So,@rimouskis proposed a 20-years-of-hockey-slash-on-AO3 event based on the post date of this fic, and then I spent a truly atrocious amount of time on the Wayback Machine trying to find content from earlier than that. Enjoy the fruits of my labor thus far.
One of the hubs for the fandom seems to have been thehockey-dreams yahoo group, started November 28th, 2000. An archive was hostedhere, and the group appears to have dissolved somewhere between 2005 and 2005. There was also a hockey fanfiction webring established on May 15th, 2003. I’ve found mentions of a few different message boards, none of them archived - one belonged to Tammy.
Fanfiction.net had a category for sports before they removed RPF from the site, and the earliest archived version of the page shows nearly a dozen hockey fics. Notably, there are several fics from Julie H., who also wrote baseball slash - it’s very possible she wrote hockey slash prior to December 2001 that was lost in the RPF purge. I haven’t been able to find a personal site or someone else hosting her fics (yet !).
The page description for a personal site “Two Minutes for Slashing*” implies that the fandom on FF.net had been fairly robust prior to the September 2002 ban. They also link to the multi-fandom sportsslash group as a substitute for the FF.net community. Sportsslash had their own yahoo groupandarchive, which hosted some hockey fic.
So, what’s the oldest intact fic I’ve been able to find? It’s a bit hard to tell, considering the nature of the Wayback Machine, archives, and the lack of dating on personal sites. That said, here are a few things I’ve managed to definitively date to “earlier than New Years Eve 2001.”
TwoRed Wings fics by almightychrissy that were posted prior to December 18th, 2001.
The Toughest Year, a Red Wings fic by fedzgurl, is marked as being written in June 2001.
The site Valley of the Goons has a number of slash fics and essays uploaded already as of the earliest Wayback capture in March 2002. Since none of them are dated, I have no way of confirming which ones were written when. It seems likely, however, that at least a few were written in 2001 or earlier, considering the site author Kitkat had a hockey webring as far back as February 1999.
Kitkat’s second site, Starry Starry Night, focuses on the Dallas Stars and hosts two fics written prior to February 2002. The fics in question are Listen to What the Fuzzy SaysandBirthday Tales.
The author’s note for Life In A Nutshell, posted prior to December 18th 2001, mentions a previous fic written by “Alex,” presumably of the Half Truths and Gorilla Dust site. There is only one fic that isn’t archived on Alex’s slash page (Pride), but I have no way of confirming if it was the fic in question.
This was actually really fun to compile - I love going through old personal sites on the Wayback Machine and seeing how fandom used to interact. I’ll likely make more posts like this in the future ! Also, if you had first-hand experience with the hockey slash fandom prior to 2004 or know someone who does, please hit up my ask box!
It might be interesting to consider the space in which RPS usually takes place: any real person can be the object of RPF in theory, yet, it is usually the same space from where our favourite fictional worlds are produced.
This chapter argues that the actor-character resonance at the heart of this process of mythologisation of both the actor and the industry is the space from which RPF is produced.
MARTIN, ANNA (2014). WRITING THE STAR. STARDOM, FANDOM AND REAL PERSON FANFICTION.
If the space where work does not mean producing something for the money but creating is such a defining element then RPS about actors and other type of artists might have more in common with actor AUS than with RPS where the people are not famous for some kind of creative work.
What do you think? Where would you place sport RPS, is it also another kind of pastoral fantasy?
Oulu summer training buddies. A symbiotic goalie tandem. Can these two realities work together?
I have outlined the work to be posted in three chapters, and most of the text is pre-written. The tags and the rating are because of all the content; the first chapter alone would be more in the line of T rating, focused on relationships and feelings, but the later ones will have heaps of smut.
This blog hasn’t been flagged ( ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ truly it is random) so there should be no issues accessing it in the future. I still have a few posts in my queue, including some that I’m mostly posting for my own future reference.
Going forward, you can find me on Dreamwidth at tsumego, and I’ll be moving content over there. Currently everything is locked, so comment for access.
The tags are pretty empty and hide things so reblogs + comments are pretty much the only way to share info. If anyone has any comms they’re planning to join message me or drop a comment.
Большой секрет — знает весь свет. Big secret—the whole world knows.
Борода не делает философом. A beard doesn’t make a philosopher.
В темноте все кошки серы. All cats are gray in the dark.
В Ту́лу со свои́м самова́ром не е́здят. No one brings a samovar to Tula. (Tula is famous as the city where samovars were manufactured. This is the equivalent of “Don’t bring coal to Newcastle.”)
Волко́в боя́ться — в лес не ходи́ть. If you’re afraid of wolves, don’t go to the woods.
Говорить правду — потерять дружбу. Tell the truth—lose friends.
Доверя́й, но проверя́й. Trust, but verify.
Долг платежо́м кра́сен. Debt is beautiful once it’s repaid.
Доно́счику — пе́рвый кнут.The informer is whipped first.
Друг познаётся в беде́. You get to know your friend in trouble. (A friend in need is a friend indeed.)
Дру́жба дру́жбой, а де́нежкам счёт. Friendship is friendship, but count money.
Знать всё — значит не знать ничего. To know everything is to know nothing.
На чужо́м го́ре сча́стья не постро́ишь. One can’t build happiness upon another’s grief.
Назва́лся гру́здем — полеза́й в ку́зов. If you called yourself a mushroom—get in the basket. (Sort of like, “don’t just talk the talk—walk the walk.”)
Не ошиба́ется тот, кто ничего́ не де́лает. He that does nothing makes no mistakes.
NB: any translation mistakes are mine
USEFUL!!!
Very Important Addition, my favorite
Любовь не картошка, не выбросишь в окошко. LOVE IS NOT A POTATO YOU CANNOT THROW IT OUT A WINDOW (that is, love is not a small thing that is easy to get rid of)
In which G is all of us who just want to see Sid’s curls be free
S: *sitting there with perfect hair* G: … :} *ruffles Sid’s hair* S: … G: хаха сори… я не знаю, почему я это сделал [haha sory… I don’t know why I did that] G: ❤️*messy hair*❤️ S: *secretly thinks that was hilarious*
anyway in a hockey severance AU they don’t know each other as names, only as numbers. Eighty Seven used to have dreams of escape after the first time he saw sky during an outdoor game, but they took care of that.
