#fic: mcstrome

[sassthatsarcasm]

hey, don’t write yourself off yet

[cookeham]

happy sunday! i wrote a fic inspired by the wonderful @astronicht's animal transformation fic. here you go:

"Formerly Otters"

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Relationship: Connor McDavid/Dylan Strome

Additional Tags: Animal Transformation, Post-Stanley Cup Finals 2024, Hurt/Comfort, eventually i promise, Panic Attacks

Summary:

Around 11 pm on June 24th, the Oilers lose the Stanley Cup Finals. At 7 am, Dylan's phone wakes him up with a text from an unknown number. How soon can you be in Edmonton? it reads. Or: In which Connor turns into an otter again, and he and Dylan have a long overdue conversation.

chapter two is forthcoming. ok, bye!

[scoringeffects]

do u have any mcstrome fic recs. dylan liking that tweet has sent me into a spiral

dylan liking that tweet is so freaking . estranged ex best friend but i still think about you on your birthday and my mom makes apple pie the way your mom does and i know what you're like when youre asleep and you used to know me better than anyone else and i dont know how to tell you i think ive changed and i know you have BUT FIC WISE:

the absolute classic burn the straw house down by theundiagnosable (E, 39k) all of their fics are incredible but this one is a classic for a reason like truly just such an incredible fic quite possibly the thesis of modern/post draft/post career mcstrome like this is Them and them learning each other again and dealing with their history and what they meant to eachother and what they mean to eachother now

in a very similar vein (future fic, dealing with all their nonsense, connor being strange and bizarre) The Next Next One by yourblues (M, 71k) is also a classic also one of those like. That mcstrome fic. where theyre relearning eachother and that process is painful and thourough and detailed so well here

so collect your scars and wear them well by addandsubtract (M, 15k) is also so so good also a classic (probably one of the first mcstrome fics ever?) has the benefit of being written right around the draft/a little after such that unlike in all the future fics, they already know eachother as they are and its more like connor coming to terms w the fact that dylans love and care for him is actually quite endless (like idk if this out of place to say but this reads like a lot of modern connorleon fics read like its far more of a friends to lovers/codependant boybestfriends to codependant boybestfriends who have tenderhorny sex fic than an ex codependant best friends who had mutual crushes on eachother but didnt dare say a word about it to lovers who say many many words about it. if that makes sense)

the kids are gonna be by Sour_Idealist (T, 24k) is a very fun getting together fic featuring fated generational talent/first overall/gay yoda mentor sidney crosby truly truly wish there were more fics like this. this is a bit the fic that clocked me on to everyone's tendancy in hrpf to drop a sentance about sidcros is also gay regardless of who the hrpf is about LSDFHGLSDFLHG

and finally i watched your life in pictures by Stromesquad (E, 20k) another post retirement getting together/getting back in sync wondering what happened realising they never really stopped loving eachother etc etc like i do think the main draw of mcstrome these days is in post retirement/post career like they are the pinnacle of codependant teenage best friendship that leaves you fundementally changed especially w the trajectory of their careers rn (like dylan's old teams having to move/enter a rebuild + his current team on the brink of a rebuild vs connor being the one the oilers built around)

[glasshouses-and-stones]

🎄WRITEMAS 2024🎄

Okayyy, thank you @agirlandherquill for creating this lovely challenge! It inspired me to finish a piece (which I've been struggling to do), so I am forever grateful <3

I have six minutes to post this before it's officially December 2nd for me, so let's see if I can get it in time!!

-

🌟DAY 1:🌟

"look at me."

a frozen lake

they were nearing the end, but what then?

a brush of a finger

-

hrpf, Connor McDavid/Dylan Stome, T

"He knew better, by then, to let Connor do whatever he wanted, whatever he put his mind to. There wasn't anyone or anything that could stop him, and Dylan had given up trying a long time ago."

-

Thanks again for creating the challenge, and anyone who sees this should definitely consider hoping in on it!! <3 Happy holidays, guys :)

[notlayingroses]

To Build a Legacy

In the last 48 hours of Connor McDavid getting traded, he upended his whole life, got on a plane to fly across a country he didn’t have an allegiance to, and cried in an airport bathroom. In the midst of all of that, he hadn’t really stopped to consider the fact that he’d be on the same team as Dylan Strome again. He’d also, apparently, forgotten that Dylan was currently on leave from the team after his wife’s death a year ago.

But hockey was hockey. New systems, new coaches, new teammates, sure. But skating the puck across the ice and hitting the back of the net? That was the same no matter what country you were in. The Capitals were building on their legacy, not trying to live up to one, and they wanted Connor to be a part of it.

Building a legacy. He could work with that.

[msmargaretmurry]

have you seen this https://x.com/connorsbedard/status/1877877442871787809?t=9crWA4if-FXCTaMvFs-EOg&s=19 🥹

(link) oh YES I HAVE ANON and i am SUFFERING!!!!!!!!!!!

[boyliker55]

CHAPTER 8 IS HERE!!!

if you are unfamiliar this is my mcstrome future fic/dylan goes to edmonton fic/kidfic my labor of love and my pride and joy :D if any of those things appeal to you then give her a read thx <3

click here to read!!

[linskywords]

https://www.tumblr.com/scoringeffects/775289845700558848/weve-uh-never-actually-played-together

First gif got me. Young sub connor!

(link)

Ooooh yes. Someone else sent me this link, and now I'm wondering...why have I not written Connor/Mitch more? Or at least Connor/Dylan where Dylan is horribly jealous of whatever might be going on with Mitch, but really Mitch is just a handsy little gremlin?

[grittyreadsfic]

i love the wonder years send tweet

[rainbowkittensuprisestan]

the Mattdrai , Mceichel , and Mcstrome tags

Hockey RPF writers being known across fandoms as literary masters

When I first started reading MattDrai fics on AO3 I remember thinking “wait what the HELL is going on why is this the most consistently well-written fanfiction I’ve read in any fandom? Is this a thing? Do people know??” And apparently it is and they do.

[glasshouses-and-stones]

Last Line Tag

Thanks to @the-golden-comet for tagging me! I love doing these.

✨️My ao3 is in the pinned post on my blog✨️

The last line I've written so far in my wip, make a baby with you (E), a Mitch/Auston fic:

-

"You okay?" Auston asks, and Mitch just nods.

Yeah, he will be. He doesn't fucking know how, but he has to.

-

And the last line in my last posted story, the system's breaking down, an ongoing Dylan/Connor/Mitch fic:

-

Before Dylan can get anything out, Connor's hung up the phone. The dial tone rings out in the silent room.

Dylan stays laying on his bed for the next hour, trying on what Connor said, seeing if it fits.

Damn, maybe Connor really should have majored in psychology.

-

No pressure tags: @agirlandherquill, @charlesjosephwrites, @floweryprosegarden, @willowseed, @kedkd, @chayscribbles

+Open Tag! Tag me if you see this and participate. I love reading others' work.

(Let me know if you want to be added to my tag list!)

[notlayingroses]

I’m out here trying to get my normie friends to read the draft of my hockey rpf because I’m stuck and need feedback, sending them mini primers on the players so they can understand what’s going on

[msmargaretmurry]

Was listening to Merry Christmas, Please Don’t Call and it has such mcstrome energy and specifically the vibe of tnno! Like, I was listening and just the sense of melancholy is so them. These lines in particular “Oh, golden boy, don't act like you were kind You were mine, but you were awful every time” and “Oh, golden boy, you shined a light on our home And at your best you were magic we were sold But don't tell 'em what you told me Don't even tell 'em that you know me”!!! Just immediately thought of tnno!!

GOSH okay first off all sorry for taking a few days to answer this. i saw it and was like WOW SO TRUE FRIEND and then immediately forgot to respond because it's finals and also my job is nuts right now so my brain is total mush. anyway, WOW SO TRUE FRIEND. i love this song, i think it's lovely, i love sad christmas songs, and you're so correct about the mcstrome vibes in general and tnno in specific..... i am of course thinking about the christmas scene in that story, the two of them texting and then dylan going through the photos in the book in the middle of the night. connor asking dylan to tell his family merry christmas from him and dylan saying he will even though he won't. oh i'm in my feelings about it! maybe i'll reread the whole thing when i'm free from finals 😂

[bigbrotherlouis]

ao3 link

(cleaned up and slightly expanded)

i would love to hear more about mcstrome 🫡

realistically i'm sure it's the age-old story of two kids end up in the same place and become best friends because of proximity and then once they leave being in each others' presence and grow up into adults that friendship fades away but there's still fondness there.

however fictionally? alexa play ribs by lorde

you are fifteen years old. you are fifteen years old and you have been drafted to a new team in a new city in a new country. you are the youngest person on your team and you are probably the best person on your team and you are eight hours from home, granted special exception to be drafted a year early into the OHL and you are proving yourself against boys two, three, four years older than you, but despite it all your team finishes almost dead last. you are rookie of the year.

you are sixteen years old. you are sixteen years old, and the second best player in the draft, the draft that should've been yours but wasn't, is coming to your team. you know him. you meet him in the summer and you're already friends, fast friends, and you've been dreaming about being teammates again. he talks fast and he's fiercely loyal and he keeps up with you on the ice and he reminds you of home. he is not your best friend yet but he will be. he invites you home during the summers and asks if you want to play street hockey with him. you come and you sit on the sidelines, already conscious of the worth of your body enough that you know this is not something you should be participating in. he doesn't care, though, captain of a team, yelling at mitch marner who is an awful goalie and keeps letting in goals, and winning that summer. you go to the beach together, pale and stretched out on the sand, and now you are best friends.

you are seventeen years old. you are seventeen years old and they have just named you the captain of your team. you're wearing the letter with pride but people are talking about you like you're the second coming of hockey jesus. they've been talking about you for a while now, but this feels like more. this feels heavy. you break your hand in a fight in november because you are, after all, still a teenage boy. you sit out and watch as your best friend lights up the ice. he is the best person out there when you're on the bench and it shows in the stats and the points. he can tell you all the stats and the points because he's good at remembering those. he says he can remember every single play he's ever made and honestly? you kind of believe him. the haunting specter of the draft covers your entire year, looming in the corners of your vision, colouring every interaction. you are good, and he is good, and there is no chance of being drafted together, no matter how much you secretly hope. the calendar is a countdown clock towards your end, but you make him promise you will stay best friends because you don't really know what you will do without him.

you are eighteen years old. you are eighteen years old and edmonton has already made your jersey even though the draft hasn't happened yet. the graveyard of first overalls and rumors of a curse after gretzky left. you're the next gretzky and you're the next coming of hockey jesus and the entire city is waiting for your salvation. he goes third. phoenix, which is the literal opposite of edmonton. you hang off of him the entire weekend before, realising that this is the crescendo. you will never be otters together again. there's little chance you'll even be teammates again, so you cling tight even as you're so breathlessly excited for the moment your name get called first. you trip off the stage in a jersey that doesn't quite fit right but has your name on the back, and quietly ask if you can watch this next pick before you go backstage. you twine yourselves in a hug when he follows behind and it feels awfully like a goodbye.

now.

you are eighteen years old. you are eighteen years old and your best friend is drafted number one overall. you always knew he was better. you always knew he was made for more, so it doesn't hurt. you're happy to follow in his footsteps because you are his best friend and nothing will ever change that. besides, third is still a good number. amazing, even. they send you back to erie but you expected that. no one makes it to the show unless they are exceptional or a team is desperate, and edmonton is both. he scores his first nhl point in his third game and you are named captain of the otters. life is good. he breaks his collarbone less than a month in, shattering his rookie dreams. he comes home to you, in erie, because no one else understands him like you do. no one knows how to manage him when he's broken and angry, but you have patience and a lot of love and loyalty. you lie in your big bed and take up most of the mattress, two grown boys in the dark, and you don't kiss him. you could, but you don't.

you are nineteen years old. you are nineteen years old and he is named captain of his nhl team, also at nineteen. he is the youngest captain in history. thirteen days later, you score your first point. a month after that, arizona sends you packing back to erie. this time it hurts. you were doing your best and it wasn't bad and your best friend is captain of the oilers and you are playing with your high school team again. they make you captain for the second year in a row, but it's not the oilers and it's not the coyotes, so does it actually fucking matter? you are determined to prove everyone wrong and so you drag your team to the memorial cup. you win and it feels like a fuck you and it is maybe the best moment of your goddamn life. your phone is quiet. you haven't had any texts from edmonton for months.

you are twenty years old. you are twenty years old and this is finally your goddamn year. except-- you go pointless in two games and arizona decides that's not good enough. you've aged out of the otters so you pack your bag for tuscon instead. you spend your winter bouncing between the nhl and the ahl, sometimes so fast it makes you sick. winter in the desert feels weird, feels barren. you lie on your floor under the a/c and deliberately do not think of the time you almost kissed your ex-best friend. he's your ex-best friend because he's got a new one up there, draisaitl who also went third but the year before you. he can keep up with him, even better than you can, because he's not being bounced up and down. you wonder if draisaitl ever wants to kiss him. you wonder if draisaitl ever has.

you are twenty one years old. you are twenty one years old and you are a draft bust. they've been calling you that for years but now they're right. arizona trades you to chicago for practically nothing, which is embarrassing, but it's alright because you've got an old otter, brinksy, there on your team. you're nothing special, but you're nothing bad either. if only you hadn't touched the hem of hockey jesus as a teenager. if only you hadn't known what greatness tastes like. when you face off against edmonton, he won't meet your eye. he slides out of the centre dot and draisaitl steps in and wins the draw.

you are twenty three years old. you are twenty three years old and you have a girlfriend now, a pretty one, and it's-- good. your team makes it to the weird-ass playoffs in august, because there's a pandemic now, and you get trapped in a hotel in edmonton. your girlfriend tells you that she's pregnant right before you leave, like right before, and you can barely care about anything else. you barely care that he is two floors below you and the last message in your texts was a happy birthday! three years ago. unimaginably, you knock him out of the playoffs on his home ice. in the handshake line, he offers you his palm and his eyes skate over you like you're a stranger.

you are twenty five years old. you are twenty five years old, and on yet another new team. that's good, though, even if he will always be so much better. your fiance asks if she should send an letter to an edmonton address and you hesitate. you are no longer friends anymore. you haven't been for years and years, even if you lie when the press ask. but you loved him, once. you loved him so much that you were part of him and he was part of you, and the teenager on a shared bed in the dark will not let you forget that. you put his name down on an envelope.

so.

you are twenty five years old. you are twenty five years old and a wedding invitation arrives at your front door. you slide your fingernail under the flap and freeze when you see the faces on the front. there's a secret you will never tell anyone, not even on your deathbed, but you think of it now. it takes up so much space in your lungs that you can barely breathe. and it hurts. your girlfriend, who you love very much finds you shredding paper into a wastebasket and asks if everything is alright. you lie. you can't imagine not lying and so she doesn't catch you at it. you tell her that you've always wanted to go to manchester, england. you tell her that you should plan a trip for the summer, and you end up on a plane to a different continent while your ex-best friend is getting married back home.

you are sixteen years old. you are sixteen years old and flat on your back at the beach, listening to the water lap up on shore. beside you, he drops to the ground to stretch out too, his bare arm pressing up against your own. it dawns on you, as consuming and as present as gravity, that you are in love with him. it dawns on you that maybe you always be.

you're the only friend i need / sharing beds like little kids / we'll laugh until our ribs get tough / but that will never be enough

[linskywords]

Weird question but do you have any thoughts on why there aren’t more McDrai fic writers? Like obviously the ones that do are just out of this world but as someone who lives in Edmonton and sees firs5 hand how animated the fan base is, it surprises me that’s it’s not more of a fic juggernaut

Hm, that's an interesting question! It's certainly not an UNpopular ship -- looks like there are 508 works in the ao3 tag. That's a lot smaller than, say, Sid/Geno (3.8K), but that one's been around and popular for SO much longer. I'm not sure 508 works is small for a ship that's mostly taken off in the last half-decade. But I take your point that it could be a lot bigger! I think there are a couple of main factors why it isn't:

Competing ships: MattDrai (975 works) really struck a chord with people in 2020, and that probably took some of the attention that could have gone to Connor and Leon. A lot of the more compelling stuff about McDrai just came to light in the last few years, I think, and so at the time there was nothing to oppose the lure of hot rivals with enemies-to-lovers energy. There was also McStrome (391 works), which had its heyday around/after the 2015 draft and probably prevented McDrai from gaining steam early on.

Fandom demographics: You're right about the Oilers having a huge fanbase, but I'm just not sure that the size of a team's irl fanbase is very relevant to its present in hockey RPF. So many of us found HRPF before we found hockey. We were people who liked fic, who liked RPF in general, who were part of fandom communities in the tumblr sense rather than the sports fan sense, and when we got here our favorite players and teams were determined by the players and teams we read about, which was in turn determined by the narratives that happened to get traction in our fandom's history (see, for example, the boom of Bennguin back in 2014, which vastly exceeded the Dallas Stars' actual portion of the hockey fanbase). So Oilers fans are probably underrepresented compared to their presence and fervor in the actual sports world, and Leon and Connor are less of a juggernaut as a result. But still popular -- and gaining, I think, especially now that Matthew is in Florida and the polycule has been getting so much attention.

Would be interested to know if anyone has any theories to add!

[eiidolon]

Thank you @eliooliver83 for the tag much love :)

Favorite color - sky blue and or sage green

Last song - DNA by Kendrick

Currently reading - idk if this counts but I’m currently working through my professor’s paper on Russian political knocking languages in prisons

Currently watching - Ted Lasso and Hannibal!

Currently craving - I would really fucking dig some sushi rn.

Coffee or tea - I’m embarrassingly into tea

Hobby to try - trying so fucking hard to learn how to cook right now it’s not working I’m ngl

Current AU - currently struggling through a mcstrome summer camp counselor fic

Tagging @zamulas @watch-the-damn-line @glasshouses-and-stones and @tradetobest IF you so wish to participate :)