shows -- not necessarily so it'll be easier, but so he can skate easier. And even though they're both huge drama queens, there's an unspoken agreement between the both of them to try it out, see if things could be as easy as they seem to be. So they decide to try this relationship thing out by going on holiday together.

... and that's basically it! I hope this makes sense.

From:

egelantier.livejournal.com

Eventually Brendon gets used to the thought that he’s walking on paper. He tries not to hold his breath, even though he can’t help like feeling the entire street is going to collapse beneath his weight.

The trees here are also made of paper. Brendon shades his eyes against the sun – thankfully emitting real light and not paper glares – and watches as a wind rustles crumpled fan-shaped white leaves to the creased pavement. It makes him think of how he’d tried to catch leaves as they fell, back when he was a kid in Las Vegas.

The landscape is too severe here. Not a single person in sight, and Brendon’s glad for that. He doesn’t think he could deal with seeing paper humans.

He walks around a little trying to wrap his head around the whole idea – definitely he can’t stay the night on a paper bed. Soon he’ll move on. He wonders why he never heard of this town.

It’s when Brendon thinks he might go back and move on, that he passes by a shop and doubles back. It’s the same fucking toyshop from yesterday and the day before.

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Oh man, I almost forgot about this story. ♥

It's always been a huge struggle writing dialogue, for me. I think I only begun to think of it as something fun shortly after discovering figure skating fandom (ha, you know I was going to bring this up!) because of the way banter is deployed in a lot of Johnny/Evan fic there, and the fact that Be Good Johnny Weir has a whole bunch of soundbites so you really get to familiarise yourself with the way Johnny Weir speaks.

So for a long, long time I felt like my favourite part of writing was describing scenery, and this scene is a pretty classic in terms of that. I've kind of had the prototype for this scene in my head for a long long time -- I'm not sure if this came from another book or a scene on TV or what, but basically I was writing about this and thinking about snow or ice, and how it makes everything, including sound, more muted. And paper is white like snow, right? Also the fact that everything being made of paper would necessarily mute a lot of stuff. When I wrote this I was essentially imagining a scene of immense silence, and I enjoyed thinking about it. I kind of wish I could live in a paper town. /o\

And of course, the magical realism bit. This whole lack of reaction is one of my favourite things about magical realism; the fact that the weirdest shit can happen and people only get slightly surprised by it. Brendon's certainly never seen a paper town before, but he isn't that fazed. It's the reappearance of the toyshop that is genuinely noteworthy, although that too isn't so much amazing as it is really, really annoying. I kind of like where you cut it off there!

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egelantier.livejournal.com

When I wrote this I was essentially imagining a scene of immense silence, and I enjoyed thinking about it

yesssssss *_______*

the magical realism, yeah: the way you can pick and choose what would be startling in it and what wouldn't, the arbitrariness of it. the way weird things won't be so weird, but emotions maybe would.

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nova33.livejournal.com

All of the fic ideas you discussed above sound excellent, just so you know.

Ryan begins taking early morning walks, just to photograph the city through Polaroids. He knows what he is doing is clichéd and sentimental but he loves it. Summer is turning to fall and Ryan wants to capture this strange, wistful mood that seems to have overtaken the brash city he’s known forever before it slips through his fingers. He takes photos sparingly, determined to make the roll of film last to the very start of autumn – that his last photo should be of leaves turning to red or maybe starting to drop. One or two days he returns without any new prints, his head full of the photo he would have taken had it looked as well through the viewfinder as he thought it would.

PS - Do you think I could do this meme? I have held off because I feel like I haven't written enough, or at least not anything people would want to hear commentary on.

Edited Date: Wednesday, 28 April 2010 11:22 (UTC)

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you should TOTALLY do it! I will definitely ask for something, at the very least.

more thoughts on your paragraph later, but I just wanted to tell you to do it. DO IT. :D

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nova33.livejournal.com

Done!

Will respond to your response later, too - I have been called in early to work.

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So, right. This fic is basically about Ryan Ross carrying out that stereotypically hipster activity! I also wanted to show everyone being on the brink of change -- him being in a serious relationship with Keltie, Brendon & Spencer moving in together -- so basically this fic is about capturing memories. And, I guess, making it more beautiful. I don't remember what I was thinking when I wrote this, but now I'm reading this self-consciousness into it -- that his last photo should be of leaves turning to red or maybe starting to drop -- Ryan loves photographs, but he always wants to be in control here. Or, his head full of the photo he would have taken -- that same gap between seeing something and thinking about what it should be like, I think, is quintessentially Ryan Ross for me.

(Another thing quintessentially Ryan Ross and a large part of the reason I love him: He knows what he is doing is cliched and sentimental but he loves it. I think this line still holds up pretty well, that sense of self-acknowledgment, given the I know it's stupid! I'm still going to do it! and post lots of pictures of myself to Twitter doing it! vibe you get from him these days.)

If I'd written this fic now, though, I probably would have focused on something else. This is kind of obvious, given that I wrote it one and a half years ago! I mean, I would probably have used this to examine Ryan Ross taking photos of himself (I'm kind of surprised that back then I didn't hit on that motif), that particular fascination he has with being looked at and so on. It would have probably been more a more -- for lack of a better word -- psychological, than pretty, fic.

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nova33.livejournal.com

See, but I don't think the fic comes across as just pretty anyway. I think you do get a lot of what's going on inside his hide, and that it's a control thing, something he's doing to get a handle on things as they all start to change.

And yes, I definitely think that one line is very, very Ryan Ross - like he should hate the cliche, hipster that he is, but...he totally doesn't. (I think that's a sentiment a lot of people share, actually.)

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Yeah, definitely, that was my characterisation of Ryan Ross: everything changing and growing up, and while I wouldn't call it erroneous it is probably really obvious (references to Brendon & Spencer & Jon aside) that this was written before the split, hoo boy.

I don't regret the pretty, though! It feels like I've become more interested in other aspects of writing so my focus is on other things these days, but I definitely have moments of wishing I could write pretty things unabashedly like I used to.

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UM BASICALLY I want DVD commentary for all of Aptly Laced but whatever, I will c&p. There is just so much I love about that fic, that on the surface it's lingerie porn but really it's about this lovely, trusting relationship between people who know each other so well that they can read between the lines of what the other person is and isn't saying, and things like that are LITERALLY MY FAVORITE EVER, LITERALLY LITERALLY LITERALLY. It's probably my favorite Johnny/Stephane dynamic of anything I've read in the fandom so far because they actually seem like real people. It's so warm and funny and affectionate.

“What’s this?” Stéphane pauses at the bathroom counter.

“Oh, hey, underwear's still there,” Johnny says. He forgot to put the lingerie away. The other sets are still nestled in the white box on the bathroom counter.

Stéphane looks excited. “You bought more than one set?” he asks.

Johnny rolls his eyes. “Obviously,” he says. Johnny Weir doesn't do anything by halves.

"I want to see," Stéphane says. His voice is cheery; enthusiastic, but there's still something shy in the downsweep of his lashes and the way his hands are moving.

“You could,” Johnny says. Maybe it's just instinct that makes him say, “Or you could wear.”

“Me?” Stéphane asks.

Johnny nods. “I think these might fit you, too.”

Stéphane tips his head back and looks at the ceiling. With the crappy fluorescent bathroom lighting shining on him, Johnny can see the way Stéphane's throat moves when he swallows.

“You choose,” he says.

“All right,” Johnny says, and picks out a corset for Stéphane to wear under his t-shirt with one hand, as the other rests on the small of Stéphane's back.

Please write me an essay!

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And lol I just read the comments and you've already talked about it some. WHATEVER, if you have anything else to say please do!!

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OH MY GOD YOU. ♥♥♥ I just want to draw hearts around this comment because a) I was hoping someone would choose this, actually and b) what a coincidence, you write my favourite Johnny/Stephane!! Wot the hell, wot the hell. Just trust that I am doing this right at my computer screen okay.

So, general stuff about this fic: um, I'm very pleased with the summary?
It's not by any means the last great performance of Johnny Weir's life, but it still ranks pretty high. <-- if there ever was a topic sentence for this fic, that would be it. This fic is about a lot of things: performance, retirement, the way they Johnny & Stephane are to each other, and lingerie. A few things off the top of my head:

1. Thinking about Johnny in lingerie is the most fascinating thing on earth. It's not as intuitive as it seems! I mean, yes, he's got the fragile bone structure and the fine red lip, and is an androgynous gossamer etc (all these descriptions always make me giggle stupidly) but when it comes down to it, he's an athlete. There are a couple of pictures which really reinforce that, he's got abs and biceps and thighs and ass and EVERYTHING, so wearing lingerie is a contrast. It's disconcerting how girly Johnny Weir is until he takes off his shirt and you're like, oh right. ATHLETE. I don't think I managed to translate the visual impact of that well enough, although there were some obvious sentences about that when Johnny looked at himself in the mirror.

2. Johnny's athletic body also made me think about how long that might last after retirement. This fic was also a little bit about how he might be coping with retirement. Not so much about career angst and how Johnny Weir might fill his days -- although I think there is a fic to be written about that! -- but also, what you do when no one's actually looking at you. Johnny Weir likes being looked at.

2a. Also, to belabour the point once more: if you don't train, your nice muscles go away. Johnny is vain enough that this would probably be something he actually thinks about.

3. Lingerie is also about performance & dressing up. Johnny Weir LOVES dressing up and performing. But by its very nature? Wearing lingerie during sex is inherently different from hamming it up for the camera. Performing for the camera seems like a very... bolshy thing to do, whereas sex (at least sex in the context of this fic and this relationship) is pretty intimate. The kind of playacting that Johnny does to the camera is basically something he shouldn't be doing during sex. And if he did, Stephane would see right through him, I think. They've known each other for a really long time.

3a. I'm still not really sure about how I handled the sex scene, uh. On one hand I didn't want it be, "sex is special when there are lacy things involved!" although my beta pointed out that I seemed to have forgotten the existence of the lingerie completely when they were having sex. So I added in a couple of lines.

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4. I think the Viacheslav-interviews-Lambiel scene was possibly the most :D and /o\ scene to write. It's hard to get Viacheslav down! I'm not convinced by a fair number of his lines, although I do like “We regret to inform that Mr. Lambiel is passed out from drugs again,” he says into the air. “No more transmission.” It's also about performance, once again, and how feasible it is to do that when no one (or only one person) is looking at you. I also wanted to make it clear that Stephane was kind of performing there, giving the diplomatic face Johnny’s seen him give to reporters who ask stupid questions before even if it isn't immediately obvious.

I like thinking about Viacheslav as Johnny's alter-ego a lot, and sometimes he voices out Johnny's anxieties. "That is not sexy," Johnny says. Pronoun usage totally intentional, there.

5. I enjoy the Johnny/Evan relationship for a number of reasons: that combativeness, the (one-sided) banter, the fact that they're pushing each others' buttons all the time. But I also think it's very easy to stereotype ships in a way that seems very limiting and reductive -- so if that's Johnny/Evan, what's left for Johnny/Stephane? Cuddles and long time friendship? I mean, I like cuddles and long-time friendship a lot! But I wanted to show that they're equally capable of pushing each others' buttons, perhaps in healthier ways than the Johnny/Evan dynamic. Like, Stephane tells Johnny he thinks it's hot, he rescues Johnny when he's feeling weirdly embarrassed, etc. They call each other out on their hang-ups and bullshit nicely.

5a. Therefore the ending! A lot of the fic was about Johnny's hang-ups, and I wanted to reverse that. (Or oh, who am I lying, I came up with the image first and sort of worked with it.) I don't know why Johnny & Stephane are so reluctant to say they like wearing lingerie in this fic, exactly, they don't seem like self-conscious dudes in real life. Except that I'd be wary of going, "If Johnny Weir liked lingerie in real life, he'd wear it all the time. LOUDLY." I think my only answer would be that sex is private. For all Johnny's hyper-sexualised image, there are some things he keeps sacred. (Like what brand of moisturiser he uses, Johnny, ilu. ♥)

Mostly I just like the image of Johnny calling Stephane out on what he desires, too, and going, yeah, we can work with that, and telling him "wear this", while touching him.

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&hearts I have so many thoughts about this and I will be coming back!

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Oh man, do! I'd love to hear what you thought. :D

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preromantics.livejournal.com

YOU SHOULD TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE FIC REGINA SPEKTOR SONGS MAKE YOU WANT. since the above is most awesome. *nods* *breaks rules*

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I WILL ASSUME THIS MEANS YOU WANT TO WRITE IT and therefore want me to tell you more so you can start writing.

Basically Regency fic is an excuse for one of my most favourite fic tropes ever: arranged marriages!! Johnny has a shitty reputation and everyone thinks his virtue's been despoiled but he's still a virgin, OOH. He thinks Stephane will be boring in bed but the truth says otherwise, OOH. Johnny gets irritated with the amount of clinging Stephane does to him on a daily basis but gets jealous when he hugs other people, OOH. BASICALLY I WANT THIS LIKE BURNING.

(deleted comment)

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OKAY HAVE SOME THOUGHTS. ♥

When I write fic set in another country, especially countries where band people (or figure skaters!) aren't touring, there's always a bit of a balancing act at work. I didn't want to ignore the country, but I didn't want to ignore Butcher & Sisky either. So I thought this was a nice scene, just them being quiet together in China.

colouredmango's original fic was so lovely and full of deep thoughts about what it really meant to be in China, to be befuddled by that country and the culture and to work against one's privilege that I wanted the unofficial sequel to be a little bit about that, too. So I like this line: Butcher considers the prospect briefly – living in a house with about fifty other families – like an apartment complex, only with each unit being less circumscribed – full of his favourite people. He’d quite like that, he thinks, only he doesn’t know if he’d get any alone time with Sisky.

-- because of the contrast, although that might only be apparent to me. Asian collectivist culture, versus the bubble of Butcher&Sisky. But the whole Chicago scene, where everyone knows each other and is a little bit like a community in itself, isn't so different. Essentially it isn't so hard for Butcher to imagine actually living with fifty other people, because that's the kind of dude he is, yo. I like Butcher & Sisky! They're a pretty peaceable pair.

Butcher lets Sisky take hold of his hand and holds it so tightly around the knuckles before Sisky makes a small noise of protest and Butcher registers it, loosens his grip and gives him an apologetic look. Sisky runs his thumb over Butcher’s cuticle, and they look. They look at these large mushroom-like houses for several long moments. <-- the only "conflict" in this scene, done without words, resolved really quickly, basically.

I WILL THINK ABOUT BUTCHER&SISKY'S ADVENTURES IN ASIA AND GET BACK TO YOU. Incidentally, I have also actually been to the Hakka forts in China, which is a reason why I felt comfortable writing it into a scene. (With the other places, like Dali or wherever, I'd be like, "Am I getting this right??" but I'd make up stuff anyway.) Projecting? Me? Surely you jest! /o\

From: (Anonymous)

Love your work but crap on the abbs! What's a beta? A meme? Sorry I'm a bit dumb!

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A beta = person who looked over your fic and helped you revise it and make it better!

Meme = something you post to your journal when you see your other friends doing so, in the hope that people will respond and participate.

Hope this helps, anon! :)

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aurora

If you're still doing this, I would like to know more about how Curiouser Things (Have Been Known To Happen) came about and what your favorite parts were in it and basically anything you would like to share about it, because I reread it today and eeeeeee boyfriends! :D

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First off - I'm so glad you enjoyed it enough to reread it, eek! ♥ And, um, essentially this fic wouldn't have come about had I not written Locker Room Adventures, which was also my first story in this fandom. I wrote it because I was telling the story to

nova33 in chat, and then it suddenly became fic. That was supposed to be a one-off! A set-up for sex, basically, and I neatly circumvented the whole "but how would they even be in the same place at the same time??" thing by adding in the clunkiest bit of expository ever: Ever since the USFSA had decided to sponsor Johnny's move to L.A. where he could get better support, and had screwed up by not thinking about who else was in Los Angeles and might conceivably have many good reasons for not wanting to see Johnny Weir's face.

The sequel was meant to be slightly more serious and have a more reasonable sex to story ratio, and it was supposed to examine what it might actually be like for Johnny and Evan to train alongside each other, as well as what it might actually be like for them to have a relationship, and how they'd negotiate that. Basically, um, stumbling their way into being boyfriends!

One thing I really enjoy about any Johnny/Evan is the one-sided banter, and writing the dialogue was so fun. I'm pretty stiff when it comes to people talking things out or talking funnily or talking, period! But this was more fun than it'd been in a while -- and I was telling

nova33, "Johnny gets the bitchy one-liners, and Evan gets the hilariously uncomprehending thoughts. My subconscious is thus neatly demarcated." And yeah, basically, that's it. You really do get the best of both worlds in here, and I think Evan's big dumb point of view is pretty great, since it's a kind of limited perspective and we (the reader) get to see things he doesn't necessarily understand. Also, he is dumb and awesome omg. One of my favourite lines in here was, Evan closes his eyes and tries to imagine drinking a beer. He wonders if he can make himself drunk with the power of his mind., because it is exactly the kind of thing Evan would find himself wondering, even if he knows it's not going to happen. He's not dumb, okay? Except that he totally did just think that.

I was also really relieved when you said you enjoyed its flow, because I felt for a good while that I was basically just writing, "blah blah blah and then they did this". Which is not a bad way of writing fic! I just felt like there had to be a narrative frame, you know? Which I am extremely bad at. Maybe it should have culminated in a competition, or something, but I'm bad at figuring out competitions and results and the implications of that and so on. Another thing I am still not quite convinced by: their fight. One of my betas said that they thought that there should have been a build-up, and that's pretty true, except that I was lazy. BASICALLY. I liked that Johnny quoted Charles Kingsley ("Be good, fair maid, and let those who will be clever") and kind of mangled it for his own purpose, even though someone I showed it to said, "I don't get where that quote is from." I don't think it's a famous quote, necessarily, I just liked Johnny saying it and lording it over Evan.

From:

aurora

That was supposed to be a one-off! A set-up for sex
Heeee, I'm glad it became more, I really do.

Basically, um, stumbling their way into being boyfriends!
It's one of my favorite fic tropes, it really is! :D

Also, he is dumb and awesome omg.
Ahaha, I think that's a great description of Evan. (That beer line was one of my favorites, too; it made me laugh so hard.)

I liked that Johnny quoted Charles Kingsley ("Be good, fair maid, and let those who will be clever")
Oh, I was wondering what this was a reference to as well (I suspected it might be a piece of US cultural background that my ESL self didn't get.)

and the first drive in Johnny's car,
Yesssssssssss.

people seem to neglect that Johnny's an athlete a lot (in my head, this is also related to the part in Locker Room Adventures where Evan enters the locker room and Johnny's upset. He was probably sad over skating badly that day, I think).
A WORLD OF YES. I would like to see one interview wherein the word 'flamboyant' isn't used, just one!!

Only I got lazy, uh. Now you know all my secrets. :D
*steeples fingers* Excellent!

This was indeed very satisfying, thank you for the detailed commentary.

ps: I don't think I mentioned this in my initial comment to the story, but for some reason this is my favorite part:
He can’t even stop tucking his hand into the back of Johnny’s jeans, like they’re real boyfriends and this is a real relationship.

"Sorry," he says every time. "Sorry, sorry, sorry."

Eventually Johnny says, "Stop apologising."

So he stops apologizing. He doesn't stop feeling like each moment he touches Johnny is an apology-worthy moment, but he doesn't stop kissing or touching Johnny either. God knows that's all he's allowed to do.
IT BREAKS MY HEART IN MOST DELICIOUS WAYS.

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