Social

by spanishforthecar

Summary:

Last month I tweeted, "AU where Ed is a superfan of a sleeper hit tv show who delights in harassing the show's half-assed social media accounts. Stede runs the accounts, the only job his father (the owner of the evil media corporation) trusts him with. He's also a huge fan of the show, but is too under his father's thumb to promote it as it deserves to be promoted. And he's scared to confront what his love of this explicitly queer show means for his identity. He finds himself half in love with the user yelling at him, but does he have the courage to admit it and break free?" and it was BY FAR my most popular tweet to date. So now it's a fic.

This is being posted first on Twitter as part of the June Microfic project; will update here weekly on Sundays whenever I have a chunk to post, as this has turned into a June + July macrofic!

Chapter 1: Give It Up

Within seconds of posting the QRT of a cast member’s announcement of an award nomination, the notifications started rolling in – likes, retweets, comments. As usual, the comments skewed heavily towards snide remarks about how the network didn't appreciate their most popular new show, which had generated thousands of nearly-rabid fans seemingly out of nowhere the previous spring. Why, people wanted to know, was the network's Twitter account retweeting the cast, instead of the other way around?

Why indeed. Stede might be the one scheduling the tweets and keeping tabs on cast and crew instagram accounts, but he sure as hell wasn't the one calling the shots. Sure, he was just the network's social media coordinator, there by the grace of nepotism and doing only as he was told, but he knew – he KNEW – this show was something special. Something that deserved to be shouted about from the rooftops, something that spoke deeply to the people who watched it. Something that deserved real promotion, real hype – not recycled content and eyerolls from the executives who favored "serious, epic dramas."

Sometimes – most of the time, really – Stede wanted to just give it up: quit his job, tell his father to shove it, and never look back. But there was one thing keeping him there.