My writing collaboration with AR started more than 8 months ago, and it sort of amazes me how strong it’s still going. My writing partner, who prefers to keep a low profile, is a delight to work with, and not just because his 3D artwork is scorching hot. He likes to tell himself that I do all the writing, but it’s not even remotely true. His words and dazzlingly sexy ideas are all over everything we’ve been writing together, and when he illustrates some of them, it’s just seriously delicious icing on the cake.

At one point, we were discussing if either of us ever fantasized about being BG East wrestlers like the ones we’ve both been turned on by over the years. The answer for both of us was “fuck yes, all the fucking time.” Which then morphed into a series of homoerotic wrestling stories we’ve been working on over the months charting the fantasy BG East career of a certain wrestling blogger who ventures into the ring and in front of the camera to put his relentlessly critical reviewer’s perspective to the test as a wrestler. I posted at Sidelineland Stories some “match descriptions” of this wrestling blogger’s first three matches, in a loving homage to the real BG East website that I’ve called my homoerotic wrestling home for so many years. Today, I posted what was actually the first BG East fantasyverse homoerotic wrestling story AR and I co-authored, which chronologically takes place after those first few solo matches for the blogger-turned wrestler. In this new match, he shows up with a hunky, newbie tag team partner to square off against the tag dream team that never quite was IRL, Joshua Goodman and Troy Baker.

I shared the story with another friend a few weeks ago, who teased me a little about writing myself as a babyface hero of my own homoerotic wrestling fantasy. If you’ve read enough of this blog, you know that I actually passionately love babyface heroes. A lot. It probably should come as a surprise to no one that I’d cast myself in that role in the rough and tumble world of a BG East fantasyverse. If you read the story (and the upcoming ones that continue to chronicle the adventure), you’ll see that the protagonist is NOT a jobber. I feel like somewhere over the last 15 years of blogging about homoerotic wrestling, the role of a babyface hero who isn’t a jobber has somehow disappeared from public discourse. EVERYONE has been reduced to being either a jobber or a heel, and, frankly, I think it’s a loss of depth of the homoerotic wrestling universe. I wanted my fantasy avatar to walk that line again, tough, mean even, but not a heel. Let me know if AR and I struck that chord in Tag Team Torture – Bard/Strong vs. Goodman/Baker.

And if you know me, you KNOW I love a story arc and character development, so don’t be surprised if you see this fictional blogger turned BG East star evolve!