Jenny Smith of Houston, Texas stared listlessly at her word processor. Ever since Chandler Parsons had gone to play in Dallas, her Parsons/Lin fanfiction storyline had come to an abrupt halt. She didn’t understand why it had to be this way. Her dad said that the Dallas team, whatever their name was, had paid Chandler too much money, and that the Rockets hadn’t wanted to pay him that much. In Jenny’s opinion, that was stupid. Chandler was the best player on the team and they should have paid him whatever he wanted.
And then there was Jeremy Lin, who had gone to play for the Lakers. That had been a trade, but Jenny, again, didn’t understand why you would trade a player who was so good. And his sly Asian mysteriousness, coupled with his pure innocence uncorrupted by American society, had made him a fun character to write.
She had tried to create a new story featuring Donatas Motiejunas, whose name she didn’t even know how to pronounce, and Trevor Ariza, who, from his last name, she had assumed was a Mexican. But they just weren’t attractive enough to make it work, and they didn’t share the real-life flirtatiousness that had made the Linsons relationship so compelling. That attempt had been aborted mercilessly and placed in the Recycle Bin, right next to the poem she had written for the cute guy whose locker was three down from hers.
On a whim, she searched Google for the pictures of other Dallas players. A guy named “Rajon” was dismissed; he looked too much like an alien. “Tyson” had a sexy, mysterious name, but turned out to be a freaky tall monster. “Monta” looked like one of those strung-out junkies she saw hanging out by the gas station. But the next player to come up caught her eye. He had a kind of noble, gruff European-ness about him, a quality that would pair well with Chandler’s down-to-earth, guy-around-the-block aesthetic.
“Dirk Nowitzki.” Jenny thought that was a stupid name, but just “Dirk” by itself would work. Already, the seed of a story had been planted and was growing. They meet up in the locker room after a hard-fought win, both sweaty and tired, then they catch each other’s eye…
Pulling up her word processor again, Jenny Smith of Houston, Texas began the next chapter in her career as LiveJournal’s premier basketball fanfiction writer.