All you can do is the best you can do.

"I wrote a eulogy for my best friend last week. Then I read it to him. At the pub. On a Tuesday."

He was alive, holding a pint, looking at me like I'd lost my mind. Maybe I have.

I'm Mick. I'm 70. The man across the table was Barry. Seventy-two. Best mate for 46 years. Met on a building site in 1979. He dropped a plank on my foot. I called him something unrepeatable. He bought me a pint after the shift. Haven't gone a week without talking since.

Three months ago we went to a funeral. Bloke we'd worked with. Cancer. The eulogies were beautiful - people saying what he meant to them, things they'd clearly never said to his face. And all I could think was, he can't hear any of this.

Every beautiful sentence. Every "he changed my life." Said to a room of crying people and a box of wood.

I turned to Barry. Whispered, "What a waste."

Drove home. Couldn't sleep. Because I realised, if Barry died tomorrow, I'd stand up and say extraordinary things about this man. Things I've never said in 46 years. And he'd be in the box, missing all of it.

So I wrote them down. Took a week. Harder than expected - not finding the words, but admitting I had them.

Rang him. "Tuesday. The Crown. Need to read you something."

"Have you joined a book club?"

"Just come."

Same corner table. Pint of bitter. Crisps. I pulled out the paper. He saw my hands shake.

"Mick. What's this?"

"Your eulogy. I'm reading it now because I'm not wasting it on a day you can't hear it."

"Have you gone mad?"

"Probably. Shut up and listen."

I read it. In a pub. To a man very much alive and very much uncomfortable.

I told him about the plank and how it was the best injury of my life. About the night he drove forty minutes in rain to help change a tyre. About how he rang every day for three months after my divorce and never once asked "Are you alright?" - just talked about football and weather, because he knew I didn't need a question. I needed a voice.

I told him he was the funniest man I'd ever known and his jokes were terrible and both things were true. That he'd been a better father than he thinks. That his wife's a saint and he knows it. That I'd have been a worse man without him.

He didn't look at me. Stared at his pint. Jaw tight. Doing that thing men do when the feelings arrive and they'd rather swallow glass than show it.

When I finished, long silence. Then he picked up his pint, took a sip, and said,

"You're paying for the next round. And the one after."

That was his answer. Perfect. Because Barry doesn't say "I love you too." He says "you're buying."

But in the car park, he hugged me. Not the quick back-pat. A real one. Thirty seconds. Neither let go first.

And he said quietly into my shoulder, "Don't read that again at the real one. I want new material."

Who would you write a eulogy for - while they're still here?

Don't wait. The flowers can't hear. The box doesn't laugh. Say it now. At the pub. Over a bad cup of tea. You'll feel ridiculous.

They'll look uncomfortable. It'll be the most important thing you've ever done.

Read them the speech while they can still hug you in the car park.”

Rain

by Peter Everwine (1930-2018), Published 2008

"What even is riding? What is governer general? So many weird English words. Don't get me started on history. Why do I have to remember there was strike in Winnipeg a hundred years ago? Was Scott Hunter there?"

The clip goes somewhat viral, but it doesn't spread far until he's doing a post-game interview where one reporter, after asking their question about the game, asks, "Where does the name 'Canada' come from?"

"What?"

The reporter kind of embarresedly repeats, "Where does the word 'Canada' come from? It's on the Canadian citizenship test."

Ilya stares blankly for a moment then says, slowly, "It means village, I think. From Indigenous language? Why are you asking questions from citizenship test?"

The reporter shrugs. "You said you were having dfficulty studying for the test. Maybe it helps with studying?"

And THAT clip goes viral along with the first. It starts a trend of reporters asking questions from the Discover Canada study guide whenever the opportunity arises. It starts as a bit, but soon people get in invested and genuinely want to see Ilya pass his citizenship test. Fans start asking him questions from the study guide too, whenever they meet him at official events or out and about.

yeah yeah i took an unintentional hiatus because farm stuff and no time and little internet. the bigger work is still stuck, sorta lodged sideways ever-given-style in the suez canal of my mind, but here is not quite a crackfic that I have inevitably taken too seriously.

I kept trying to get other people to write this premise and nobody quite did, so here's Shane Hollander taking Ilya Rozanov's word for it about his dick size, and maybe over-preparing.

Nine, on AO3

okay so ilya can read shane like a book, which is no surprise. this boy, with his upbringing? would be able to spot an emotion from a mile away. this boy has a masters degree in microexpressions and he would have graduated at the age of like, eight. the tempo of the tapping fingers on the bench, the weight of footfalls on the floorboards, the "is their bed made today?", "is he wearing his rings today?", the "she didn't hug me as tight and he shut the door just a bit too loudly and fuck i don't want to come home from hockey practice," because reading the room is surviving it.

that boy's every breath was inextricably tied to the unpredictable beast of one, nay, two, angry men and a desperately sad woman. there was no room left for him to expand.

enter ilya freshly, what, 17? hockey prodigy, safe from family-induced suffocation by 4000 odd miles. he's a pro. he clocks shane in about as long as it takes for him to light his fourth cigarette. he sees the freckles and that gay panic and he thinks, im going to have some fun.

and he clocks him again and again. he sees shane so well, he sees the perfectionism, he sees the pressure he sees the anxiety and the discomfort and the head-down-ass-up-yearning to get cracked and is blind only to the fact that shane could possibly see something worth more than hotel room fucks in him. 

but over time? over years and years? the weight of seeing is heavy. particularly when it's not, well, reciprocated? at least not to the same extent. shane's particular brand of issues lend themselves to a kind of self-centredness that just does not give way to picking up on those microexpressions like ilya does. ilya has to reach that point of vulnerability (which is so utterly torturous for an avoidant) where he has to actually say the shit out loud, before Shane really notices and kicks himself into gear. that shit is heavyyyyy.

i think yes, not being anticipated in the way ilya has a 30-year endowed chair professorship in Clocking it Studies does hurt. to some extent hypervigilance is an implicit cry for someone else to be as careful with you as you are with the world

and also! shane is without an agenda or assumptions or intuition. he just asks, and he’d like to hear the answer, and he’s completely willing to go in the wrong direction and be physically turned towards the problem. and—it’s also okay if ilya isn’t ready to share. i would imagine that the implied patience of that, the “i’m here whether or not you rip yourself open for me,” is its own safety to be grateful for. two sides of a coin, maybe. i think for ilya much more than shane it’s not possible to get everything he needs from his romantic partner (part of why it irks me so bad that reid gave him no other intimate, consistent ties)—he needs, and presumably will, find other funny, damaged people with whom the ironic distance isn’t distance at all. also, like, how long does it take to completely shed the reflex to hide? i don’t think it ever goes away fully. a partner who’s bugged by that becomes its kind of stress

and when shane does make a jump or an inference it’s so plainly open: “hey, that’s not what this is, you and me. maybe it was at first, but not now and not for a long time.” what???? for someone who watched for danger, but who would also have caught and been hit just as brutally by vanishing glimpses of care and love, what a fucking relief that what you see is pretty much what you get (after some basic algebra about the closet and control issues and maybe some weird mom stuff. ilya’s got it), and that what you get is uncomplicated, whole, thorough devotion. secure attachment is no small gift

by bomberqueen17 (@bomberqueen17)

Lothiriel exists in LotR as a mere name in a genealogical table-- the youngest child, and only daughter, of Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth, she gets married to Eomer early in the First Age and provides him with at least one son. I wrote a great deal about her when I was new to the fandom. This is my idea of what she and Eowyn, similar to her in age (four years older) would have gotten up to after the fall of Sauron, before the menfolk got back from their last foray into contested lands.

Mature, No Archive Warnings

I'm gonna guess that while this was uploaded to AO3 in 2014 I probably wrote it around a decade before that. I don't know if I could find out by looking back at my LJ (since ported to Dreamwidth of course) but I should try.

So, uh. I finished the core draft of the sequel to Everything You Know, but it's not ready to post yet. Instead of returning to any of my in-progress WIPs, I... did this. Please enjoy the Honorable Siblinghood of Equipment Managers and Shane Hollander's Jockstrap of Theseus. Also a longer-than-necessary digression with Luca Haas, because I can.

But obviously he can’t just drag Sveta, who’s mad at him for leaving Boston, to meet his boyfriend’s parents. And the rare time he has with Shane he doesn’t want to spend hosting, even if it is Sveta.

So it’s years down the line before this actually comes about. They’re at Ilya and Shane’s Ottawa home, it’s probably early season and he expects Yuna and Sveta to be on a tear about new rookies and these particular teams’ new strategies. They are, that part is true.

What he hasn’t counted on is Sveta’s thirsting over hockey players. Maybe he thought she might give it up, given she’s in the presence of Shane Hollander, but no. That goalie is aging well, this defenceman’s longer hair is really working for him, would you look at that smirk on that guy?

Ilya was not prepared for Shane to counter Sveta’s appraisal with “eh, he’s like a beefier version of Carter Vaughn with a busted nose and weaker slapshot”.

He was really not expecting Yuna to join in. That rising hotshot with dark eyebrows and a smoulder reminds her of a young Chris Chelios. Sveta is right about the goalie aging well but has she considered the coach? Yuna remembers him as a player, he was good on the ice but nothing exceptional to look at, but age and a stylish suit working out well for him.

So this is how Ilya ends up spending the intermission periods trapped between his best friend, his husband, and his mother-in-law, all rating the attractiveness of hockey players past and present.

At some point Yuna remembers that Ilya is attracted to men, and asks his opinion, and he has to admit that while he thinks some of Sveta’s preferences are weird, he’s never really been an ogler of hockey players. Well. Except one.

Ilya snugs his arm closer around Shane.

Yuna and David: *collective awww*

Shane, indignant: liar. You think Scott Hunter is hot. You thought he was hot when we were rookies, you hypocrite!

Sveta, who had noticed Ilya had a thing about Hunter but never got him to admit it: were you two meeting up and talking about hot boys? I’m jealous, Ilya. Sex with your rival is one thing but you’re supposed to talk to _me_ about boys!

Shane, forgetting his parents as the ghost of his jealousy is summoned: oh it was definitely a sex thing.

Ilya: I THINK THE GAME IS BACK ON

DAVID, a bit behind the conversation: I think Hunter has aged well. Or maybe coming out changed how he carries himself…

SHANE: Yeah you’re not wrong but I always thought, of the two of them, Vaughn is the more handsome, and he’s certainly no worse for wear…

Sveta high-fives Shane in agreement. Yuna realises she has always thought the same, and she’s missed out on decades of agreeing with Shane about this.

tldr: you are literally making my point for me.

I genuinely don't know how to say this without sounding patronising but, respectfully, the ‘explanation’ for why I hold both opinions at once—ie that the only thing more ridicuous than a clearly AI generated story winning the fucking Commonwealth Short Story Prize of all things is people’s reactions to the scandal, and that “fans” witchunting and harassing fellow fans over perceived AI usage on Ao3 need to get a fucking grip and sit on the naughty step for a while—can be easily sussed out if you spent some time thinking about it instead of trying to catch people out or whatever the fuck this is.

when it comes to, idk man, an AI generated Stucky coffee shop AU being posted on Ao3, there is no ‘injustice’ happening, no matter how emotively you frame it. because there are no stakes whatsoever: respectfully, please understand that the judging panel of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, ie one of the world’s most famous awards for short fiction that has launched the literary careers of multiple authors across the world, and the editorial board of Granta, one of the most prestigious Anglophone literary magazines, are not logging on to Ao3 and typing in Jungkook/Jimin Omegaverse Spitroasting (include tag: Breeding Kink) in search of the next Salman Rushdie (and I am saying this as someone who wrote queer theory piss fic).

the Commonwealth Prize case is not interesting to me because AI bad and human writing good. the interesting aspect is what the judges' failure to notice this story tells us about how writing gets evaluated by the institutions that hold power over which stories are told, and how. the harm is not "an AI wrote this” lmao it is "an institution responsible for certifying literary value demonstrated that its evaluation criteria for a specific writing tradition are so underspecified that they can be satisfied by outright pattern-matching." and this is actually exactly the point i am making about why it’s so fucking irritating to see losers (a term i stand by) publicising lists of fanfics and authors they have decided are ai generated.

anyway. being published on Ao3 is not exactly a marker of quality. anyone can publish on Ao3. i could photocopy a picture of my asshole, superimpose Fëanor’s face on it, claim it’s a representation of him in the Eternal Darkness, and then post it on Ao3 tomorrow. if the argument is that AI writing is ‘low quality slop that doesn’t belong in the archive’, then does that mean everything on Ao3 that is humanly written a ‘high quality’ literary masterpiece? does it mean that only works fitting a certain criteria, such as *checks notes* only three emdashes a page, ‘deserves’ to be published on Ao3?