So I'm reading the regency fic (with a healthy dose of skimming here and there) and a character is referenced, in all seriousness, as I.P. Freeley.

Seriously? Seriously?!

If this were crack fic, I'd think the reference cheap and low, and maybe offer a chuckle despite myself. In this, however, I simply see the author growing weary of their own fic and failing to care.

And apparently he works/lives on the same street as the muffin man.

I thought it was a funny offhand to Balthazar. Why is it cheap and low? I don't get it. It wasn't the most hysterical thing, but a light tip to canon.

If anyone who's into D/C has been reading the swim team/lacrosse AU, it finishes here. If you haven't, I recommend the porn. The last chapter is more emotional, but it's still pretty hot too.

However, it's making me miss the water polo one, which was smoking hot. I don't think I added that to my bookmarks. I really should.

It's just such a childish, easy, silly wordplay, it's bathroom humour, and keeps pulling me out of the story every time the character is mentioned. How is it a reference to Balthazar? I'm not getting that at all, but maybe I need to read further.

That's how they busted Balthazar in the Titanic episode. He listed himself on the ship roster as I.P. Freeley. It's a callback to 'My Heart Will Go On'. It's *his* childishness, not the author's.

And if there are multiple references to it, I've evidently missed a couple chapters. Or I didn't see them the first time round--I only remember one.

Ah.

It's just the one (latest) chapter. And he's mentioned several times.

Does it bother you with the canon context?

And, evidently, I'm up to date. Sad now. Want more. I don't really expect they get together in this story, but for someone who doesn't usually read pre-slash (definitions vary so much. I like what *I* call pre-slash, but that's not usually what I get), I'm totes okay with that.

It bothers me in that I didn't remember that it was canon context. If I had, I might have rolled my eyes and moved on. It's odd for the fic that seems to have so little to do with canon, that it then pulls an obscure detail from it that is either juvenile or irrelevant, depending on whether you remembered it from Show.

either juvenile or irrelevant, depending on whether you remembered it from Show.

You're missing the opinion that I have, that it's just one more canon name, of which they have plenty. 90% of the names are canon, and there's a decided cant towards the idea of pen names. It seems perfectly cromulent to me, FWIW.

It's juvenile in canon, and I have to live with that, but within the fic, with the limited inclusion of canon elements, and the tone of the fic, to defend it's inclusion as canon is whack, to me. I smirked at Ash's last name, but . . . this entire conversation is ridiculous.

Conclusion: want more regency fic NOW!

It's juvenile in canon, and I have to live with that

But ... you get that the show itself uses a lot of juvenile humor, right? This doesn't seem like a surprise to me.