Sweet Like Honey

Pooh Bear awoke bright and early. "Today is a very special day," he said to himself and rolled out of bed. He stepped over to his wardrobe and inspected his shirt collection. "Got to look your best," he chuckled to himself as he picked a red one and pulled it over.
He then stepped into the kitchen where he stopped in front of the rack of honey pots. "That'll make a nice snack for on the way," he said as he took one pot under his arm and immediately dipped his other hand in to start eating.
With both hands occupied he pushed the door open using his butt. He strolled down the path between the trees of Ashdown Forest. It wasn't long until he met Tigger who came down jumping on his tail.
"Hey Pooh, do you want to go down to the lake and throw rocks into the lake?"
"Oh, no thank you. Maybe next time. But can you tell me how I look?"
"That's okay. What do you mean how you look? You're a yellow bear with a red shirt."
"Hm, thank you, Tigger. Goodbye."
Winnie-the-Pooh set off, annoyed at how simple his friend sometimes was. He knew what he looked like. He wanted to know whether he looked good, whether he looked sexy.
It wasn't long until he arrived at Piglet's house.
"Oh, Pooh, you look so sweet like honey today. Let's get you out of that shirt."
"My little Piglet, let me at least close the door behind me," he said, but as he closed it Piglet already started taking off his shirt and rubbing his strong, muscular chest.
"You really know how to touch me— Oh!" Pooh gasped as Piglet grabbed his bearhood.
"Shush, I'll take the lead from here," Piglet whispered.

Suddenly the door behind Alice opened. It was Christopher. "Whatcha writing? One of your smutty fanfics again?" He bent over her shoulder and mumbled "taking off his shirt . . . grabbed his bearhood!? Alice, why does every single one of your fanfictions always need to revolve around the characters fucking? Can't you just write something nice? Them going on adventures or some shit?"

"It's just what I like to write. And the people on AO3 seem to like it as well. They are very nice and encouraging. And, like, be honest: Don't you think it's kinda hot?"

Christopher blushed. "Winnie-the-Pooh and fricking Piglet getting it on!?"

"Honest!" Alice insisted.

"I mean, I guess it's kinda hot."

"Getting you in the mood 'kinda hot'?"

"Maybe," Christopher grinned.

Alice started pulling up his shirt. "Well, Mr. Columbus. Do you want to explore my wonderland?"

On "Sweet Like Honey" | 2023-11-16

Obviously I'm just having a bit of fun here. Again with the meta levels like Tea Party and the dumb fanfiction like A Metamorphosis. It's a bit of a cliché that fanfiction is always about shipping characters, just like spending a little too much time on the internet will associate the terms "fan art" and "pregnant Sonic" in even the healthiest of brains.

I personally am not part of the fanfic community. Not as a writer, but neither as a reader. The majority of fanfic is accessible only online on platforms like AO3 ("Archive of our own"). I mostly like reading print books and I sometimes read on my Kindle. Maybe I should investigate some way to easily load some things on there, because everything else about the fanfic community is awesome.

Fanfiction gets written in a way that's very similar to the earliest novels. It's mostly published serially, meaning one chapter every week, month, or whenever the author finishes it. And then the readers will discuss the story and give suggestions where the story might go next. Popular stories will have beta-readers, which are people that will get the first version of a chapter and submit feedback before it is released to the public.

This means that many fanfics are not the work of just one author, but a group of people that give input on the story.

The second cool thing is that it's all done for the love of it. As fanfiction is often based on copyrighted characters and/or settings it's legally difficult to commercialize. That a group of online users is responsible for the end product just adds to this difficulty.

Lastly, the community consists of a very high percentage of marginalized people. Women and queer people, for example, are motivated to write queer or gender-swapped versions of popular stories to finally see themselves represented or to exert control, even if only over fictional worlds (The same desire also draws us to TTRPGs).

These queer stories then draw other marginalized people in as readers and you've got a community.

I hope I could provide some deeper context on the relationship of fanfic and "smutty" stories. I hope I also got across some of my enthusiasm about the community that is really doing something special.

I know that Christopher Columbus could be confused with Christopher Robin in the second part of my story when I just call him by his first name. I couldn't come up with a better character to switch him out with. Deal with it. Also, "bearhood" is objectively really funny.

Thoughts? Reach out via Mastodon @Optional@dice.camp or shoot me an email.