#as in this whole weird essay thing is about both rpf specifically and fandom generally

[coffee-at-annies]

@paintingtheice so I totally meant to post this yesterday and then fell asleep editing/adding on to this. This is not the essay on gendering Sidney Crosby we’ve talked about in dms it’s instead a different fandom essay that I started writing in my head half as a convo and then said fuck it essay time. @podcasts-8-my-heart this is also dedicated to you saying you’re proud of me for writing 2.5k+. I’m proud of you.

So I was thinking on my bus ride into work this morning (yesterday - yes it’s been a day this got long don’t look at me like that) about hrpf and SidGeno and some of the shifts I’ve seen fandom go through in my time following hockey. There are a million and one little reasons why things have changed and many of them can simply be chalked up to the passing of time; new information gets revealed, new events happen, roster turnover, and fandom/writer turnover. One thing that I think about a lot is when fic is set in relation to “canon.” The relationship with canon in hrpf is both deeper and more divorced than other fandom, but stay with me I’m gonna pull a bunch of words out my ass and hope it makes a lick of sense.

The first talking point/part of this thesis is recency bias. People are way more inclined to favor recent events over the past. You see this in the actual fandom with people reacting to losses or saying “we never win against [team]” when we have in fact won against that team as recent as last year. It’s this sort of bias that causes us as readers/writers to read something current and assume it’s always been this way and then experience cognitive dissonance with other depictions of the characters that are older or simply different. “He would not fucking say that.” Well once upon a time maybe he did. Maybe it’s out of character now, but back then it was the defining character study for how fandom understood him and you need to sit down and actually look at what people were saying. Maybe it was never in character but the author committed to being ooc and you can see how our understanding has drifted closer or farther away in the years since.

The second talking point is that when fandom isn’t reacting to current canon it has a tendency to latch on to specific parts of canon and not let go. I’m quantifying that as “events”. Fandom hates filler but it loves a plot point. In hprf in general and sidgeno specifically you see this in a lot of different ways. How many stories have been written about [insert team]’s cup run? The Olympics? I’ve read so many fics about 2015 Worlds despite never reading hrpf before 2016. We love an event. Do we actually care about every game of the season or tournament tho? Not really unless something specific to progress the plot or characterization happens. Geno visiting Sid at Sochi when they’re supposed to be enemies is more important than whoever Canada beat in the round robin.

Anyway this is all introductory backtracking because the original thrust of this essay was defining to myself the “when” that people write about. My brainstorming had it separated into the nebulous now, right fucking now when I (the author) wrote this, events events events, the vague future, the past aka when they were Youths™️, the generalized timeline (y’know, canon?) - usually characterized in hrpf by events, milestones, and team personnel, and timeline what timeline.

Are you saying to yourself, gee she just listed a bunch of stuff I hope she defines it. Well good for you, that’s literally the rest of this monster. Buckle up I’m about to say way more words. I do not think I’m 100% accurate perfect no notes. I’m sure parts of it are bullshit. But hey I’m gonna close my eyes and post it anyway.

1. [Nebulous Now] - Hey remember that paragraph on recency bias? Welcome to recency bias the fic setting. In my head, the nebulous now is +/- the last two or three years. It’s set around present day* or going back only as far as the author was engaged in fandom. You’ll probably know when it’s set based on team makeup, season highlights, major events, but it’s basically meant to be set now. It may care about schedules and specific details but reserves the right to throw it out the window if it feels like it. The problem with being set now is when you run across a fic that is 5, 10, 15 years old and is supposed to still be set in whatever the current year is.

*when the fic first started being written

2. [Right Fucking Now] There is nothing nebulous about when this fic was written or what it was written about. These are usually smaller fics** where inspiring event happened anywhere from the day the writer started writing to at most a month or two ago. Usually precipitated by X did Y in Z game against team A and got celebratory gangbanged in the locker room about it. (Y being goals, hat tricks, fights, ect.). You can’t get more specific than this baby. Fics set before/during/after a specific game fit here. All Star Game fics written around the All Star Break are here. Milestone events are here, for example Tanger and Geno’s 1K games. Fics written immediately in reaction to stuff like Contract-gate go here. Most playoff fic that references specific events or was written during the playoffs falls under here. The main clarifying point is it wasn’t written very long after the fact. Anything written now about last years All Star Game, Contract-Gate, Sid slutting it up at worlds and the Olympics, all fall under a different category. Which is a great segue to my next one.

** I said usually smaller but sometimes an author decides to write a big fic about the narrative arc of the season and we love them for it.

3. [Events Events Events] - This is probably the one that is the biggest broadest category and the one I have the hardest time narrowing down despite having more examples than I can shake a stick at. Simply put, this category is for fics that are concerned with a specific event, usually big, but sometimes small. This can be any event that stands out in a reader/author’s head. Generally the fic was written after the event happened from a place of knowing how everything shakes out in canon. These fics can feel different because the we walk in already knowing the start and stop and major events of the fic. From the reader’s perspective the event is over but the characters experiencing the event don’t know it.

SidGeno/Pens Examples include: World Juniors. The Olympics/the golden goal/Sochi. The cup runs are a subcategory unto themselves but the playoffs/finals are a big event. Major injuries like Geno’s knee surgery and Sid’s concussion. Duper’s retirement tends to be a foot note in cup run stories but it’s a small event. Trades def count since there are absolutely stories about the before/after of a trade. Vegas & Seattle Expansion Drafts. The lockouts (05 & 2012). I’m ignoring that the pandemic-stoppage is also under this cause I don’t like reading about it. Contract-gate is a recent example. Basically if you’re asking “hey does this event count as an event” the answer is probably yes because you’ve remembered it. If you can point to something specific on the timeline and zoom in on it then it counts.

***this one I keep tweaking it’s definition and I’m still not 100% happy. I just keep thinking about all the fic I’ve read in other fandoms that feel beholden to canon in ways that I end up bemoaning the lack of creativity. Nobody says it has to happen this exact way every time but authors who claim to hate that installment still faithfully recreate it every time.

So we’ve had now, and we’ve had the events that everyone (or just you) remember, what’s next is literally what’s next.

4. [Vague Future] - Quite literally 1, 5, 10, 20 years in the future. Next season fics. Retirement and post-retirement fics. Their kids getting drafted fic is this. Anything that makes you think further ahead than the end of the current season is probably in this category. It’s vague because who the heck knows if it ends up true or not. There is of course overlap with the Nebulous Now because its nebulous. Since everything is set vaguely now-ish, it’s hard to tell when now starts becoming the future. The season just started and all through the preseason I saw people talking about who they think is going win the cup this year. There’s so much hockey to be played still. The future is vague but it will eventually become now.

Also remember it’s all about perspective. There’s tons of movies set in the far distant future of the late 2010s and they don’t match up to our lived reality. Going back to the comment about cognitive dissonance, sometimes you aren’t writing about an event from a place of knowing; sometimes it’s just your best guess or heartfelt wish. It’s so easy to say “oh that’s an au” when maybe it wasn’t an au when it was written, maybe it was intended to be accurate to the author’s best guess. Sometimes fics from the past were set in the future but that time has been passed by life and going back to read them is weird but cool. It’s interesting to see where people thought the boys were going vs where they are. Who could have guessed the core would have careers this long or decorated but they have.

Speaking of writing from a place of knowing; this next one is sort of a subcategory of events, but was a specific enough setting of fic I wanted to call it out.

5. [Youth™️] - This is anything where they are children. It may be well research but for the most part it’s probably non-accurate outside of the broad stokes. It’s the prologue and chapter 1. Pre-canon and the first 20 minutes. Kid!fic. It’s all about the kids in this one. This is the start of the story and the time before that.

Hrpf examples include anything about juniors, Sid’s time at shattuck, and World Juniors. For SidGeno I’d probably include the 03 to 05 drafts. Can include Sid’s first year in the NHL and Geno’s flight from Russia and his first full year in the NHL (that’s the hard cutoff for me personally). You could potentially argue up to and including the 08 & 09 cup runs as like the climax of them being young NHL stars, and yeah sure I’m not a cop write whatever you want if it makes sense to you then it makes sense. I don’t think Sid getting drafted is a bad place to start a fic, especially if you’re doing an AU. There’s always a good argument to start at the beginning of the canon story.

I’m highlighting this because holy crud the number of fics I’ve seen from other fandoms that don’t even like the early material but start at movie 1 scene 1/book 1 chapter 1 anyway. It’s fanfic we don’t have to start at the beginning. You can, but its not necessary. I personally struggle with fics that don’t change anything in early canon but require you to read their version of it anyway, but I’m just one person. You do you.

This next one doesn’t have a snazzy name because look sometimes there’s a timeline and you wanna write something that encompasses it. If it’s granular I’d say you’re talking about Eventsx3 or Right Fucking Now. Overlaps with Youth™️ because you have to start somewhere and Nebulous Now because now is on the timeline. If there are expected events on the timeline like retirement from professional sports, that’s the vague future.

6. [Timeline] Sometimes authors want to care about the timeline or the fic is set over weeks, months, years. Most canons have a specific set timeline and hrpf is no different. However ours is actual literal years rather than something someone created and is thus easy to navigate. For my examples I’m generalizing over the span of months and years and then grouping by big events rather than calling out any one specific event.

[the early years] Anything from Sid’s first year to the 09 cup. Let’s be real here, most authors either write incredibly detailed fic about the whole timeline, or they’ll only write about Sid or Geno’s first full NHL years or the 08-09 cup runs. Everything else is usually glossed over. The babies era. Youth™️

Events include: Sid and Geno’s drafts. The 05 lockout. Geno fleeing Russia. Losing streaks. Mario’s return and retirement. Flower and Tanger getting called up. Sid living at Mario’s. Geno living with Gonch and learning English. Sid being named Captain. Hard cutoff is after the 07-08 and 08-09 cup runs.****

****You can argue that the 08 & 09 cup runs are their own subcategory but this is already long enough imo.

[post cup - international success and dead years] - the middle years. You’re probably only going to read event fic set during this time unless it was written in the nebulous now of those years.

Events include: the golden goal/2010 olympics. Sid’s concussion. Geno’s knee surgery. The 2012 lockout. Geno playing at home in Russia during the lockout. I think Geno & Ovi had a memorable All Star Game in here. Socchi Olympics. Worlds 2015.***** Tanger’s stroke. Olli’s cancer. Geno getting married. Trades include I wanna say Jordy, Talbo, Lazy. Gonch is in Dallas but I don’t remember if he was traded. This is also the spacetoaster era. Sid spending several years building a house only to move back in with Mario due to post-concussion syndrome.

*****Sid winning at worlds is I think the end of this era cause Worlds kicked off Sid’s “winning everything that he could possibly win” era.

[the sully era] The 15-16 & 16-17 cup wins against San Jose and Nashville. The threepeat attempt in 2018 with its second round loss to the capitals. The vegas draft followed several years later by the seattle draft. Geno had a kid. Once you get past the cup runs this really blends into the nebulous now. Maybe it’s cause I stopped reading fic religiously sometime between 2019 and 2021 but aside from the covid pandemic which I very much do not like reading about, there’s not much here to highlight other than player milestones and trades, but don’t worry Sid and Geno have had a bunch of milestones.

[modern pensblr] - The covid stoppage, pandemic-hockey, and now. Anything from 2020 to the current 2023-24 season. Very much the nebulous now but there’s tons of milestones for our two headed monster/core trio to celebrate.

Okay I know I just spent a while being very “general with specific” but this next category is for the people who just don’t care about anything I’ve talked about.

7. [Timeline what timeline] - This is the one where authors simply don’t care about the “when” of their setting. It’s an outgrowth of the nebulous now but it’s less tied to canon. It may reference a season but it doesn’t have to and will often ignore actual team makeup because “this is my fanfic and if I want to ignore that trade I can.” Non-hockey aus (one or both s/g) will often fall under this since you need to answer who is playing center for the Penguins if Sid drives the zamboni. Straight up aus are kinda here but I don’t think fics that are fully an au setting like a college frat or space au really counts for this conversation since the au comes with its own time period that is wholly divorced from canon outside of the cast of characters. This is also where fics that go “I’m going to write my own canon” belong (ie Geno is a flyer, what if Pens drafted Ovi instead of Geno, what if X player got traded to Y team and hooked up with Z player). Timeline can matter for some of those fics, but most of them only care as much as it makes sense to make the fic make sense. The important timeline information is that hockey is happening (or it’s the off season and hockey isn’t happening). These are the fics where the Pens are always conveniently playing Washington when Geno needs advice from Ovi or Vegas when Sid needs similar from Flower. As long as the fic is internally consistent what does it matter if you’ve forgotten this or that timeline detail such as setting a timeline in the first place. Hockey itself is so intertwined with the specific routines of a season that you can divorce that routine from reality and just have hockey. Fall becomes winter becomes spring becomes the playoffs, what more can an author ask for?

Done? Idk I’m out of words. Okay I love you for reading this far. Bye bye. Feel free to chime in in the notes if you’ve got your own ideas. I certainly don’t have a monopoly on thoughts and I’m not convinced I’m right either, just doing a deep think.

[pridemonthpsa]

Fetishism of Queer Men Pervades the Shadowhunters Fandom

Alright, I’ve been asked to do a piece about the fetishization of mlm in fandom. This is something that makes me very uncomfortable as I navigate most fandoms, but it’s on a whole other scale in the shadowhunters fandom.

I’m going to try and make this as inclusive of non binary people as I can, but of course, there’s nuance here. I want to emphasise that. This issue isn’t simply mlm vs women. I guess as beautiful enbies, I’ll leave it to you to decide where you fall in this issue.

While it is certainly possible for mlm themselves to engage in fetishizing behaviour, this often comes from internalised homophobia and it is NOT the place of non mlm to call them out on it. I want to make that clear.  Following on from this, if an mlm makes you (a non mlm) uncomfortable with the way he talks about his own sexuality, then… Do I need to finish that sentence? 

So, to make it clear: if cishet women (or men, though that’s less likely) engage in ANY of the behaviour I’m going to describe, then they are a mlm fetishist and should not be considered a good ally or be supported in fanart, fanfic, or discourse about mlm relationships. If a queer woman/enby engages in this behaviour, it can be hard to figure out what the deal is. Lots of queer women/enbies in this fandom engage with Malec as representation for them as well, since they are the only canon MAIN queer couple in the show. And that is TOTALLY valid. But sometimes, queer women/enbies can overstep too. My rule is if an mlm feels uncomfortable about the way you as a queer woman/enby talk about or interact with Malec, then you need to evaluate what you’re doing.

The main issue with the fetishization of mlm in fandom is that actual mlm involved in these fandoms are ignored, their voices aren’t boosted, and their fanworks are paid dust while cishet women are glorified for their ‘ally’ voices and fanworks. To illustrate just how much mlm get spoken over in fandoms, get this: I literally googled ‘fetishization of mlm’ to research stuff for this thread and the first thing that came up was a thinkpiece by a cishet woman. https://www.themarysue.com/fetishizing-slash/ Now, the article is pretty inoffensive as far as articles on mlm fetishization go, but why on EARTH is the most viewed article on fetishization of mlm written by a cishet woman? Don’t you find that interesting? Why is it that even when talking about an issue where we are objectified and cishet women are the objectifiers, cishet women’s voices are the ones overwhelmingly boosted? The truth is that REAL mlm aren’t wanted or desired in fandom, because the only thing mlm are needed for in fandom is to provide a cute otp that non mlm can project their sexual and romantic fantasies onto. Real mlm are more complex than a cute otp, so we are eschewed. 

So other instances/examples of fetishization? One of the classics that makes my blood boil, personally, is the way that non mlm write PWP about mlm couples. I thought about looking for an example, but I couldn’t bring myself to look through AO3 tags. But we’ve all come across those fics where two men in an established relationship flirt for 200 words and start stripping (in the sh fandom, helpfully hastened by Magnus’ magic). In these fics, the ‘top’ (more on that later) will either not prepare the ‘bottom’, or they’ll stick two fingers up there with one coat of lube, magically find the prostate and reduce the ‘bottom’ to a whining mess. Always a whining mess. After a couple of lines of prep (max), the ‘top’ will stick his dick in the ‘bottom’ and wait for a moment, then start fucking the absolute shit out of his ‘bottom’. Now, anyone who’s EVER had anal sex, no matter the gender, will tell you that this is not generally how anal sex goes. So why is this the way cishet women write about m/m sex? The simple reason is because these cishet women are projecting themselves into the position of the ‘bottom’. Vaginal sex, as I hope we know, is practically a lot easier than anal sex. By oversimplifying and straightwashing (for lack of a better term) anal sex, they’re assisting their female readers in their fantasies of being under this queer male top. This particular quote from this article - https://www.lambdaliterary.org/features/oped/08/19/the-fetishizing-of-queer-sexuality-a-response/ - struck me: “The edict for writing has always been: Write what you know. Alas, that is what the M/M writers are doing–they are writing straight male/female relationships but putting them in gay male bodies.” These fanfictions are not meant to celebrate queer men, they are not aimed at queer men, and they aren’t concerned with the reality of queer men. Instead they’re projecting themselves into the more desirable (internalised misogyny, much?) queer men’s bodies. This is similar to the way most mainstream ‘lesbian porn’ is aimed at cishet men. These videos show a version of sex between women that is palatable and ‘sexy’ for the male gaze, and these PWPs written by cishet women work the same way. I wish I didn’t have to point out why that’s harmful, but honestly… The shit I’ve seen in these fandoms I feel like I need to spell it out. Treating mlm as props for you, a non mlm, to get off to, is dehumanising and disrespectful. It is not allyship. It is not flattering. Stop it. Now I know that the sexuality of women, and teenage girls specifically, is judged and policed. I understand that. However, the oppression you face is not an excuse to throw another oppressed group under the bus for your amusement and titillation. That’s it. I said what I said. This article - https://versusthefans.com/2014/07/08/fetishizing-homosexuality/ - goes a little deeper into this issue, but here’s a quote that I thought summed it up: “While I certainly understand being thought of as weird, being scared or worried as [...] she feels about shipping Johnlock, for LGBT people they aren’t just scared because of who they ship, but who they love in real life. At the end of the day, [...] straight women [...] will legally marry a man anywhere in the world she wants and get off while dreaming of gay men together.  Must be nice to have your cake and eat it too. It’s not fiction for LGBT people.”

The second classic part of mlm fetishization in fandom is top and bottom discourse. There are a few issues conflated in this facet of fetishization. Firstly, being a ‘top’ or a ‘bottom’ is not generally a thing. The overwhelming majority of queer men do not strictly adhere to either the ‘top’ or ‘bottom’ position in the bedroom. Some of us joke about being one or the other, but it is not a law that we ALWAYS must bottom or ALWAYS must top. Sometimes you fancy something different. It’s human nature. We’re not one stereotype or the other. Ever. To assume as such is to reduce an entire human being to a sex position, just because they’re queer. Does that sound like good allyship to you?

Next, the very fact that people are so invested in whether a fictional character (or, god forbid, a real person, but again, more on that later) is a ‘top’ or ‘bottom’ is creepy and bizarre. Do you also debate on whether the female lead in your show prefers doggy or the reverse cowgirl? No? Then why do you, a non mlm, spend so much time and energy ‘headcanoning’ the ways m/m couples in fiction have sex? Is it because it’s somehow ‘hotter’ than m/f sex because it’s two men? Why is that? Take a look at your feelings here. Ask yourself why you find the idea of two men having sex so interesting. Is it because you’re only attracted to men, so it’s double the fun? Is it because two men banging is ‘taboo’ or ‘sinful’ or ‘naughty’? Is it because taking it up the ass is not a ‘manly’ thing to do, and is therefore inherently kinky? Unpack these things. Think critically. If it is any of the above things, then address it, because it’s wrong. Once again, queer men are not props for you to manipulate for your enjoyment. One mlm I found on tumblr here - http://bluethisisforyou.tumblr.com/post/162753965120 - had this to say on the issue: “[it] is NOT healthy at all bc, in my case, it makes us feel as if we only exist for entertainment and that our relationships are seen as wrong and/or dirty”. Do you intend to make mlm feel that way? If yes, then… Bruh, what the fuck are you do pretending to give a shit about mlm in the first place? If no… Maybe adjust your behaviours accordingly.

Because apparently it’s necessary, I’m going to lay out some facts for you, here. Taller man =/= top. Stronger man =/= top. Leader =/= top. Masculine man =/= top. Shorter man =/= bottom. Weaker man =/= bottom. Follower =/= bottom. Effeminate man =/= bottom. Everyone needs to stop using physical and personality traits to ‘argue their case’ as to whether a queer man is a top or a bottom. These things do NOT impact what kind of sex you like. To imply as such is homophobic and, frankly, misogynistic as well. By painting a more effeminate, smaller, weaker man as the bottom in these scenarios, you are implying that bottoming, and therefore submitting/yielding to ‘masculine’ penetration, is feminine and a sign of weakness. Having said that, you are not more progressive if you make the effeminate man the top for brownie points or because it’s ‘hot’ that the smaller one can weaken the larger one. It’s still creepy and rooted in harmful stereotypes. In the context of the shadowhunters fandom (that this essay is mostly aimed at), both Magnus and Alec are tall, strapping, formidable men who are powerful and badass, and yet in almost every fanwork by a cishet woman, one of them will always be shrunk or feminised. And on the rare occasions where they aren’t, the emphasis will be on the fact that the power struggle between them is hot. And people wonder why I have the vast majority of fanartists blocked.

The last thing I want to talk about as a symptom of mlm fetishization is RPF, or ‘real person shipping’. There are ALWAYS, ALWAYS people in a tv show or movie fandom where they’ll ship the actors who play queer (or perceived queer) characters. It happened with Darren Criss and Chris Colfer after they played Klaine in Glee, it happened with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman after they played Johnlock in Sherlock, it happened with Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins after they played Destiel in Supernatural. In every single instance except Chris Colfer, these actors have had female partners. I’m not going to say all of them are straight, because I don’t know their lives, and I don’t care about most of them enough to research, but all of them (except Colfer) is attracted to women. Most of them have expressed discomfort at the fact that they are ‘shipped’ with their co-star and friend. And yet so many people continue to write fanfiction about them and even harass their ACTUAL partners about a ship that only came about because of their acting jobs. The most confusing thing about this is that there are quite a few m/m couples in the spotlight these days that don’t get nearly as much attention from the RPF shippers. Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka, Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black, Colton Haynes and Jeff Leatham all are openly in love, posting adorable snapshots of their lives together, and yet… Somehow, for these RPF shippers, that’s not good enough. It’s only good enough if these real man have been seen in fictional embraces together, if they’ve kissed in giffable high quality, it they’re (in their fucked up fantasies) cheating on a poor unsuspecting female partner in order to be together. M/m couples are only valuable to these people if their most intimate moments are visible, and palatable. It doesn’t matter if real love exists between them, all that matters is that they’re hot together, that their relationship is oh so wrong it’s right.

We as queer men deserve to be celebrated, and we deserve to be celebrated for the diversity and vibrance that we bring to the world. We deserve better than to be reduced to a sexual fantasy, to a cute little otp to squeal over, to something that is inherently taboo or naughty. We deserve to be respected. We deserve to be loved. We deserve a platform in a fandom that exists because of characters that reflect us. We deserve to be heard.

Further reading: http://thewoesofyaoi.tumblr.com/

https://www.lambdaliterary.org/features/oped/08/19/the-fetishizing-of-queer-sexuality-a-response/

https://versusthefans.com/2014/07/08/fetishizing-homosexuality/