potentialities

I don't exclusively want to torment poor Patrick Mahomes in my fic. This time I wrote about nice things happening to him! Well, eventually.

Exposure (5440 words) by mayhap
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: National Football League RPF
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Travis Kelce/Patrick Mahomes
Characters: Travis Kelce, Patrick Mahomes
Additional Tags: Woke Up Married, Las Vegas Wedding, Anal Sex, Fluff, Outing, Crack Treated Seriously, Alternate Universe - No Girlfriends/No Wives, Super Bowl LIV, Feelings
Summary:

In the middle of celebrating their Super Bowl LIV win, Travis Kelce wakes up married. To Patrick Mahomes. Oh yeah, and there are pictures plastered all over the internet. Fuck.

I've wanted to read this fic for four years now and I finally ended up writing it instead, whoops.

There were two really fun storylines for Royals fans to follow this season: Salvador Perez hitting all the home runs, and the budding frenemyship between two-time All-Star 2B Whit Merrifield and second-year starting pitcher Brady Singer. The former is fairly self-explanatory, but I thought I’d retrace the timeline of the latter for my own enjoyment and the edification of anyone who might be interested.

When the Royals drafted Brady Singer out of the University of Florida with the 18th overall pick in the 2018 draft he was most famous for an incident that took place during game three of the Super Regional with Wake Forest. With a trip to the College World Series on the line, Brady was on the mound with a narrow 1-0 lead when the rain, which had already plagued the series with delays, began pouring in the second inning. The ensuing rain delay meant Brady's start was going to be cut short, and he was not happy about it. At all. He made this very clear in a full-on tantrum in front of the cameras on ESPN. (Don't worry, this story had a happy ending for Brady and his Gator teammates; after the rain, they came back to win this game and, eventually, the College World Series. Still, rain is his nemesis and this is his origin story.)

After Brady was drafted, this video got a little boost as it spread to people who don't follow college baseball but do follow the MLB draft. I was among those who discovered it at that time. Then it lay largely dormant in the back of my mind as Brady worked his way up through high-A, then AA, and even when he made the leap to the major league level in the shortened 2020 season. Then, as the 2021 season approached, Whit Merrifield, who led the league twice in hits and once in stolen bases, attacked a new challenge with the same intensity.

Things started small. Alec Lewis, Royals beat writer for The Athletic, tweeted that the weather smelled like baseball in Kansas City, and Whit Merrifield—still in Arizona wrapping up spring training—replied thusly: “As long as it’s not raining Alec. We all know how much BSinger51 hates the rain.” Lest anyone miss the reference, he swiftly followed this with a quote tweet of a clip of the famous video with a little commentary of his own: “It’s the left handed, failed glove spike that gets me.”

“Forecast looks solid!! We’ll be good,” Brady responded brightly to the first tweet, ignoring the second.

On April 10th, the Royals' game against the White Sox was rained out. Whit debuted this gloriously low-resolution screencap of Brady's mid-tantrum face in reply:



( The rest of this is going behind a cut because it's very long and there are a lot of pictures and videos. )

Reviving this feature because it's wild card weekend eve and you'd probably wonder why there is suddenly NFL content on your friendslist, and the answer is that ionthesparrow incepted me into it.

(How did I end up in another sports RPF fandom where there isn't enough fic and most of it is for a team that I won't read? The Patriots, in this case.)

This Won't Hurt (15506 words) by ionthesparrow
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: National Football League RPF, Sports RPF
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Alex Smith/Dustin Colquitt
Characters: Alex Smith, Dustin Colquitt, Eric Berry, Jamaal Charles
Additional Tags: Kansas City Chiefs
Summary:

The average NFL QB stands 6’3” and weighs about 225. The average quarterback career runs about 6 years, depending on who you believe, and allowing for the variance generated by guys like Blanda and Favre, and all the cup-of-coffee players littering the other side of the bell curve. All that makes it seem Alex is sitting pretty square in the middle of things, average in all senses of the word.

But Alex has always been exceptional.

Utterly gorgeous story of how Alex Smith found a home in Kansas City in 2013.

Take, Eat (3440 words) by ionthesparrow
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: National Football League RPF, Sports RPF
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Relationships: Brett Favre/Aaron Rodgers
Characters: Aaron Rodgers, Brett Favre
Additional Tags: Sex Is Not The Enemy
Summary:

Brett always gets to say where. Brett always gets to say when.

Deliciously messed-up, scorchingly hot.

I am the luckiest Yuletider in the world! I got this long, perfect sequel to a book that is as obscure as it is beloved by me:

A House For Me (12120 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Woman in the Wall - Patrice Kindl
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Anna Newland/F | Francis Albright
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Growing Up, Chicago (City), romance between stepsiblings
Summary:

How Anna Newland made herself at home in Chicago.

And this delightful treat about my favorite baseball players:

Life On Line (1082 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Baseball RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lorenzo Cain & Salvador Pérez
Characters: Lorenzo Cain, Salvador Pérez
Summary:

Salvy visits Lolo in the off-season. Lorenzo wishes he'd stop calling him that.

I just realized, reading both stories together, that the common thread running through all three of my requests was people being pushed outside of their comfort zones in various ways.

Friday fics return this week, thanks to Night on Fic Mountain as well as two other stories I found in my notes when I came to make this post.

Love Notes (835 words) by MacBeth
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: History/Lexicon
Characters: History - Character, Lexicon - Character, Death (Discworld), The Librarian (Discworld)
Additional Tags: Footnote love, Crossover, The History and Practice of English Magic, The Dictionary of Eye-Watering Words, some library books will never be returned
Summary:

"When two footnotes love each other . . . "
. . . is a prompt too good to resist.

Written for Lost Spook's second "Obscure & British" fic fest.

Utterly delightful, especially if you love footnotes as much as I do.

Foreign territory (2467 words) by iridescentglow
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hannibal (TV) RPF, Hannibal (TV)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Hugh Dancy/Mads Mikkelsen, Mads Mikkelsen/Hugh Dancy/Claire Danes
Characters: Mads Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy, Claire Danes
Additional Tags: Threesome, Polyamory, Smoking, Alcohol
Summary:

Mads, who has an open marriage, decides to introduce Hugh and Claire to the concept. With a threesome, obviously.

I also love open marriages. And Claire Danes. I basically find everything about this story super-charming. ♥

judy is a punk (4350 words) by margot_tenenbaum
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Margot Tenenbaum/Richie Tenenbaum, Eli Cash/Margot Tenenbaum, Margot Tenenbaum/OC
Characters: Margot Tenenbaum, Richie Tenenbaum, Chas Tenenbaum, Etheline Tenenbaum, Eli Cash, Rachael Evans Tenenbaum
Summary:

Everywhere Margot sees her own name, the word "genius" follows. Margot has a sizeable IQ, an impressive vocabulary, and is versed in three languages but the word genius will be infinitely puzzling.

I really like Margot's voice in this story; appropriately enough, as on reveal it turned out to be written by 'margot_tenenbaum'.

Things Which Catch the Eye (2848 words) by petrichoral
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Pillow Book - Sei Shônagon, Heian jidai | Heian Period RPF
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Murasaki Shikibu/Sei Shonagon
Characters: Sei Shonagon, Murasaki Shikibu
Additional Tags: Flirting
Summary:

Really, it's bad enough that you have to deal with these sorts of people in the cooler months. In summer I wish they'd just take themselves off to the provinces and all be disagreeable at each other, and leave us alone.

I've only read bits of the Pillow Book (admittedly, it's written to be read that way) and acquired copies of The Tale of Genji that I intend to open at some point, but this story is simply the best.

Two for Joy (3389 words) by sevenofspade
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Loki: Agent of Asgard, Journey into Mystery
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Loki (Marvel), Verity Willis
Summary:

This is a story about Loki. It doesn't feature quite as much lying as you might expect based on that. Verity won't let it.

Verity is such a great counterpoint to Loki in this story; it's perfect.

I'm a longtime fan of The Bugle, John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman's weekly news comedy podcast. I've seriously considered trying to nominate it for Yuletide, but I wasn't sure if anyone would be willing to write it for me, especially as I was having difficulty framing a request more coherent than "please write me anything whatsoever having to do with The Bugle". Maybe this year will be the year.

John Oliver's Infinitely Recursive Fanfiction Adventure (1580 words) by SailorPtah
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Fake News RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: John Oliver, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon
Additional Tags: Metafiction, Characters Reading Fanfic
Summary:

Based on a true story.

(The real-world John Oliver is advised to avoid reading this one, lest he rip a hole in the space-time continuum.)

John Oliver discovered Daily Show slash fiction and is outraged…that he isn't getting any in any of these stories. So of course someone wrote a story about that. It is awesome.

david cameron would look good in a pith helmet (what worse can you say about someone than that?) (4022 words) by therestisdetail [archive-locked]
Chapters: 3/3
Fandom: Fake News RPF
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: John Oliver/Andy Zaltzman, John Oliver/Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert/Jon Stewart
Characters: John Oliver, John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Aasif Mandvi, Demetri Martin, Samantha Bee, Jason Jones, Rob Riggle, Andy Zaltzman, Chris Addison
Summary:

This is an ode to how much I love Liz. Featuring a large amount of John Oliver, various FakeNews alumni, and Zaltor the Merciless. I mean Andy. I mean whut?

"Tell me the story of when Andy and John tried once and once only to go on a Proper Real Not-Kidding Date, and the chaos and hilarity that ensued." - Appleteeth

This is more like three ficlets, and the first and third are John/Andy. Surprisingly adorable.

I'll…try to read something slightly less niche before next Friday, I promise.

Over in the land of flailing and gifs and namesmushes (whatever, you pretty much have to use them because you can't use tags with /s on tumblr, you just have to roll with things like Mustamova), my London 2012 OTP has blossomed into a fully-fledged fandom. Two weeks ago I was plaintively demanding Viktoria Komova/Aliya Mustafina h/c fic, and now my dash is full of adorable tiny gymnasts, angsty ficlets, tinhattery and people having RPS wank for the very first time. I feel so old! (Or, alternately, so in touch with my inner gymnastics-loving 12-year-old, except this time with more kissing.)

Also: Vika was robbed on floor exercise, and if you say anything mean about her crying, Musty will cut you. </myfeels>

It's official: the second half of my figure skating OTP will be skating at the Olympics!

... oh God, that means it's been four years since Torino, doesn't it. Eep.

The newest Figure Skating International is plastered with pictures of Evgeni Plushenko and Johnny Weir being completely adorable together. Voici:

( These are not my scans, since I did not steal the magazine from the library, although I was tempted. )

I succumbed to my little brother's evil tempting and now have my very own shiny Nintendo DS Lite. Here we are:

( Me and my true love )

Now I can play Tetris. And play Tetris against my brother. And ... play more Tetris. You know, there was a time in high school where, whenever I closed my eyes, I saw tetrominoes falling and I would play out entire games of Tetris in my head without even trying. Perhaps this was a bad idea.

I also discovered that we now have an actual store in town that sells actual comic books. I'd never actually seen them in the wild before! I found Sandman #50 (Ramadan), Death: The High Cost of Living #3, and Sachs & Violens #3 in the fifty-cent boxes, so now I own exactly three genuine comics. They are pretty and fragile, like butterflies. I don't know where to put them.

Finally, I offer you this picture of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Without comment, because nothing that I say can add to its exquisite beauty. ♥ ♥ ♥