#potatomann

What’s their canon?  

Well. Eric’s first video about Jack probably mentions how Jack tried to lecture him about his diet. Next, Bitty talks about how hard hockey is, and "Jack chewed me out in front of everyone--again” and then spends time talking about how he only just learned about Bad Bob. Then he gets an assist in his first game and everyone hugs him and it’s wonderful; then he has to wake up at 4am for checking practice with Jack. A little before Christmas, he finally comes out to Shitty.

So a rough amalgamation of the five most popular Jeric fics is:

It was love at first sight. Jack looked at Eric, and Eric looked at Jack, and they just... knew. Jack’s instinctive urge to protect and nurture Eric was overwhelming from the very beginning. He was so delighted to see a hockey player who was so unashamedly gay. Lingering looks and fleeting touches quickly grew heated--but Jack knew, from the beginning, that they had to keep it a secret. Even from their teammates, even from Eric’s vlog.

So Eric has been covering for him ever since. He’s been lying for the sake of their love. Jack chewed him out in front of everyone to cover for the fact that he’d been chewing on Eric just before practice. When Eric says “Jack hates my guts”? He actually means, “Jack loves me, but I have to hide the truth.” When he says, “I should be happy about [being put on first line with Jack], but all i can think about is Jack’s stupid face glaring at me,” he means, “I love Jack so much, but it’s going to be so stressful to hide my affection for him.” They have only grown happier and more secure in their love over time.

In light of The Kiss, and the admittedly unsubtle nature of Bitty’s Y3 Tweets, this... starts to look less unplausible. (See also: how LGBT people hide in narratives/”queering the text”)

On the other hand.

You’ve now got a lot of really committed Potatomann shippers whose ships have just been totally Jossed. What happens now?! What are they supposed to do with their gifsets and headcanons and amazing chemistry?! WITH THAT HUG IN GAME FIVE?!?!?!?!?

Well. Threesomes solve everything. And someone comes to the rescue with an amazing invention.

For a while now, Jeric shippers have been puzzled and worried over the existence of, “Never fall for a straight boy.” Does this mean their timeline is all messed up, and it took Jack and Eric an actual year and a half to fall in love? (There are some fics along those lines--thoughtful, gritty, plotty things where they actually did hate each other at first and only slowly come to appreciate each other--but the idea doesn’t catch on.)

Well. Stay with me here.

What we see in the comic is: When Jack was out running with Georgia Martin in the fall of Eric’s sophomore year, she was trying to convince him to come and meet her team. This is as Jack and Eric are just planning out their final project. “Never fall for a straight boy” came at that project’s conclusion. Jack, we know, is a slow and methodical worker, so there are probably a few weeks between these two things. 

Jack spent enough time with the Falcs to get a sense of their “team feel” to factor it into his deliberations, and Parse said “good luck with the Falcs”, which means that Jack’s meeting with them was not a complete secret. It’s likely that Jack’s meeting with the Falcs wasn’t a complete secret--maybe he dropped by one of their practices and was photographed there, or something similar.

This event has been used by the sharper-eyed Potatomann shippers to estimate the moment Jack and Tater first met, even though they didn’t have, say, a nice video of their first meeting. Jack checked the team out, then signed with them a few months later. Tater felt that first frisson of attraction at that meeting, and then learned, to mixed apprehension and delight, that Jack would be signing with them after all. He then had months to stew between the signing and training camp, when he saw Jack again.

What if, a shipper asks. A shipper who ships Potatomann but has just gotten into Jeric post-Kiss, who wants to reconcile the two grieving halves of fandom and salvage their ship. What if Jack, in a committed relationship of over a year with Eric, met Tater and felt that same frisson. What if Eric was with him. What if Jack and Eric were both attracted to Tater, who did not seem to reciprocate the attention.

What if “never fall for a straight boy” was about Alexei Mashkov.

(The shipname is “Pietatomann” if you were wondering)

This opens SO MANY doors, you can’t believe it. A small coterie of friends on the same groupchat decide to all write fic along the same theme, and release them in a progression. Jack-and-Eric heatedly discussing their mutual attraction to Tater! Tater mourning the fact that the two hottest people he knows are already dating each other! THREESOMES! Angst over the Stanley Cup.

In this light, they revisit Tater’s visit to Samwell and go NUTS. Has Jack, having consummated his love with Alexei, brought him back to Samwell to include Eric in the triad? Is Eric jealous? Does Eric make them all breakfast in bed? How is he going to lie about having two boyfriends now, if one is already enough to fill his kitchen with roses?

(If Tater ever instagrams his convalescence, you know it’ll just convince people this triad is canon.)