http://littlestclouds.livejournal.com/ (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
littlestclouds.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
crack_van2009-11-13 07:17 pm
littlestclouds.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2009-11-13 07:17 pm
Entry tags:
Alternate Spellings Accepted by Americanleaguer (R)
Fandom: BASEBALL RPF
Pairing: Josh Beckett/Jon Lester
Length: 21,536
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
americanleaguer
Author Website:americanleaguer's masterlist of fic
Why this must be read: One of the reasons I love readingamericanleaguer's stuff is her knack for storytelling, her attention to details, her sharp, realistic dialogue, and the way she uses her "ensemble cast". That's certainly the case here, in "Alternate Spellings Accepted". americanleaguer has an understanding of the inner workings of baseball and the culture of baseball that infuses her writing with a sense of realism. I can read any story of americanleaguer's and believe that's how it could have gone down. In "Alternate Spellings Accepted," she has the characters' voices down so well, in the case of David Wells, it's almost worrisome. americanleaguer's Wells is one of the many highlights of this story, and without him, it would definitely be a different tale. Beckett's characterization is different than most; here he's portrayed as asexual. With the audience tied so tightly to Lester's POV, so we sympathize with him because of Beckett's lack of interest in Lester sexually. Even with that being said, the way Lester and Beckett fit together, however unconventionally, is emotionally satisfying.
In the end, this is a story about personal growth as much as it is about love or companionship or baseball. It's a rich story full of relatable, likable characters, snappy dialogue, and the right mix of humor and pathos. You won't be disappointed. Unless you're a Yankees fan, but, hey, you might surprise yourself by enjoying it.
Once, when Lester was a very small child, he had looked directly into the sun. It was partly because his mother had told him not to, and partly because Riley Carlson, the coolest boy in Lester's class, had dared him to do it, and moreover implied that Lester would prove himself a booger-nosed coward if he didn't. Lester was used to being called all sorts of things, but he definitely wasn't any kind of coward, booger-nosed or otherwise, and he wasn't going to have stupid Riley Carlson telling the other kids that he was.
He'd seen spots all over for hours afterwards, plus he had had a headache right at the top of his nose that he couldn't tell his mom about because he knew she'd just yell at him for looking in the first place. But for the few seconds he'd been able to stand it, he had seen the sun as it truly was, not as the watery diluted disk he sometimes saw through the clouds, and not at all like the smiley-faced spiky thing all the girls drew in their pictures during art class.
What he had seen was a white-gold saucer, so brilliant, so obviously powerful that he could hardly understand how something that amazing just hung there in the sky every day with nobody looking at it. It was a perfect circle, a lot more perfect than the moon, which wasn't even a real circle most of the time and had all those blotches on it anyways. It was so bright that it made the rest of the sky almost look black, so bright that just directing his eyes towards it made his whole brain hurt. It seemed like the purest white imaginable, the most radiant gold shimmering at its edges, and everything else for the rest of the day looked pale and washed out in comparison to it.
The first time he saw Josh Beckett, it was a lot like that.
Alternate Spellings Accepted
Pairing: Josh Beckett/Jon Lester
Length: 21,536
Author on LJ:
americanleaguerAuthor Website:
americanleaguer's masterlist of ficWhy this must be read: One of the reasons I love reading
americanleaguer's stuff is her knack for storytelling, her attention to details, her sharp, realistic dialogue, and the way she uses her "ensemble cast". That's certainly the case here, in "Alternate Spellings Accepted". americanleaguer has an understanding of the inner workings of baseball and the culture of baseball that infuses her writing with a sense of realism. I can read any story of americanleaguer's and believe that's how it could have gone down. In "Alternate Spellings Accepted," she has the characters' voices down so well, in the case of David Wells, it's almost worrisome. americanleaguer's Wells is one of the many highlights of this story, and without him, it would definitely be a different tale. Beckett's characterization is different than most; here he's portrayed as asexual. With the audience tied so tightly to Lester's POV, so we sympathize with him because of Beckett's lack of interest in Lester sexually. Even with that being said, the way Lester and Beckett fit together, however unconventionally, is emotionally satisfying.In the end, this is a story about personal growth as much as it is about love or companionship or baseball. It's a rich story full of relatable, likable characters, snappy dialogue, and the right mix of humor and pathos. You won't be disappointed. Unless you're a Yankees fan, but, hey, you might surprise yourself by enjoying it.
Once, when Lester was a very small child, he had looked directly into the sun. It was partly because his mother had told him not to, and partly because Riley Carlson, the coolest boy in Lester's class, had dared him to do it, and moreover implied that Lester would prove himself a booger-nosed coward if he didn't. Lester was used to being called all sorts of things, but he definitely wasn't any kind of coward, booger-nosed or otherwise, and he wasn't going to have stupid Riley Carlson telling the other kids that he was.
He'd seen spots all over for hours afterwards, plus he had had a headache right at the top of his nose that he couldn't tell his mom about because he knew she'd just yell at him for looking in the first place. But for the few seconds he'd been able to stand it, he had seen the sun as it truly was, not as the watery diluted disk he sometimes saw through the clouds, and not at all like the smiley-faced spiky thing all the girls drew in their pictures during art class.
What he had seen was a white-gold saucer, so brilliant, so obviously powerful that he could hardly understand how something that amazing just hung there in the sky every day with nobody looking at it. It was a perfect circle, a lot more perfect than the moon, which wasn't even a real circle most of the time and had all those blotches on it anyways. It was so bright that it made the rest of the sky almost look black, so bright that just directing his eyes towards it made his whole brain hurt. It seemed like the purest white imaginable, the most radiant gold shimmering at its edges, and everything else for the rest of the day looked pale and washed out in comparison to it.
The first time he saw Josh Beckett, it was a lot like that.
Alternate Spellings Accepted
no subject
(no subject)
(no subject)