Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine, and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.
Three major fan-fiction websites were down for millions of users last night following an unprecedented influx of new accounts writing “fics” of UC Berkeley’s Oski the Bear and the Stanford Tree. After photos leaked of the rivalrous pair leaving a fundraising dinner at Stanford’s Faculty Club arm-in-arm the night before the Big Game, Archive of Our Own (also known as “AO3”), Wattpad (“Where stories live”), and Fanfiction.net (the “original Millennial training grounds”) all crashed, resulting in what’s been called the “greatest erotic media blackout of this generation.”
The global glitch shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s had their eye on the Bear and the Tree, whose not-so-subtle antics have been captured by the paparazzi time and time again. For years, football fans and fanatical fujoshis alike have been speculating about the nature of the relationship between the two mascots. Since 1892, the pair have been engaged in what onlookers have described as a “playful, bordering on smutty” working feud, encircling one another in an intricate mating dance to claim ownership of “the Axe.” Fans (of dark romance, not football) wonder if this intimate, cyclical ritual is simply a living metaphor that represents and makes material their forbidden passion. But that’s all, um, conjecture.
Over time, curiosity about “Californication” — the name given to the “ship,” short for relationship, of Oski and the Tree — has evolved into an intricate extended universe containing a respectable oeuvre of increasingly sexually gratuitous work. Despite criticism from environmental activists, animal rights groups and privacy advocates alike, the fandom shows no signs of slowing down the sheer volume of written and visual art it has been producing, the vast majority of which is so obscene it’s been banned from most platforms (even Tumblr).
Despite the media storm, the pair themselves have kept mum on the situation. Some hope this latest wave of fan enthusiasm will push the two to DTR once and for all.
But if the Tree’s recent comments on the rumors have been any indication, a more reserved approach can be expected. Earlier this week they said, “While I totally respect Oski, the storied history of the Big Game and all our fans out there, I don’t believe that I, or any celebrity figure, is under any obligation to define or defend their relationships.” The Tree cited Chappell Roan’s recent spats with paparazzi as inspiration for their pushback from the media pressure, saying in a Tiktok video, “You’re just a random b*tch. I’m just a random b*tch. I didn’t sign up for this.”
While each of the sites is now back online and the relationship between the two mascots remains “fuzzy and shady,” one can only hope that the unstoppable force that is fangirl imagination — that which has mobilized armies of tween girls to pen lengthy speculative fiction pieces since the dawn of the written word — will continue to spur even the most closeted of us to live authentically.