Toronto Star

Storybook ending not enough for some skating fans

On-ice chemistry between Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir inspires romantic fan fiction

- ADINA BRESGE

In the minds of many fans, five-time Olympic medallists Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir are a perfect match both on and off the ice. The ice-dancing champions have insisted that their two-decades-long partnershi­p has been purely athletic, but that has not stopped fan-fiction enthusiast­s from writing their own versions of the duo’s gold-medal love story.

Their crackling on-ice chemistry has inspired dozens of romantic tales that envision Virtue and Moir as not only Canada’s sweetheart­s, but each other’s.

A recent search of fan-fiction website Archive of Our Own found more than 160 works inspired by Virtue and Moir, some posted as recently as this week, while other serialized accounts have been kept up over years.

Since the Winter Games began, Toronto-based online storytelli­ng platform Wattpad has seen a spike in Olympic-themed stories, of which romantic fiction about Virtue and Moir comprises a relatively small sub-genre.

“Scott and Tessa have obviously captured the imaginatio­ns of lots of people,” said Wattpad’s Ashleigh Gardner.

She said “shippers” — a term fans use to describe supporters of fictional romantic pairings — use fan fiction as a way to explore fantasies about the two falling in love on the ice, dating and getting married.

“I think people like to imagine that their relationsh­ip is more than it is and that they’re a couple off the ice as well,” Gardner said. “They want to see that chemistry that they’ve seen in their ice dancing and they want to explore that further.”

One 22,000-word epic story traces a fictional relationsh­ip from when they met as children to them bracing for their final Olympics this year.

Another story, called “This History of Ours” imagines Virtue plagued with regrets as she contemplat­es her ill-fated love affair with Moir, which she ended because she felt it disrupted their athletic harmony.

Eden Lackner, an English instructor at University of Calgary, said she is not surprised the relationsh­ip between Virtue and Moir has provided so much creative fodder for fan-fiction writers.

Lackner, who writes and studies fan fiction, described the fandom for Virtue and Moir as small but significan­t. Most of the stories are romances, Lackner said, and while some are erotic, she thinks fan-fiction writers are more interested in the skaters’ personal relationsh­ip than their sex lives.

“I think with Moir and Virtue, a lot of it is that they have an incredibly compelling story, and ice dancing . . . much of it is about telling a story too,” Lackner said. “You have that chemistry, on top of the story of their athletic career, working together to provide something that people want to spend more time with.”

It’s not that fan-fiction writers believe Virtue and Moir are romantical­ly involved in real life, she said, but stories allow them to “fix that” and write their own happy endings.

“We’re not really writing about them. We’re writing about their public personas,” she said. “Maybe they’re not together, but we can write a story that they are.”

As their Olympic ambitions fade into the distance, Moir told reporters in Pyeongchan­g that he and Virtue hope to devote more time to their personal lives outside skating.

“Relationsh­ip status, it’s none of your business,” Moir joked.

“I can say that the last two years I’ve been in a very committed relationsh­ip with (figure skating). And we’re the type of athletes that dive headfirst into the whole process and I don’t honestly know where you would find time for that. And part of the reason maybe we wouldn’t continue (competing) is to open up that side of our life maybe and see where that goes.”

 ?? JAMES HILL/THE NEW YORK TIMES ?? A recent search of Archive of Our Own found more than 160 works inspired by Olympic champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.
JAMES HILL/THE NEW YORK TIMES A recent search of Archive of Our Own found more than 160 works inspired by Olympic champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada