walton

Editor's note: There seems to be some confusion regarding this post. After my brief intro, it was written by a guest author. Note the words "And to cover this story, I present today's anonymous guest writer, who shall be known as Rule 34." There also appears to be additional confusion regarding why this post appears here. Not sure why it needs explanation, but here goes. The whole "man love" schtick is an ongoing gag on this site, something for a few guffaws now and again. Then, lo and behold, there are some people who are so into NBA man love that they write about it...and very seriously so. I absolutley had to mention it, but I had no idea how to go about it. So I asked the person who brought it to my attention to do so, since they are also a writer. Personally? I think it's kinda funny. Sorry some people are wigged about it. If you can't laugh about it, feel free to ignore it.

I consider myself pretty Internet savvy. With a few determined keystrokes, I can delve into the wit and wisdom of Mr. Spock ("The cat is the most ruthless, most terrifying of animals. As far back as the sabertooth tiger."), find almost anybody's grave, and view some of the greatest Etch-a-Sketch creations ever made. But I'm embarrassed to admit that, prior to late last year, I had very little knowledge regarding the phenomenon of slash fiction.

Slash fiction is a sub-genre of fan fiction, only instead of made-up stories about how Harry Potter saved his best friend Ron Weasley from a Dementor, slash fiction features made-up stories about how Harry and Ron got it on...possibly with a Dementor in some sort of strange wizardly ménage à trois. No, seriously.

Want to read about Spiderman and Wolverine having The Sex? Go for it. Ever wondered what Optimus Prime would do if and when he finally defeated Megatron? Trust me, it would be more than meets the eye. There is, quite literally, no limit to the number of people who enjoy writing about Gandalf buggering Frodo Baggins and/or He-Man learning a thing or two from Beast Man and Fisto.

Okay. I kinda sorta get it. But the world of slash fiction doesn't end with make believe wizards, superheros and transforming robots. NBA slash fiction exists. Oh, yes. And to cover this story, I present today's anonymous guest writer, who shall be known as Rule 34:

It all started with a comment here on Basketbawful.

I forget what it exactly said, but the commenter wondered if anyone had ever written fan fiction about basketball players. Duh, there's fan fiction about everything, I thought, and promptly forgot about it for a while.

But then I got a livejournal. And I discovered how prescient that commenter was.

You see, as someone wise once said, the internet is for porn. Nowhere is that more true than livejournal. There are over twelve million active journals, and by my estimation, at least eleven million of them write gay pornographic fanfiction. Why? I have no idea. They just do. There's something about teenaged girls and the internet that just breeds gay pornography, about every subject imaginable. I guess I was naive to be surprised, then, that there was pages and pages of NBA fan fiction.

My God, I thought. This is more man love than Basketbawful ever dreamed of.

And so my investigation began.

As far as I know, there are only three sites dedicated to this phenomenon: the nba_slash community ("slash" meaning dude-on-dude) on livejournal, a site about Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash's True Love, and a site mostly about various Spurs having sex with each other. And this is what I learned:

1. All basketball porn is about Steve Nash.

2. If it's not about Steve Nash, it's about other Suns or the Spurs.

2a. Every Spur is gay. Yes, including Brent Barry. Yes, including Robert Horry.

3. If it's not about Steve Nash or the Spurs, then it's probably by shadow_shimmer.

4. If it's by shadow_shimmer, then it's fucking epic and frighteningly good (see: the Manu Ginobili/Steve Nash series, the Eddie Najera/Carmelo Anthony series, and the one where Allen Iverson and Steve Nash have sex in Vegas.) .

5. If it's not any of those things, it's a rarity to be treasured.

By internet standards, there's not actually that much here. There's way more fanfiction written about Anderson Cooper, Keith Olbermann, and the true love between Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, for example (fangirls are big on true love). There's several authors' worth on each of the tripod sites, maybe three pages of stories on the livejournal community. But what is there...whew. It's a gold mine, I tell you. So I'm here to share the, uh, fruits of my research.

So then, if you will join me, I present. In chronological order:

NBA FANFICTION THEATAH, vol 1: LIVEJOURNAL.

A Rookie's Place - Manu Ginobili/Beno Udrih, Manu Ginobili/Tony Parker - rated: semi-porn -

All of the Spurs are super-gay. ALL OF THEM. It's badly formatted, too. Manu and Tony fight for the right to Beno Udrih. No, really. It's lolarious.

Quote of lol: "We really didn’t expect Beno to be this cute. But after that first practice with him, Tony and I were smitten."

Mantastic rating: 4/10

Remember This Night - Tim Duncan/Steve Nash - yes, there is porn -

Tim comes to Steve's hotel room in the playoffs. Commiseration and sex follow, but TIM IS NOT DIRK AND NEVER CAN BE. True love, fat kids and cake, that sort of thing.

Quote of lol: "This is awkward, but we can both brush it off and go about our business and never talk about it again. That sounds like a good plan."

Mantastic rating: 7.5/10

Rebound - Amare Stoudemire/Steve Nash - lots of porn -

Dirk calls Steve and breaks up with him. Steve is devastated, but Amare fixes it with the Healing Power Of His Penis. This is known as hurt/comfort in fanfiction land. Porn written in blue!

Quote of lol:: "Never before had Amare seen him crack. Never as an opponent and especially never as a teammate. Fuck, Amare almost didn't think it was possible. And yet there Steve was... cracking and breaking right in front of him after a few piercing words from a callous son of a bitch. "

Mantastic rating: 6.5/10

Just Go - Manu Ginobili/Beno Udrih - porn -

Manu tells Beno to leave his room after a loss. Goes to take a bath and WHOA OUT OF NOWHERE team-shower-orgy flashback ensues. Then Beno comes back and blows him in the tub, miraculously not drowning. There's at least a dozen stories about Manu and Beno. I have no idea why. Clearly, I missed a memo.

Quote of lol: "As if he could read my mind, he says -- 'I love your reaction to me. Like you want to touch me so badly, but yet you cannot.'"

Mantastic rating: 5/10

Usted Es Mio - Manu Ginobili/Beno Udrih - creepy porn -

Manu finds out Beno cheated on him with Brent Barry (BRENT BARRY?!). Then Manu rapes him as punishment. V. rapey. And if regular rape wasn't bad enough, the tenses are raped, too.

Quote of not-lol: "Beno’s a lover, not a fighter, and after that one blow, he realizes that he would never be able to overtake me."

Mantastic rating: 1/10 for rape

Ephemera, horizon_greene - Shawn Marion/Boris Diaw - romanticish porn -

Shawn and Boris have a) an established relationship and b) hot sex. Makes strange amount of sense.

Quote of lol: "I think it sounds better in French, maybe."

Mantastic rating: 8/10

Worship - Steve Nash/Leandro Barbosa, Shawn Marion/Raja Bell - No porn, just ridiculousness -

Shawn and Raja discuss Leandro's obvious crush on Steve and make fun of them for it. Steve tells Leandro it's okay. Make-out time. Then Raja and Shawn's discussion moves from mocking, which is what I would do, to co-fantasizing, which I'm not sure they would do. Then they have sex, offscreen, just because.

Quote of lol: "'We don’t need any explanations. I’m sure you only admire him for his high shooting percentage.' Raja nodded seriously, 'And you simply want to learn more about his ball handling abilities.'"

Mantastic rating: 6.5/10. funny, in a campy way; poorly formatted and edited

Maybe Tomorrow - Kobe Bryant/Sasha Vujacic - no porn -

In which Sasha has a mancrush on Kobe and Kobe's a smug dick with good intentions. Sounds about right, actually. Sasha less well-characterized. Clearly, there should be porn, but the author's a wuss about it. Second person POV.

Quote of lol: "You told him once you considered him your best friend. Am I your only friend, Sasha? He smirked. Then, draped an arm around your shoulder, and ruffled your hair. Thanks, man. It means a lot."

Mantastic rating: 6.5/10

Rules of the Game - Dirk Nowitzki/Steve Nash - porn and exposition -

Steve gets beaten by San Antonio (doesn't he always?) and is depressed and angry, at length. You know, for a guy that goes around on tandem bikes with Baron Davis, he sure is depressed a lot. At length. Dirk calls him after the game and - hey! - turns out he came to San Antonio for Steve. Then Steve muses, at length, about their relationship. And then - Part II: porn!

Quote of lol: "Even Steve’s closest Suns teammates knew that no bond they would ever form would come close to matching the friendship and loyalty he had fused in Dallas with Dirk."

Mantastic rating: 6/10; would have been more if there wasn't endless fucking exposition.

Untitled/Raptors fic - Chris Bosh/Jose Calderon - too short and lame for porn (that's what she said) -

They lose a playoff series. Every one is bummed. Jose thinks about Chris Bosh. Chris hugs him. Cliches are used. Yawn.

Quote of lol: "He tries to tell himself that it's because Chris is such a great ball player and he could really use some pointers from him, but deep down Jose knows that's not it . . ."

Mantastic rating: 4/10

Anti-Gravity Love Song - Matt Barnes/Devin Harris - angry porn -

Devin meets Barnes in Vegas. Names are dropped. Exposition about basketball and the series. Slow build. Barnes buys Devin a girly drink, then some beers, then takes advantage of him. They have hate sex in a hotel room. Is it me, or is this strangely plausible?

Quote of lol: "'Damn. I knew I should have got you a strawberry daiquiri. Or a appletini.'"

Mantastic rating: 8/10

Stolen Moments - One-sided Shaquille O'Neal/Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki/Steve Nash - no porn -
Shaq has an unrequited - thank fucking god - crush on Steve. But DIRK'S THE ONLY MAN FOR STEVE. I MEAN. CLEARLY.

"'Tell Nowitzki hello for me, will you?' His voice was gruff, as if he had to drag the words out from his lips. 'Yeah, I'll do that.' He slung his towel over his shoulder and headed for the showers. He didn't notice Shaq's yearning look focused in his direction."

Mantastic rating: 5.5/10

Just Like a Blur - one-sided Leandro Barbosa/Steve Nash - no porn, just skeeve -

Leandro has a crush on Steve. Like, almost stalkery crush on Steve, including watching youtube videos and copying his clothing. Single White Female. Single Brazilian Male?

Quote of lol: "Leandro's mouth dropped open, staring at Steve's naked back before hurrying towards the showers. He had a date with Steve!"

Mantastic rating: 4/10 for creepiness

Final Moments - KG, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen - way way too boring for porn -

Nothing story about the Celtics' championship and their glee. Several paragraphs long. Could have been written by Rick Reilly. Be more interesting if it was (considering the same author wrote the above two).

Quote of lol: "Kevin couldn't wait and wandered to where Paul was hugging Ray tight from behind, both of them trying hard not to crack at the face of being this close to becoming World Championships. He wrapped his long arms around them and whispered into their ears. 'We're champions, baby. Champions!'"

Mantastic rating: 3/10 for, yawn, lack of porn

More Than Expected - LeBron James/Dwyane Wade - about porn, but too sissy to go there -

Starts out promisingly ("They fuck on Saturday") but devolves immediately into angsty exposition and exposition about angst. They broke the rules by being overly romantic. Really. Get a new idea, fangirls. Maybe Bron just spent the night with Wade because he, I don't know, fell asleep? I think I've thou ght about this too much already.

Quote of lol: "LeBron loves his girlfriend. He doesn’t say it to reassure himself, he says it because it’s true. He really does love her and there is no other woman in the world he’d rather have. All of that is true. The problem is, Dwyane’s not a woman."

Mantastic rating: 5.5/10

I have to stress, here, that the readers of Basketbawful SHOULD NOT go to these sites and flame the writers and owners. Please, please, I beg you, do not send them hatemail. Do not leave anonymous comments about how strange they are. Point and laugh, but don't torment, because that's just a dick move. I repeat:

DO NOT TROLL THE FANFICTION WRITERS.

For one thing, it's just cruel, and rude. For another, if you do that, then where are we going to find more fanfiction? They'll hide it and take it down, and the lullz will be lost forever. This is a positive explosion of lolarity. Look, but don't touch, please, I beg you. For all our sakes.

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37 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
You're a gentleman and a scholar.

Absolutely hilarious.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Ah the wonders of the internet. I could say that I was surprised but then again 4chan scarred me for life already...

Of course, in invoking rule 34 for nba player, I sure somewhere out there in the many sites and blogs of the internets, there would be a fanart of man loving athletes.

I now weep in a corner for the self-inflicted damage on my manliness.

Blogger nothingtoseehere said...
This isn't surprising at all, Rule 34 goodness. People moan about violent videogames, I'd rather have all those concerned parents go after their fangirl children.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
What.The.Fuck.!?!. Weirdest post ever. Like EVER EVER.

It would have been better if it was about the WNBA.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
woah, AMAZING!

They're really quite well written, but I have to admit my eyes bugged out a little...

Blogger m. Alana said...
Regarding the name Rule 34 - "No exceptions" never seemed so apt. Well, okay, maybe not never.

mouse 5:51 - I think that's the scariest part.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Wow. Thanks for the disturbing summaries, but the lol quote made up for that somewhat.

It's always hilarious to see someone discover the horrors of slash/yaoi. Great post, Bawful.

Blogger Norman Rose said...
you know those aren't all teenage girls doing the writing, they're mostly (very intense) adults.

Nice post, and way to remind people not to troll 'em. That's some twisted awesome right there.

- Pico

Blogger Nostradamus said...
Amazing post. Seriously, this is fast becoming my favorite blog. Unbelievable. Who knew this stuff was out there?

Blogger Unknown said...
Nice post. Not sure if I'll ever read the links since it seems equally weird to either read these at work among others or to read them at home, alone...

BTW Do we get your prediction on Team USA's medal finish?

Blogger BJ said...
It would have been better if it was about the WNBA.

You show me a man who writes decent femslash and I'll show you his ladyfriend mid name-jack.

Take a trip through the archives at adultfanfiction.net and you will no longer fear hell. Trust me. And as to manloving fanart, that's why God gave humanity Photoshop.

Blogger B-Will said...
This post sucked. Literally sucked cock.

Blogger Michael said...
Yeah, seriously, if you thought ppl were tripped out over the Advocate thing, was this your over-reach (no pun intended) in the other direction? ;)

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
The only thing more depressing about this entry is not that it exists, but subconsciously in my mind I was blaming Japan for the most perverted things on the Internet. But I can't anymore; it looks like America can compete with yaoi. Thus, making me simultaneously very proud and very disturbed to be an American.

Thanks, BAwful!

mid-post thought: I changed my mind. If this were truly Japanese style, the NBA players would be "gender-bendered" and made pregnant and/or fat in addition to the man love.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I normally read the entire post, but I got half way down (maybe the third steve nash one) and it got way too weird for me. Stuff is messed up.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I...feel dirty now! I think I'm going to go back to work and pretend I never visited Basketbawful today. (/covers ears and closes eyes repeating 'la la la!!')

Blogger Steve said...
so does this extend to other sports? tom brady showering with the manning brothers MUST exist in some realm of rough and tumble NFL slash fiction

Blogger TheJourneyBegins said...
Yeah man...I couldn't read the whole thing. At least you, Bawful, are comfortable enough in your own sexuality to go through so many of those stories...i've now thought more about the penises of NBA players in the last 3 minutes than ever before...thanks

Blogger Amar said...
Man . . . you can't fake the funk on Rule 34 . . . but really, why God why? It's just so obvious that this genre is so messed up, like, not even one slash of CP3 and Deron Williams? (clearly something is goin on there)

Blogger cmoney said...
God (aka Brent Barry) will smite those who besmirch his name.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
How isn't there one of Kobe rimming out Shaq? No creativity needed!

Seriously though, this was an incredibly awkward post.

Blogger Morris Blue said...
seriously why would you even write this? im not homophobic but this is just not funny/weird/incredibly awkward.

who writes these stories? and by making this post youre just going to encourage it...

Anonymous Anonymous said...
1. Bawful didn't write this post. I did. My research was gadamn grueling. /okay not really

2. I was surprised because you'd think the two groups wouldn't intersect much. You think of fanfiction writers as women in their teens and twenties. Fans of anime and Harry Potter, not your stereotypical sports fans. Dumb I know.

3. It's that there's only a few people writing, and they write about the players they like. So it's all Steve Nash and the Spurs and Melo and company. If there were more people writing it'd be more interesting. I mean I'd ratherve had to read Chris Paul/Deron Williams than those Manu/Beno stories.

4. There's fanfiction about other sports but it's mostly under friendslock. There's a lot more baseball and hockey fanfiction than there is basketball. And allmost all the NFL fanfiction is in fact all about white quarterbacks, but the whole community is locked down. Smart of them.

5. If I do another guest post on this I'll talk about how fangirls only like white guys. All these stories and only a couple didn't feature at least one white player.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Due to the fact that I do not want to hear about gay NBA player sex, I was unable to follow the links attached to this post. That is all.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
@rule 34 -

I'm glad you clarified #3. My first assumption was that people were writing about Nash and the Spurs so much as sort of a grade school insult. You know, the "I hate them so they're gay" attack. Didn't realize that stuff was written by actual fans of those players fantasizing about their love that dares not speak its name.

Blogger m. Alana said...
Sooo...that picture reminds me...where is the fanfiction for that?

I mean, there's a reverse oreo - that shadow_shimmer chick wrote Eddie Najera/Carmelo Anthony/Steve Nash - but...it's just not the same.

I am so disappointed by the lack of sordidness. It's all, like, earnest and shit.

Blogger Miss Z said...
The "that's what she said" was the cherry on top. Hilarious!!!

Blogger Trev said...
I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before they have a Carmelo/Phelps story after reading this New York times entry:

http://olympics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/basketball-diary-michael-phelps-and-me/

Melo on Phelps:

"Swimming never caught my eyes before I saw him. But I told him I'm going to check him out on Saturday."

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I just went through such a range of emotions on this I had to comment. At first I was slightly traumatized, then I laughed hysterically at the post, then I found myself strangely fascinated. This unfortunately led me to read the one about Duncan and Nash. Now I can never look at them the same again. This is a real shame because Timmy is my fave player. Damn....

On the bright side, if you ever want some great man love pics of the Spurs that would be the sight to go to!!

Anonymous Anonymous said...
How come there's no story involving John Amaechi? Too obvious?

Anonymous Anonymous said...
@Rule #34: Was highly amused by both the rundown and the reviews. For the record, fangirls seem to like white girls, too, although less than before.

@bj: And there are worse places. If you know anyone whose mind needs a good scarring, send them to Nifty or c-s-s-a.

@stirla: What makes you think it's not out there?

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Rule 34:

the "always about white guys" thing drives me nuts, tbh. on the other hand, sports fans write about non-white people approximately 50 billion times more than most other fandoms. so i roll with it.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Laughing so hard I'm crying, for reasons I will not now enumerate.

But ...

why are there no entries marked 10/10?

I would like to see what the top of your quality standard is.

Otherwise, how else can we trust the quality control? :D

Blogger ThatGuy said...
Rule 34 is clearly gay to even read and post this. Admit it, you love reading every bit of those stories and Basketbawful you're gay too!

Anonymous Violet said...
You are the funniest person I've ever read on the internet. I'm not sure if that sentence was grammatically correct, but anyway.

Thank you for all of the stories. I especially loved all of your Dirk is OBVIOUSLY the only one for Steve. It made me laugh. =)

Anonymous JustAnIdea said...
there is also this site. Which isn't sexual in nature, but is still as abundant in its absurdities. http://nbafanfiction.tumblr.com/

Anonymous Anonymous said...
i came buckets