#note: fics where paul pined after john existed! probably a ton of them!

[chut-je-dors]

Sorry but I don't think you can say you're trying to "contribute" to making the mclennon fandom "more equal" with the way half your fics portray paul thistring after john's dick and making him be sub in all your fics and I hear people say how good the hor mechanic is but I think paul is just super annoying, not realistic at all and I'm sorry I don't understand how that fic became so popular in the first place or how your contributing to this fandom

You know what, I usually delete all this kind of asks after the whole hysteric!Paul controversy took place, ‘cos my patience was just running out and I was simply getting tired of it, but I actually want to answer this time, and will do so thoroughly. So beware, a LONG post coming through.

I’d like to begin with the claim that half of my fics portray Paul as the “bottom” one. First of all, I’d like to clarify that for me, it doesn’t matter who bottoms and who tops — the important thing is whether the relationship between the two men is equal, and that equality has nothing to do with who bottoms. One of them has to, if they were to do anal sex. It is true that in most of my fics, Paul has been the one to bottom, but that doesn’t mean he’s beneath John in any other way than just physically, literally lying under him.

There is a lot in this whole thing that people don’t really get:

First of all, you need to understand what kind of a place our fandom was when I was first starting as a reader. Most of the fics featured Paul as the bottom one, but John as the emotional drive in the stories. I’ve lost count of the oneshots I read back then that had John pining after Paul, and there didn’t seem to be any corresponding fics where Paul was the one desperately pining for John. Their relationship didn’t seem equal; Paul was too soft, John was too hard. Paul was the romantical one, John couldn’t have cared less. Paul was a stuck-up nun, John was a reckless arsehole without any regard for others feelings.

I started reading fics in 2009 at the age of 13, and two-three years later I was writing my first fic ThighGHGHGHGS. This was both an outlet for my personal frustration over John’s thighs (man was I high on hormones at 15), a desire to write something that would make other people laugh, and an attempt to do something that was often less seen; Paul pining over John.

After that, there were a couple of smaller fics that I won’t be discussing here, meant as crack fics and never to be taken seriously. (What 1 being my personal favourite.) The big needle in the wound for everyone seems to be the Hot Mechanic and the Hot Series in general, so let me tell you about that fic:

In 2012-2013 the steady stream of new fics on JohnHeartPaul seemed to be dying down. There were maybe one or two multichapter fics being published, new chapters appearing every now and then, and the place seemed to be dying down. At that point the JP-archive stopped being updated. I was 15, going on 16, and growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of good new fics in the fandom (at that point I’d read the whole archive through like, twice). I started roaming over to the Merlin fandom and was blown away by the amount of good fics that incorporated the characters into all sorts of AUs seamlessly. I especially loved the modern AUs, and felt that that was missing from our fandom. At this point (in 2013) there were about two or three Modern AU fics in the fandom, and all of them were oneshots! We simply had no multichapter modern AU fics.

I decided to simply continue on the same policy I’d previously had with ThighGHGHGHS; I wanted to bring something new into the fandom. (Note: I don’t want to sound egoistical in this essay — the reason why I haven’t explained this before now is because I am a very, very modest person, and I have a problem in taking credit and compliments over something that I don’t feel was such a big deal. But these are things that I’ve heard from other people over the years, and as such I feel safe saying them, even though I’m still battling to accept the high praise.)

So why is The Hot Mechanic so popular? Because it is the first long, plot-driven modern AU in this fandom.

I wanted to do it as a crack fic, because I love humour. I wrote a fic that made me laugh, and I never expected it to become a thing that’s still going on. But because it’s a crack fic, it brought a few changes into the characters. They don’t react like normal people do. Hell, George isn’t a normal person. Ringo is the closest one we get to a normal person in that fic, and Paul literally walked in on him fucking his cousin! They’re all completely out of their heads, and it’s made for the laughs. Since it is a deliberate crack fic that isn’t even trying to make the characters look real (think of it as a really long Monty Python sketch), and since I literally wrote it SIX YEARS AGO, I don’t think it is fair to continuously keep on using that fic against me as a proof of how I “always” write Paul and John.

The following parts to the Hot Series have followed the same pattern as the first part, because, y’know, continuity. You can’t change a character just like that in the middle of the story without an explanation, and since the lads’ characters were well-established in the first part of the series, I had to keep it up. And I wouldn’t have changed it either, because writing them was, and is, genuinely fun, and that’s what matters.

What’s important is also the fact that Paul and John’s relationship is equal. They are both loving towards each other, showing affection openly. John is pining after Paul at work, dreaming about the moment he gets back to Paul on a regular basis, and Paul often reacts to this with fond humour. They laugh at each other’s jokes, walk out hand-in-hand, are equal when it comes to sex — they decide together what they want, standing constantly on equal ground. That sort of an open, fluffy relationship was kinda new as well, mainly due to the fact that this fic takes place in the modern day; they are allowed to be together.

I wrote the Hot Mechanic with a conscious wish of people copying it, taking my lead and jumping into the world of AUs. I hoped that people would get inspired by my first futile attempt at a modern AU, and bring more of them into the fandom. In the end I don’t know how much of an impact the HM had on the authors in general, but some sort of a switch has happened in any case, since in these days we’re gloriously swimming in Modern AUs.

In 2015 I wrote the Vomiting Adventure. I can’t remember if there was any particular reason, other than that I had probably been ill, and wanted to write a fic to commiserate with my subconsciousness. (And those who complain about the hysteric!Paul never seem to mention it at all. Maybe because it doesn’t fit the profile?)

The same year I wrote Hate Is Such A Strong Word. That fic was... never intended to be what it is today. It started as deep, thoughtful few sentences, and then suddenly Paul was tied to the bed, and ??? It suddenly became a try on how to write smut, since I had no real experience in it. It was also a crack fic, and as such I ask you to look at it like at the HM: As nothing meant to be realistic. It was not planned, and Paul bottoming didn’t hold much meaning. It was my first smut, and someone needed to bottom. And Paul was already tied to the bed, which was convenient.

When you look at my fics, you’ll see that most of them are in fact meant as a light, fun reading experience. They are crack fics. The only clear exceptions are This Is Not Them, and Ten Minutes.

This Is Not Them came from that old damned desire to once again do something new, but this time something new for me, since all I had ever done was write crack fics. I wanted to challenge myself and write a fic in a completely different style and tone, I wanted to show people I could do other stuff as well. This fic has Paul bottoming at the beginning when he’s with John, because wordless agreements between characters about who tops and who bottoms? Y’know how those work -- but he tops with other people. He is depressed. Sex is his only way of feeling something, which is explained in the fic (meaning that he is not a slut, but feels conflicted because he feels like one, but doesn’t want to, and doesn’t know who he is anymore). And John has his own depression to fight against, and here, Paul bottoming is kind of a plot point... uh, like a small dot in a bigger plot point about who John is and Why Is He Like That? I don’t want to spoil the fic for those who haven’t read it yet, but; there isn’t a sentence written in that fic that doesn’t have a meaning behind it. Paul doesn’t bottom for the reader: he bottoms because John won’t, due to the man’s ghosts from the past.

What underlines my work is that I always want to do something no one else has ever done before, or has never done properly. I have decided not to delete my older work, because I know people enjoy those fics, and I hope people wouldn’t judge how I write now based on those 6-year old works. The fics that I’ve been working on within this past year are This Is Not Them, Ten Minutes, and 5 Thomas Lane. Read those fics, and tell me whether you see a sign of the “feminine and girlish” Paul. (or don’t read them, ‘cos they’re really long... like so many words..... god)

I can say that personally I’ve never liked the fics where Paul was made out to be the crying princess, just based on his looks. The fandom tended to do that (as they often do for “pretty” characters), and I wanted John and Paul to be equal. They are equal in banter, equal in feelings, and yes, equal in bed as well in the way that it matters: mentally. (Except for This Is Not Them, but that is a plot point)

I highly encourage you to take a look at my fic page, where you can see all the fics I’ve written at a glance! It really sounds like you haven’t read most of them, so do give them a go!

As a response to your thoughts that I have not contributed to this fandom at all — I’m sure you’re aware of the JP-Library by now. At least I hope so! Here is how all that happened:

As I mentioned before, in 2013 the fandom seemed to be dying down. 2014-2016 continued in the same way, with everyone having sort of scattered around after JohnHeartPaul had gone quiet. Tumblr isn’t the best place to keep your whole community in, since it doesn’t offer any possibility for good fandom discussion. AO3 was slowly gaining foot in the fandom, and new fics started to appear little by little — AUs to my delight, although even as recently as in 2016 there just didn’t seem to be any new ground-shaking fics. Overall the whole place seemed to be dying down, and I was feeling desperate, because this fandom had been my home for years by then.

4th of January 2017 I had a thought that if no one else was going to do anything, I was the one that had to. Here is a quote from messages I sent that day to one friend after bringing up the idea of a new, updated JP-archive:

CJD, [04.01.17 23:43]I just kinda wanna keep the jp fandom alive

CJD, [04.01.17 23:43]cos I’ve been watching it go down for years :/

This was my core motivation from the start. I collected all the fics from the JP-archive, went through them to sort out the broken links, and started adding AO3 fics into the mix. A month after the idea of doing this had surfaced, I published the site, and have been updating it ever since. Soon after that I took over @mclennonrecs​.

I have been told by several different people that “you’re the one who’s keeping this fandom alive” or “you revived the whole fandom”. I’m not... sure if I agree, but it does however give a picture of what at least a one group of people think of my contributions to this fandom, and I’m glad to think that I’ve managed to make at least a small difference.

Truthfully I find it quite offensive that you would question my involvement in our fandom after all the work I’ve put into the Library and Mclennonrecs. I won’t say anything else on the matter, but I hope you take your time reading through my answer and considering what I’ve said.

I am always ready to receive criticism about my writing and the work I do, as long as it is given constructively. I do hope people would stop hounding writers for writing stories with bottom!Paul. It is discouraging to new authors and tiring to the old ones. I’ve always loved how people of all ages can unite over our love for John and Paul without judging anyone, so let’s not start creating unnecessary tension now.

Learn to see the fandom through its rich history, and don’t judge people without knowing their motivations. Please spread love instead of hate. Thank you! :)