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Assorted Thoughts

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 07:56:57 GMT

I have been thinking about the past. (I know, bad sign) Mostly about interactions I have had with people in the past, and how people have nuances to them. One can be capable of being aware of their white privilege in a fandom but also be an asshole to people. And also a hypocrite about some of the things they espouse. But also acknowledge that shortcoming. But also not act on courtesy. It's a whole thing. Yes this is about what I was alluding to in a post that I recently updated. Like I feel a little bad, but then remember I really did not do much, other people were hurt worse, and being kind of right about things like fandom racism does not mean they are exempt from that behavior.

I think it is pretty frustrating to go looking for academic papers about racism in sports fandom and not finding a lot because of the nature of 1. sports fandom being insular in a conventional "fandom" context and 2. academia also being white and 3. fandom academia really not talking about race? But yeah I was reading a paper about Sports RPF fandom and it was by (yes) a white woman who was (yes) in Hockey and F1 RPF fandom. Straw in haystack, fork in kitchen. (Link)

Anyways I read the paper, it was alright. I raised my eyebrows at the proposal of fandom being a "quasi-utopia" for non-white male fans before reading the paper and seeing that they clarified their stance that it was relative to irl sports. Like alright... that I can agree with. I dunno, it had some good points about how RPF is usually said to be aggressively fictional, but also being "realistic" is a sign of good research, which leads to a bit of a slippery slope. Also saying that slash fic is more "homoindifferent" than homophobic and serves as a way for mostly female fans to bond, especially since a lot of writers inject themselves into the male characters. Yeah. There were some good points that I was aware of but never could put into words as eloquently. This is why they get published in academic journals and I don't!

It did make me think about the possibility of writing and academic paper and getting that published. That would be cool! But maybe somewhere way down the line, when I can have more time to dabble with writing formally and not worry about being inexperienced. Gather research information, and whatnot. I dunno, I think it's cool to have papers to refer to other, older papers. At the same time it can become a bit of a perpetuation of some ideas, and also the whiteness of academia can lead to the perspective being kind of narrow, especially since the fandoms that I'm in are predominantly about people of color.

I had a doc I started working on a few years ago trying to answer the question of why Hockey RPF was more popular than literally any other North American sport RPF. Most of my sources literally being Tumblr, the occasional Reddit post, whatever LiveJournal posts I could find. Not very professional, but a lot of academic papers are kind of hard to find online and I guess you could consider it research in the sense of interviews or something. (I did end up having a correspondence with someone who could be considered a known figure in fandom? But yeah)

It is fascinating to see people be willfully obtuse about the popularity of Hockey RPF by claiming that it's "physical" and "exciting to watch" as though that is only unique to the sport of hockey. Especially when looking at how NFL fandoms then and now were quite often centered on the white men in the league. Like- okay. We can start at the very beginning with the concept of "migratory slash fandom," which is apparently how a decent subset of early hockey fans got into hockey. Because apparently a lot of them were based in the Midwest and Chicago and Pittsburgh were cooking at the time, and I guess they needed to get away from bandom. Apparently. We should probably inquire why they decided to gravitate towards hockey of all sports (and yeah there has been a lot said about the subconscious bias to whiteness in migratory slash fandom). So I mean. I think it's kind of obvious. At some point it's a bit of a feedback loop where the big fandom keeps churning fic and more people are drawn in by the fic and continue contributing. But also people are drawn to whiteness in fandom.

Not to generalize fandoms (I will now generalize) but I guess it is interesting to see demographics of fandoms depending on the site. Hockey Twitter has the reputation of largely being white. NBA/NFL Twitter are seen as more "black," but there are probably some edgy white teens on there. Baseball has a bit of both, though it has the largest boomer population from my observation. I will say that the NFL fandom has received an influx of Taylor Swift fans (see the large amount of Travis Kelce/Taylor Swift fic posted to AO3 in the past year), but that hasn't really muddled "NFL Twitter" and the effect is more on Tumblr-fandom adjacent spaces. And making that just a little more Hockey RPF fandom-adjacent.

But again, maybe it's the whole "oh those sports are seen a certain way by non-sport fans so it's harder to get into" but also the blackness of both sports can be seen as a contributing factor to why some would be hesitant to get into those sports. Not to defend the NFL and its handling of CTE. But hockey also has that problem. And I don't really see people angrily demanding the NHL to fix it. I think the blackness of the NFL is kind of a factor in that, though, because hockey players are predominantly white and grew up well-off enough to afford playing hockey? It's the whole black narrative of "making it out the hood," I guess, which can feed into some pretty negative stereotypes about black people.

But you do see Swifties becoming NFL fans because their favorite singer is now at games. So I dunno! I don't think certain sports are hard to get into, even if some fans are like "eww that's for boys!!" (And of course this feeds into some whiteness in the fandom which isn't necessarily bad but when the league is 54% black it gets awkward to see only one black person in the top 10 most tagged characters. And it's mostly because of their relationship with a white character. I think there is a lot that can be said about how some interracial relationships are presented. However, I don't know if I'm authorized to speak on that. We will proceed. I might come back to this thought.)

I guess you can also kind of see this in the rise of popularity of women's basketball? Though I go in that tag and it is... very white. Yeesh. Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers are doing what Joe Burrow did for the NFL fandom. It is something.

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the narrative heat death of an otp and other thoughts from four hours of sleep

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 08:34:40 GMT

I think one of the worst feelings in the world is having a ship you hold near and dear to your heart that exists in a very specific timeframe for you but now you can't go back to that time.

This is an exaggeration, but also I hope someone understands what I mean.

I guess in this situation the ship in question for me is of Ja'Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson. I was really into the ship in 2022; they were ascending into the league and a lot of things just seemed to really click for me. They were cute together and had a lot of really sweet moments in college that could also be drawn upon when they were in the NFL. A parallel to another duo of LSU wide receivers who were known to be very close to each other. A close friend and I would have fun just headcanoning their interactions with each other, in a way that was most definitely idealized (but then again where would Sports RPF be without the idealization of the behavior of athletes in their romantic relationships). Overall, they were already some of the best receivers, and would always be bound together by being college teammates who won a national championship.

It was kind of brainrot; a couple of fics written in a short timespan, one of them being over 10,000 words long.

But then things happened.

...That was unnecessarily dramatic. But basically the Bengals were kind of stagnant, and the Vikings were also middling. Both of them continued to be great on an individual and statistical level, and there were some moments they shared together. But the vibe was becoming more distant, and they seemed to interact less. ~~Somehow this is Joe Burrow's fault.~~

(me not making my personal experience in fandom defined by other people enjoying their own ship challenge: IMPOSSIBLE)

I feel like if I don't cool it real quick this could get into me regaling people of the evils of "joe'marr" which LOOK i see the vision for it i really do i just have other ships in mind and some of them don't take advantage of the qb-wr dynamic of college teammates to nfl teammates and making it to the super bowl and wow i really just spelled out the propaganda huh. sue me. i have other plans. also i guess im salty that was the ship non-nfl rpfers chose to latch onto. WHATEVER. in a just society there would be other more compelling dynamics. sadly we do not live in one.

(I guess here's a tangent about how Joe Burrow was kind of responsible #tome for the revitalization of nfl fans on tumblr/the rpfers bc I did become a football fan in the 2020 offseason and he sort of interested me bc of the first overall pick narrative. I thought I liked him a normal amount and then went on tumblr and realized that my "normal amount" was "miniscule." I get it but also. Man. There are at least 10-15 bengals blogs on tumblr. It's kind of scary. Anyways. Moving on...)

(Oh yeah I guess I also take issue with some shippers thinking their ship is so deprived for "only" having three pages of fic on ao3 bc. Bro. Be serious. You are just big and greedy. Take your ass back to Hockey RPF if you want a cornucopia of fic brother. I have survived in the tag since 2020 with the only other fic for my ship being a poorly written omegaverse fic. SHUT-)

(Ahem) What was I saying... uh. Right. They were interacting less. I did see a Tumblr user remark that Ja'Marr always seemed to be the chaser ~~(get it)~~ in the friendship. That he'd be the one doing all the initiating gestures. And honestly yeah I see that. I too would do that if I knew Justin Jefferson ANYWAYS but yeah Justin was more private, and eventually Ja'Marr stopped doing that so they don't really hang out or anything. Fuck my stupid baka life. (Sidenote it really is remarkable how LSU continues to add players with gay little vibes into the NFL while having absolutely rancid vibe coaches. Like Jayden Daniels should not be getting yaoi'ed bc Brian Kelly leaves a stench on his programs and you'd think that his evil would prevent the yaoi spirit from prevailing. AND YET.)

So yeah I guess for me it makes me sad because they're too good to be on the same team, since they play the same position. Also that they probably had a shared dream of making it big in the NFL, but that was probably what caused them to drift apart because they are also competitors and egos probably got a little bit in the way of a friendship and yeah. It's a little liminal, I guess. Maybe they will pull an Odell/Jarvis down the line. It's too early to tell. But for now, I will somewhat mourn the nature of their relationship.

Of course, in delulu shipper land everything can be peaches and rainbows but also sometimes I find myself too affected by how some relationships are presented. I guess that's one part of RPF. Maybe for me it was just shipping when they were new to the league, still trying to figure out the best way to approach those things, and feeling massively affected if something happens because I was shipping in the moment, as their narratives were being woven right then and there. By contrast, the story of Matt and Julio was already almost over by the time I'd caught on, so the ending didn't really take me by surprise. It wasn't an ending I wanted, but for the Falcons, there really couldn't be one.

Part of me was thinking to be more careful about what to ship. But honestly, it's fine. Some ships are worth living through, even if they meet an end. Because they can just be continued fictionally. And that is the beauty of RPF...

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Yuletide

Thu, 26 Dec 2024 22:13:45 GMT

Happy Holidays! Hope that whoever is reading this has a wonderful holiday season.

This year, I participated in Yuletide and got not one but two gifts :0 !!

Build Before the Break - genfic of Aliyah Boston and Caitlin Clark working together to improve their skills. It was nice to read! I think the exploration of their similar experiences is interesting.

through him, i see a glimpse of you - Jaylen Brown/Jayson Tatum superhero AU. There's some really neat tie-ins with the superhero elements to basketball and it was very cute to read about Jayson putting the pieces together. Also some cute moments with Deuce in there.

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The One Where I Talk About Whatever

Sat, 21 Sep 2024 08:05:46 GMT

I wish this one had a wittier title; however, I won't be talking about anything too out of place on this journal. So here we are.

(Lowkey broke my promise of writing one entry a month because of summer class but it's fine)

Disclaimer: pretty much all opinion and observations

I answered an ask recently asking for me to talk about something I was "passionate about but haven't spoken about in a while." I decided to respond with some rambling about characterization in fic, especially in RPF fandom, and how the RPF fandoms I am in predominantly have people of color in them. And also wondering about what lines people draw when it comes to subjects of fic being shitty irl.

So yeah... I think I was pretty vague in the ask, but people probably figured what I was alluding to. Sometimes I'm not sure if it's my place to talk about noticing trends in fandom that could be rooted in stuff like colorism, but it's there. Not really addressing anyone in particular, but everyone (me included) is influenced by the media that they view, and probably subconsciously will absorb some ideas rooted in racism/colorism during the process. I did say in my post about Calvin Johnson being a fridge wife that I had thoughts about colorism in fandom, but then didn't elaborate on it. Mostly because the fandoms I'm in are small so I dunno if people would see said statements and instantly feel attacked.

The thing with colorism is that in sports fandom specifically, it's kind of hard sometimes to be like "oh this is colorism" or "oh this is actually just because x player is a good player" when it's really more like "both things can be true." I guess it's easier to compare two players of similar caliber and success but different appearances to conclude if it's the work of colorism. Because people will also claim it's because of media attention, and that probably also subconsciously is the work of colorism so. Yeah. I think it's a bit of a feedback loop, like if the sports media promotes some players over others then fan spaces are likely to be posting more about the popular player. And if said popular is attractive, then subconsciously the color of their skin may be seen as an attractive feature. I might be getting the logic a bit twisted, but you (I say this like anybody will read this) get the gist of it.

( tw mean to the warriors )

Was gonna say "now this is where I get controversial" but uhh previous paragraph is probably already controversial (ducks like Jayson Tatum in that one press conference video) so I'm just digging my grave even further. Guys... I think some people write the lighter-skinned character as the submissive one in the relationship... (half of the things written here need to be read with sarcasm unfortunately). But yeah uhh perpetuation of stereotype I think! Like I am pro- people writing whatever they want in fiction but also pro- hey guys we are writing about real people and also I'm in a fandom where the subjects are predominantly people of color can we be mindful and not perpetuate harmful stereotypes? Because yes, said subjects will most likely not read fic. But fans of fic probably will and be alienated from a space that is supposed to be fun for them, especially if they are POC. So yeah. There's my spiel.

I guess if I must be more specific I think people can characterize subjects how they want but also probably be aware of like, is this leaning into something more insidious. Like not to single out PWP but I think in general a lot of porn tends to flatten out subjects and reduce them into. Well. Sexual stereotypes. The darker-skinned one being more aggressive and dominant, which is a pretty big stereotype in porn and has IRL ramifications, unfortunately. I want to say it's a consequence of some people not being good at writing sex scenes and then kind of relying on those ideas to write but honestly... I don't know. I'm not super well-versed in that area. Like people probably don't have deep intent when writing that kind of thing (get rocks off, writing for fun), but at some point intent kind of doesn't matter. (Am I being dramatic by saying people are being harmed by PWP that not a lot of people read... maybe. I think the flattening of characterization in sex is kind of a porn-perpetuated thing and happens in other media, at the risk of sounding insane. Perhaps I am speaking out of my ass.)

"Are you seriously complaining about PWP not having characterization" I GUESS??? I'm not great at wording it but like it's in a way that's kind of uncomfortable. Like yeah I guess people can enjoy it... I'm not good with debating the ethics of written porn.

This feels very preachy and I apologize for the tone. Especially when there's like an average of 20 people in the fandoms that I'm in and I feel like I wrote myself into a hole with this one. I suppose we can move onto the less controversial topic of me feeling like I am WASHED as a writer and being unable to complete any of my works.

In all fairness to me, I think I place my expectation levels too high. It's okay for me to not post every single week and write 2,000 words a day. But sometimes I do feel like I should be doing more than I am. Had more to say about my own writing, but I think that time will come when I next edit this entry.

Edit: okay I think my problem is having perfectionist tendencies. I have... too many works in progress and I am overly ambitious so that leads to inactivity. At some point I get over it and post but. Yeah. Am I "washed"? Probably not. Maybe some time away from thinking about writing will help the creative juices flow. I dunno.

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The Boyband and Sports Pipeline (and contemplations about other things)

Thu, 11 Jul 2024 23:44:31 GMT

Recently been thinking about how team sports are kind of like boy bands in the sense that you have a bunch of young (I guess) men all grouped together and made for perform in some way. Their masculinity is often scrutinized, especially on social media, and there are parasocial relationships created between fans and said performers. Admittedly, the demographics are different, but there are similarities. Oftentimes both boy band members and athletes are in advertisements. Their looks are scrutinized. Both are signed to contracts based on their performance, and if the performance is not met oftentimes they cannot have a career. So on and so forth.

I noticed that some sports tumblr fans had a kpop phase, or still were in kpop fandom, and it did make me think about the parallels between a boyband and a sports team. There are interpersonal dynamics involved, for sure, and those are often recorded by social media interns to foster goodwill in parasocial relationships. Or at least let fans get the feeling that they are getting to know the celebrity better.

I came across this thing called "bleak boyband bingo" while I was scrolling through a Hockey RPF blog. According to their carrd it was meant to summarize some shitty experiences of boyband life, and then came to summarize the general kpop idol experience. In the Hockey RPF blog, they modified it more to be about relationships, so I looked at the original bingo and found it to have a lot of interesting parallels to sports.

(A rundown, now)

Capitalism induced "found" family - I mean. Sports teams are built to be as good as possible. Whatever themes of male on male camaraderie are espoused in a sports team's social media do have the underlying message of "we need to win games." And that is sort of tied to capitalism because if a team is bad then how will it sell tickets...

Things that don't need much elaboration: age vs talent hierarchies, mixed talent levels, toxic rivalry, clout chasing friends from back home, intricate rituals to touch the skin of other men, inflated ego due to being smartest of the illiterates, members leaving and group continuing, last minute addition to group.

There's probably more, but I'm lazy. I might be generalizing but this reminds me of a Tumblr post I read about the state of Hockey RPF where op was talking about how "old school hrpf" wouldn't be afraid to go into the darker side of what being famous was like. Personally, I think a lot of fic is written just to have a nice little romance story in it. But I will admit that exploring the themes of the consequences of fame is pretty interesting. (Warning, generalization: I think some older fandom folk yearn for the early 2000s LiveJournal fic with internalized homophobia. At the same time, someone did point out that there is an undercurrent of misogyny in a lot of early Hockey RPF. So I dunno. I'm not super well versed in Hockey RPF, but that is the sports fandom with the most documented history.) Stuff like toxic masculinity can be explored in both boyband and sports fic, and yeah.

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Blather

Tue, 04 Jun 2024 07:15:50 GMT

The one where I made a podcast to not write a journal entry, and then ended up writing a journal entry.

So um. I made a podcast. It's on Tumblr, I recorded the audio on Zoom and then compressed and edited everything on Audacity, so it's not the highest quality thing. But I'm kind of proud of myself for doing something like that. And we discussed interesting stuff like the trend of the Nova Knicks, Reggie Miller's potential baby daddy, and the conference finals. Fun times.

Anyways I sort of made the podcast to not write about the Nova Knicks, who are sort of the hot topic of NBA Tumblr. But here we are.

I see the vision. I mean... kind of hard not to. It's got the whole "college teammates winning national championship to becoming teammates in the pros" narrative which is very easy to get into. I've fallen victim to that narrative before. They're all like, conventionally attractive? And of course lots of footage of them generally displaying homoerotic actions. Me personally I'm more of a Brunson/Hart person because podcast cohosts and I dunno in general I just see more stuff between them especially on Twitter (how I got acquainted to the Nova Knicks narrative). But like I guess you can add a little white boy (Donte) in there as a treat. Jk unless.

Not really sure where I'm going with this. I think I will edit this more eventually, but yeah NBA fandom shift woah so cool.

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Calvin Johnson Being a Fridge Wife and Other Assorted Thoughts About NFL RPF

Wed, 03 Apr 2024 20:49:48 GMT

Where were you on April 3, 2024 when Stefon Diggs was traded to the Houston Texans for a couple of picks? 🫵

That wasn't related to the title, sorry. I don't know if I will ever achieve my goals of writing a 20k fic where Josh Allen discovers that Stefon Diggs has a side hustle of jerking himself off on camera. Everything aged badly in that. But maybe one day it'll happen.

Anyways predictably the general nfl rpf community is in shambles from this. I probably accidentally cursed them with a ship poll I made earlier this year, which they won. Alas. We move on. Something something is it better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all?

I meant to write about the title a few days ago. Then I got taken back to summer of 2022 remembering Ja'Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson being cute about each other. The brainrot was very bad at that time, as some of my close friends can attest to. I hope people can appreciate the creative output from that time period, even if it is from two years ago. (If there is one good thing about having a ship where they were never NFL teammates, it's that you treasure the crumbs more. And also you don't suffer angst when there's a big free agent move/trade)

"What do you mean by the title-" okay so I was thinking (bad idea) and I feel like whenever I think about Calvin Johnson in a fic context he always ends up dead. This is probably because I read a fic about Calvin Johnson getting cancer and fucking dying when I first had access to AO3 and it has lived in my head rent free. Like the angst hits! And the Lions are a very tragic team, so it adds up. Not sure what it says about me that he ends up dead. It's kind of like how Julio Jones usually ends up going through some kind of trauma in a lot of fic I write :/ maybe I just like seeing beautiful people on tragic teams suffering.

I dunno I usually interpret the Johnson/Stafford relationship as being the one where they're both young and then go through the horrors of being on the Detroit Lions. Calvin's always seen Matthew as dumb and self-sacrificial but that's painfully human and he grows to care for him, because who else will? Then Calvin passes and Matthew finds a second love in Cooper Kupp. The latter isn't something I really ship but, y'know. Narratively it's fine. I can accept it into my personal canon. It's definitely one where they both help each other get over the past (idk Jared Goff?). But yeah it does make me go "is Calvin Johnson a fridge wife for Matthew Stafford's trauma narratively??" I guess a little bit. Don't overthink it! It's almost like someone calling some (this section has been heavily redacted as it references an offhanded remark someone made on their private Twitter account). Anyways. The day I write anything pertaining to this will probably be when it snows in my city.

(I think if I do enough self-reflection this will somehow tie back to how I tend to perceive players of color, which I hope is in a normal way? Fandom does reflect reality, and I think sometimes it's important to acknowledge that, even if fandom is meant to be self-indulgent. I may put more thoughts when my brain is less fried)

Next point why was Gisele in so much Peytom fic like... I guess it is bc she is the most visible WAG out there but I feel like I saw her in a lot of LiveJournal fics from back in the day. Me personally if I were a world famous supermodel and my husband dumped me/was cheating on me with a man with a fivehead I'd be throwing hands. Well, they're divorced now so I guess Peytom is real, actually. I don't make the rules. I don't really fw infidelity in fics but like emotionally hmm it can be compelling (doesn't elaborate).

I was actually going to go somewhere with this but this ended up being rambling. Stuff about like colorism in fandom and whatever. But also I dunno if I'm equipped to talk about that right now. It's all in the context of pretty insular stuff. And also kind of a "thing" if you look at enough trends. Maybe this could've gone into the "observations" post but yeah... much to consider.

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fic fragments

Mon, 04 Mar 2024 01:14:16 GMT

Snippets that I have from here and there. Some of these are a couple years old.

NFL

( the one where james conner has a mental breakdown in the nationality rooms of pitt )
( supposed to be abt russell wilson and bobby wagner but this was all i wrote )
( stefon flirts with josh at a bar )
( jessie bates/joe burrow soulmate au, for some reason )
( goff/mcvay breakup story nobody asked for )
( complete crack abt calvin ridley and drake london )
( unrequited love )

NBA

( abt the wizards )

MLB

( reframing an omegaverse fic )
( reframing a wingfic )

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Thoughts on The String Theory

Sun, 07 Jan 2024 05:18:17 GMT

(Wherein I sound pretentious, but am in reality not all that smart)

I read David Foster Wallace's essay about the 1995 Canadian Open, with a primary focus on tennis player Michael Joyce. Since it's now 2024 (almost 29 years after the essay was written), I can confidently say that Wallace's rhetorical questions about Joyce ending up "in the top ten and a name anybody will know" came half true. He never ended up in the top ten, but did go on to be a pretty successful women's tennis coach. So Joyce did become a name that some people would know.

Tbh this uh. Journal is not about Michael Joyce. Sorry. He seems like a nice guy from the journal but didn't really compel me to look much further into his story. I feel like Joyce was kind of a vehicle for Wallace to explore other stuff surrounding the nature of being an athlete. To ruminate, so to speak. Disclaimer I have seen many people talk about his piece on Federer as one of the greatest pieces of sports journalism. I have not read it, to be honest, mostly because I don't really care. Sorry, I'm sure if I read it I will enjoy it because David Foster Wallace got me to read about the Illinois State Fair and I found it a fairly compelling read. But I got into tennis after Federer retired, and his mythos was kind of already established to me so I didn't really care to read about it. Like Federer seems like an alright enough guy to me but I also don't hold any particular kind of affection for him, probably because at this point he's more of a PR image than an actual person whenever he makes an appearance. Sorry.

Anyways I got distracted. Um there's a lot in the Michael Joyce piece about the process of qualifying, which I was vaguely aware of, but didn't really care to learn more about. So I guess I learned more while reading. Honestly when it comes to qualifiers I just kind of skim for a name I've seen before and wonder what becomes of them, I'm more invested in the main draw I fear. But yeah there are a lot of things in the article where it made common sense to me, but at the same time would I have been able to explain it? Probably not. Wallace does the job of putting it into the right words. Like why would qualifiers be compelling to him? "Because they're fighting for their literal livelihood," I say, and then he pretty much says the same thing later. It's sort of common sense, at least to me.

It's interesting to read about Wallace's relative disdain for the "power baseliner" archetype, considering that pretty much most tennis players today also kind of fit into that style. As he posits, it's because of racket technology, which I'm not really well-versed in so I'll just stop to avoid sounding dumb. If Wallace were alive I feel like he would enjoy watching Alcaraz, considering how much he praises Federer, because they have similar-ish styles. Considering his disdain for players like Agassi (and Nadal for some reason), I don't think it would be a stretch to say that he would dislike Djokovic. Especially because Novak gets in the way of his ideal tennis in Roger. Or whatever. I would be interested to hear his thoughts on the current state of American men's tennis, like what he thought of Roddick and Isner and then the later generation of Americans. Probably not the most glowing commentary, but maybe he would like Tommy Paul (saying that bc Tommy kind of reminds me of Michael Joyce vibes wise, but honestly I don't think any of the current American men in tennis would particularly move him. Like he didn't have the nicest things to say about Sebi Korda's dad). I dunno, I just thought Wallace's hatred of Agassi was funny.

Let's just get into his observations of tennis players. The main reason I picked up his anthology to read. Um he was kinda mean about Michael Chang, like wdym he was unhappy... like I guess compared to other observations Wallace made it wasn't that bad but I like Chang so it felt a little personal. Especially with the tennis parent thing but maybe Wallace was just scared of Asian women idk. Also wdym Agassi was as fast as him no the fuck he was not. Wallace I thought you were a hater why would you say that to make Agassi look good. Sigh. I think putting Chang and Sampras's descriptions back to back was meant to juxtapose their differences (Chang has hairless legs while Sampras is "unbelievably hairy"), but sorta made me go "are you trying to emasculate Chang?" Whatever, maybe I'm overthinking it. There's a part where Wallace describes Sampras as "surprisingly childlike and cute on the court" which did make me side-eye but like. Sure I guess. Wallace likes Sampras (well enough), despises Agassi. Me personally I don't like Agassi much because he seemed to be a dick to his ex-wife and generally kind of a mess. But he also seems to be self-aware of that in his autobiography, and mellowed out in old age, so. I dunno. I'm not super consistent with my opinions. I'm curious to see what Wallace would make of Agassi's autobiography, considering it's everything he would want an athlete's autobiography to be. Maybe he'd get some newfound respect for Agassi, idk.

The part where Wallace says Agassi hits balls like Bjorn Borg if Borg was "on a yearlong regimen of both steroids and methamphetamines and was hitting every single fucking ball just as hard as he could" made me lol bc I don't think Wallace knew that Agassi did meth. But Agassi did do crystal meth. That was very much something he did. I wish Wallace was alive to know that. However I kinda didn't vibe w him calling Agassi "faggy" like don't do that to gay people. Or compare Danny DeVito to him. C'mon now man.

Okay last part, that being about the nature of being an athlete. I think a lot has changed since 1995, but a lot still rings true with what Wallace says about being an athlete. People do tend to ignore the consequences of the sacrifices athletes make to become so good. Some of that involves being really uninformed about issues, unfortunately. (Couple that with the demographics of some athletes from some sports and well, it's a whole boiling pot of issues that I can't really get into. Wallace was talking about tennis, which tends to be white and affluent, but I think this part was about sports in general. Anyways.) Nowadays I think athletes do have interests and activities outside of their sport, which is good! Like that definitely benefits their mental health. But the general message about the simple-mindedness athletes choose when they devote their lives to their sport makes me think. Like only people who are outside of that mindset can describe it well, paradoxically enough. Makes me think about how my own writing can romanticize sports, when in reality a lot of athletes probably are just people, and we are just spectators who idolize them. But at the same time I try not to romanticize the nature of playing sports in some writing and to humanize the players, so. It's kind of tricky because in writing, you are kind of describing things in a certain way that makes it appealing. At the end of the day, I'm just writing fanfiction, it's not that deep. Like so what if you make the internal monologue of an NFL player be purple prose when in reality it's more like static? Suspension of disbelief, it's fiction, etc etc. I may be overthinking this. Like it's fine.

I'm not sure where I was going with this, but yeah. Sportswriting can be an exercise in admiring the beauty of people, but also the bad. I guess. Sometimes it's a little unrealistic, but at the same time why not be a little unrealistic? Much to consider.

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Stuff I Watched on the Plane

Sat, 06 Jan 2024 08:24:56 GMT

Went on a trip for the past ten days to China, read and watched some stuff while I was on the plane rides arriving/departing.

Inception - to be honest my brother watched this movie, I just looked at his screen and provided running commentary based on whatever was going on. Also I didn't finish watching the movie. Cillian Murphy is pretty and plays the part of a seemingly unaffected rich brat with daddy issues well. Fork found in kitchen or whatever. The lore for Leonardo di Caprio's character was really unhinged and I just felt really bad. I also kinda suspected he was gonna have some kind of relationship with Page's character but then remembered Leo's character is not him irl so would probably not be dating women below 25. I thought Tom Hardy's character was funny. Kinda fruity? Evidently the fandom thought so.

This resulted in me looking up the Inception fandom and going "why does this have so many fics" and then realizing I have heard of the Arthur/Eames ship from that fandom. I must've missed something because I don't remember Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character interacting with Tom Hardy's character in a gay way (I definitely missed something because I watched like the middle of the movie). Like even then I don't think they interacted that much and they still got over 5,000 fics??? The White Cock goes crazy omg (I swear the link is nothing inappropriate it just explains the fandom phenomenon).

I also watched like part of Across the Spider-Verse and Crazy Rich Asians in a similar matter (looking at what my brother was watching). I think my brother forgot that Spider-Verse is supposed to have a sequel so he watched the chase scene then went "why are there only 30 minutes how will they wrap it up" and I had to explain that. Uh my impressions of the movie:

it's visually stunning
Jessica Drew is mother actually (but why did she support Miguel like that... stand up that is not the father of your child. I hope she sides with Gwen later 🫡)
Why was Miguel such an opp to a teenager... he kind of annoyed me but my brother was on his side for whatever reason (ends justify the means I guess but consider not trying to kill a teenager man)
On that note I didn't really see much between him and the dad Spider-Man that would suggest a ship but I guess any two guys in a fandom will do that. So whatever I guess.
Why was MJ kinda... anyways. Good for Peter I guess.
Oh yeah my brother didn't really like Hobie he thought Hobie was kind of a stereotype/reminded him of Boyinaband or something. I thought Hobie was funny but he seemed like he was in his 20s so a little older than what he actually is.
I can see the trans allegory with Gwen like damn issues with dad? Yeah that tracks.

Crazy Rich Asians we actually watched part of back in like... 2019 when we were on a plane to Las Vegas. So this was us getting to the ending.

Rachel had fucking opps omg 😭 like I know Asian people are judgy (I would know I am one) but man when ur a professor at Harvard and that isn't impressive enough for your boyfriend's mega-rich parents... damn.
The intergenerational oppery is kind of insane but also very believable in Asian families like wdym the grandma's gonna blame the mom for Nick chasing after Rachel when the grandma pretty much raised Nick. Also the mom was kinda insane for meeting Rachel and telling her the backstory about not being seen as enough by the grandma and then saying Rachel would never be enough. Like you really became what you suffered through. I sort of respect that level of oppery.
Rachel's mom is a G and the mahjong scene kind of gagged me (idk what actually happened, I think Nick's mom won but Rachel was like "I let you win" and the framing was gag-worthy). The frame where Rachel's mom and Nick's mom exchanged a look... I would like to see them interact but also Rachel's mom doesn't deserve that.
Nick is insanely optimistic (in both a good and bad way, but he was a gentleman so I liked him). I tbh thought that Rachel was gonna say no to the airplane proposal but then I realized Nick had his mom's ring or something so she was fine with it, thus not defying romcom conventions! That scene was cute but also a little corny (like bro there are people boarding the plane!! The irony is not lost on me that I was watching the movie while in an airplane).
I then realized that Nick did not prepare Rachel for his family bc he was like "oh she's a New Yorker she's used to this" like idk man I don't think she was prepared for a literal dead fish in her bed??? Da cattiness of rich Asians is wild. But besides that he pretty much was the ideal boyfriend.
Thought that Awkwafina's relative (apparently her brother) was gonna do something weird with the pictures he was taking but ig not.
Cringed at the scenes of the bachelor party like yeah guys are like that but also ew.
My brother said this was The Great Gatsby but Asian and like I kinda see it (the opulence). Also said he could not relate to the rich people problems, which. Real.
Astrid was a real one tbh she deserves better.
Watched to the credits and was like "where's Harry Shum Jr I didn't see him even tho he was credited" so my brother had to rewind to that one scene in the credits where he appears and looks at Astrid which I guess is enough to get that big casting credit.

Past Lives - this was a good movie, my mom was watching it next to me with Chinese subtitles which may or may not have altered my enjoyment of it because she thinks sort of old-fashioned and could've been unsatisfied by the ending (also the point of view is very much from the point of view of an immigrant, and definitely reflects a certain perspective that I'm not sure she would've related to). But me personally I liked it! Definitely some deconstruction of romance genre conventions, and I think the exploration of identity as an immigrant was done well. I enjoyed the more philosophical moments. It's a slow movie but with the slowness there is contemplation I think.

Clueless - silly! Watched this bc I know the ending but there were some parts I didn't watch earlier. I feel like the realization that Cher liked her ex-stepbrother came about kind of quickly and there weren't a lot of hints in the beginning but whatever. It's a goofy movie and there are still a lot of funny lines. The stoner dude looks like Trevor Lawrence actually. The scene where Cher gets mugged was deeply unserious because the guy doing the mugging was a complete noob at it but like it does set up stuff idk. Skipped over that scene where the one dude is trying to make a move on Cher. Also I asked my brother if Christian was straight based on how he entered with the movie and he said it was hard to tell. So I guess my brother's gaydar isn't completely broken (for the record, Christian kinda has gay face is that mean to say. Like his face sorta reminded me of Lando Norris? Anyways). But yeah I thought this was an enjoyable watch. Lighthearted and stuff. The dad kinda looks like someone else but he seemed to be a mostly okay dad. Cher's driving is bad to the point I cringed watching her in that driving test. I think that was the point.

From Hollywood with Love - listening to the audiobook since I watched an Answer in Progress video and they interviewed the author about rom-coms. It's pretty interesting, even if I haven't heard of some of the movies. Learning of Brett Favre being the third choice of star QB for There's Something About Mary was funny (Drew Bledsoe and Steve Young being the top choices... Steve Young was a #serious Mormon I fear). And I guess Richard Curtis was responsible for like a bunch of well known rom-coms bc I heard his name a lot.

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments - anthology of essays by David Foster Wallace that I read bc there was stuff about tennis in it and I was intrigued to read about it. The other essays aren't bad either, learned a lot about David Lynch in one essay and about Midwest fairs. Don't necessarily agree with all of his points but I think the arguments are compelling enough. I appreciate the dedication to sincerity, I think. Postmodernism writing does seem rather cynical in general. The tennis essay I may discuss more later in another post, it brought up interesting points about the nature of being an athlete and I can see why people would be drawn to tennis (not that I'm not, but more in a philosophical way I guess). He also was kind of dissing some players (why did he have to do my little guy Michael Chang like that 😔) but I can kinda sorta respect the hater-ism directed toward Agassi... dunno if I'd use a certain homophobic slur to describe him but I too am not the biggest fan of Agassi. Like he did kinda slay and the tennis itself is fine but the vibe was kinda not it at times. Didn't really like the way he treated his ex-wife. Just my opinion, and at least he seemed self-aware from what I've heard in his autobiography.

But yeah these are some things I looked at while I was on the trip, wasn't sure where to put these thoughts so here they go.

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Revised Agendas (Agendae? if we want to be pretentious)

Sat, 06 Jan 2024 05:53:13 GMT

Have been on Dreamwidth for a little under a year now so I think now is a good time to just revise my first post. And also because it's a new year and resolutions and whatever.

I think having been on this website I probably won't be posting fic snippets on here; most likely some waffling about things I am currently writing, which will probably be privated. As well as the ranting posts that get a little too weird. Tags wise I'm mostly using stuff like "rambling" and will probably use more categorical tags the more I use this account.

So yeah, this account will just be more journal-y. Maybe some commentary on things in fandom I've noticed that are more analytical compared to Tumblr. We'll see!

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The Mattnifesto: A Two Year Retrospective

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 02:25:31 GMT

Hello hello I am back (beating the dead horse that is my Falcons fanfic I posted two years ago) (being in China will not stop me from being annoying about it I fear)

Not sure I have much to say about this fic that I haven’t covered last year. So I’ll look at the write-up I did last year to amend aspects of it, as a meta of the meta, or something. Not gonna add a lot bc honestly I think I was pretty thorough last year, so yeah.

Here’s what I wrote last year, with comments from some people I felt comfortable sharing the document at the time: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1isQQjksBSPvhRY-F6eIbjLL5VLmA2ZPP3a5JV24nrvw/edit

I think I’m more comfortable now with getting weird with it on main, or at least like sharing more stuff I used to hold to myself. Which is weird coming from someone who has posted explicit fanfiction under their account but I digress. Anyways, the commentary on the commentary:

I do still maintain that the fic is pretty distinct; the premise stands out for sure, and it’s a sufficient length to flesh out things. Still don’t know what else I would’ve titled the fic besides what I picked, though I still think there could’ve been a better title. However, it is too late at this point, so it is what it is.

Maybe I should delve into my Matt/Julio fascination… I mean it all started with this lovely article by the Falcoholic. I thought Matt Ryan seemed like a cool guy, so I read some stuff about him and the Falcons and then fell into the narrative. The rest is documented in my direct messages with my good friend on Discord, back in… oh gosh, December of 2020. Actually kind of insane I have shipped this for that long.

I wasn’t even the first one to write for this pairing, because there was a Wattpad fic with this ship (and the fic was from… 2017? 2018? May have been even earlier, actually). Unfortunately, it was deleted and I didn’t archive it. I do still have a link but at this point it’s probably useless. Anyway, the fic was titled “Fairy Tale” and featured Matt as the somewhat silly prince of some kingdom and Julio as one of the guards of the kingdom. Matt is in an arranged marriage to someone and is in love with Julio, but Julio is married and has a family. Matt then gets killed for some reason. I think because he does something really dumb and doesn’t want to live anymore. It’s been a while since I’ve read, but yeah. Even then people knew Matt/Julio had to be sad and unrequited 😭 like man. One day I WILL write something happy about them.

But yeah, I may have been the first person to post hanahaki disease to the NFL tag. Shoutout Hockey RPF, and a bunch of other fandoms I’ve seen with that premise.

The beginning is still alright. I sometimes write dual POVs in a story because it’s interesting to me, so here it kind of establishes a prologue-ish vibe and probably dramatic irony. The jump to Julio’s perspective felt a little bit jarring when I was rereading but in the overall flow of the story it’s probably okay.

I still like the line about Matt’s teeth being “neat and straight and white” I fear… like yes it’s on the nose but only in fanfic will you have characters making such astute observations about another person’s features. Would reword some other stuff about his appearance though.

There’s some good moments in the parts where Matt and Julio spend time reading over the playbook (courtesy of articles from that time detailing the fact they were interacting like that). Definitely could’ve added a moment or two where Julio gets a thought about Matt, but I thought that might’ve been too fast to develop the attraction (irony bc this is fanFICTION. But Julio seems the type to develop his feelings slowly). Also I wasn’t sure how to write about Matt being attractive in a way that would be not cringy. However, I have now accepted cringe so it’s fine. We move. I have developed in my writing abilities.

I was like 12 when I wrote this (not actually) so honestly the thought of them having sex was not in my head. And also the friend I gifted the fic to was younger than me so it would’ve been weird to include as a present. Unfortunately the friend is inactive online now 😔 I miss talking to them but we move actually. If you look at this without considering context you could say Julio being new to the feeling of being in love makes sense because of his upbringing (football is life, needed to think about things other than romance because his mom had to work multiple jobs to provide for his athletic and he wanted to stay out of trouble). And then along comes this slightly older quarterback who’s nice and makes Julio feel like he can spend a while on this team and… yeah. If I wrote this today I would probably get into the more unhinged aspects of pining but here it’s fairly straightforward pining. Like I think on one hand the suffering might be too much, considering these are grown men. At the same time, the angst is good! I guess it’s about the balance between making something horribly depressing and going overboard.

The “does he know” excerpt… I have the sense of humor of a 13 year old actually. I am so sorry.

Okay mention of ethics of RPF and non-famous family members… in my opinion it’s fine to include non-famous family members. People know it’s fictional, for the most part. And also what exactly is the extent of non-famous, because if you are including the wife of an athlete, then that individual has probably been subject to some publicity. I guess wives don’t really count when they talk about “non-famous”… when it comes to wives/real life partners being involved in fanfic I really don’t care in the grand scheme of things. Me personally reading something with infidelity is a no go but fic is a space to explore some topics and if you wanna do that… more power to you! I won’t let my personal opinions on the matter stop it. You can definitely write a good fic that can delve into the headspace of a person without having to include family. However in my opinion upbringing informs character and if you want to explore some topics you are bound to rpf-ify some family members. Maybe it’s a skill issue for me, but I think when ur subjecting public figures to various wild fantasies having a family member be some side character is pretty whatever. RPF is a fandom space so the subject of RPF being exposed to it is sort of on them. I’m pretty lax when it comes to RPF etiquette so honestly people can do whatever as long as they’re not sending it to the subjects. And if you’re uncomfortable at the idea of them seeing it, then lock it.

Anyways where was I… oh yeah Julio and his relationship with his mom, because his dad wasn’t present in his life. Aka the thing that centralizes my headcanon that he may have daddy issues. My way of rationalizing why he would like Matt, besides the general pleasantness. One of those things I would probably elaborate on if I wrote the story today 🤔 as well as exploring some intersections between growing up in a primarily black community with certain ideas of masculinity, and how being gay conflicts with those ideas. But at the same time, I do worry that I do not have the sufficient level of nuance to write it well. Fanfic doesn’t have to be that deep, I think I read too much into what I write and make things too complicated for myself.

If I liked cards more I could’ve probably expanded on the whole thing where Julio plays cards with Matt. Like form some more interactions that make me go “okay, there is a bond.” I may be reading too deeply into fanfic again, at the end of the day if the grammar and plot are decent then most people will like it.

2012 NFC Championship Game scene where Matt asks Julio if he’s seeing anyone still eats actually… like man (pats self on the back). Hospital scene that got cut out… I think I worried this would come across too like, sad for the sake of being sad. Kind of like “A Little Life,” or something. Me and the conflict of not wanting to make the grown athletes come across too pathetic for wallowing in their emotions. Common theme in my current works in progress, actually. Probably best to ignore those doubts and go all out with the dramatics. Like we all know the players wouldn’t actually act like this but it’s fun to imagine.

Anyways yeah Matt is kinda there I guess. Sorry dad, you are the cause of all this emotional damage but you are so unaware of it. Not your fault! But man. I don’t think I would be able to handle Matt having feelings for Julio here because he’s married and it wouldn’t be fair to Julio literally getting sick over him. For a second I thought about Matt having hanahaki but eh… I think this is fine.

I think this is about it, in terms of stuff on my mind. I will try to update my Dreamwidth more often in 2024, or at least write more entries I’m comfortable with making public. Thank you to whoever is reading this!

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Checking In

Tue, 11 Jul 2023 06:13:12 GMT

Going to be honest, posting here is basically like screaming into the void. Came on here because AO3 is down, and now I'm thinking about posting backups onto SquidgeWorld whenever the site goes back up so I have a similar layout to share with people. Or maybe on this site, since I don't think I'll be updating any works in progress on here solely.

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First Post

Mon, 13 Mar 2023 05:33:32 GMT

I'm not really sure what I'm doing, but here goes...

Hey, hello, I'm kdsburneraccount, I go by the same username on AO3 and Tumblr. I mostly write Sports RPF, with a primary focus on the NBA and the NFL. This journal (I think that's what it's called?) is mostly intended to be a slush pile for my writing, as in various plot bunnies that I'm not sure I want to further polish and post on AO3. We'll see if there's anything else I post on here, but for the most part, it'll be random things I've written in the past that I want to look back on at some point outside of my Notes app (which is a bit disorganized). The general quality of writing will be inconsistent, hopefully that isn't a big deal for anyone.

Don't know who's gonna read this considering that posting on Dreamwidth seems like posting to the void, but I hope that if you read this, you're doing well 👍.

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