New poem in JAKE
JAKE, one of my favorite curators of artistic shitposting, came out with a series based around I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, one of my favorite artistic shitposts. And I have a poem in it!
You don’t necessarily need to have seen the show to read the poem. It’s based on the Metalloid Maniac sketch, which is about a convoluted game show with even more convoluted lore. There’s a ton of repetition of basic facts, such as how the Metalloid Maniac built the metal wall himself and how the wall is like his ground. This is my favorite sketch in the series.
My poem bills itself as fanfiction, partly because I thought it’d be funny to use AO3-style tags and partly because I wanted to escalate some of my favorite linguistic quirks of angst fic.
I know people literally write dissertations on this, so I won’t pretend to be an expert. But it seems like the main difference between fanfiction and the more respectable-sounding ~~pop culture-inspired writing~~ is the assumptions it makes. Fanfiction assumes you know what these characters are like, that you love them enough to look past any narrative shortcomings, or sometimes that you recall entire plotlines so the author doesn’t have to waste time with all that exposition.
It’s about giving the people (or the author) what they want, either very quickly (filthiest one-shot you’ve ever read, 1.5k words) or for a very long time (80 chapters and counting, updated weekly).
Regardless of length, the best fanfiction I read assumes less, makes more of an effort to build or flesh out characters, tensions, or complexities of a relationship. But there’s unfortunately no AO3 tag for that, so you end up reading a lot of schlock.
This poem is a love letter to the schlock! To suspending your disbelief in your late-night scavenger hunt for greatness!
A few other things I’ve written that can be said to be fanfic:
The AOC self-insert from 2021
The anvilposting you’re all tired of
Various references over the years to Alicia Vikander playing tennis with me #manifesting
I’d argue the tchotchke atelier thing is self-insert RPF
A sonnet I cut from BOY BAND about playing telephone with Harry Styles and Elton John
Lots for me to unpack.
I will not be linking to my favorite actual fanfics here, the ones I’ve downloaded and continually consider printing for posterity. That is between me and God.1
You can check out the rest of the (very good) ITYSL-themed issue here.
Posting for In The Mood this week!
I will say they almost all take place on ranches.