I know you’ve largely moved on from 1386 (as we all probably should) but I wish there was someone else to pair Nico with. I don’t want to give him up but he doesn’t have a will to his mack anymore 😔. Idk I just needed to get that off my chest I guess. It feels silly to worry about this given everything but I don’t know man I just want to see Nico happy in fics still
Oh anon I'm so sorry you're grieving this. It sucks so much when something happens irl that affects your love of someone who was mostly important to you as a fictional character -- but also not, right? There's always bleed in both directions, and that's what makes this so tough.
I will say, I don't think there's a "should" about moving on from 1386. It might not feel good to you to engage with them right now or ever again, and that's totally fine. But the idea that we should only write RPF about hockey players who haven't shown themselves crossing a line of acceptable moral behavior is a house of cards. It's more about virtue signaling than actual morality. It doesn't really hold up, and it doesn't need to, because at the end of the day, we write HRPF because the NHL is a heteronormative patriarchal nightmare.
(This is getting long so I'm putting the rest under the cut. Also, anon, you might not be the person who needs to hear all this today. But it seems like I needed to say it, so here we go!)
I'm not saying that there are no hockey players who believe in things I would agree with. I hope there are! But that's not a precondition to me writing about them. The NHL is such a good substrate for the stories I want to tell because it takes these boys and gives them enormous amounts of privilege while also subjecting them to constant pressure to conform with unspoken but rigid social norms. @demotu gave me the phrase "homophobic + homosocial" and it's such an accurate description of the toxicity of the environment. Fellow sports bros are the only people who are really people but also you can't fall in love with them! Have to fall in love with a skinny probably-blond lady with beachy waves and lip fillers! And if you do fall in love with your bro and manage to notice it through the cloud of heteronormativity you've been breathing your whole life...well, you'd better hide it. Can't become a problem in the room. Can't become the gay face of the NHL.
I imagine there are some guys who come through that environment with other values intact. There's surely a range of how much these guys are kind and thoughtful and considerate of non-sports-bro people in their daily lives, and of how much they consider non-sports-bro people in their politics. But the environment isn't really designed for that, and so the assumption that these guys are acceptably progressive until proven otherwise is just fundamentally implausible. You talk about Nico having a Will to his Mack -- but do we really think Will would have refused to go to the White House if he'd been on that Olympic team? We don't know that he wouldn't, so we can comfort ourselves with that belief if we want to, but it's basically saying "I like this person so they must be an exception." It's wishful thinking.
And I would argue that we don't need to engage in that wishful thinking. It's actually okay to write about guys who are probably or even definitely problematic! To me, it's a tangle of a few different things:
Support
The strongest moral objection, I think, is that writing about these guys constitutes giving them support. It's tricky, because they are in a field where public support means something to their careers--not everything, but it's a factor. But I would argue that hockey fandom and HRPF fandom are not the same thing. This is not where teams are looking to see how their players are being received. This is not where players are hoping they'll blow up. This can be frustrating when we're doing things like excoriating the guys for going to the White House and we know they don't care about our opinions. It can also be comforting when you're like, wait, will writing Matthew Tkachuk getting fucked in heat make him think I support his membership on that blue ribbon commission or whatever? Trust me, it will not.
There is, however, bleed over. Shipping two players might not make YOU want to go to their games and buy their jerseys, not if you also know they're people you don't like irl, but maybe it'll do that for the people who read your fics. You're still participating in an ecosystem that's boosting these guys, even if not very directly.
If that's a hard line for you, I don't think there's any part of men's hockey RPF that's safe from it. Like I said, I think the reason most of these guys haven't gone to the White House is that they haven't been invited. The NHL is a deeply problematic institution that's covered up sexual assault and banned pride jerseys and employed Carter Hart, and you can't pick and choose the parts that haven't shown themselves to be overtly problematic yet without both endorsing it all and setting yourself up for disappointment. There's no ethical consumption under NHL patriarchy, and the only way to win is to opt out.
(The person who introduced me to hockey RPF did that, actually, after the Pens went to Trump's White House in 2017. I understand that decision, even though I made a different one. We still talk every day.)
Feelings
I said above that you can't pick and choose among teams and players and feel like you're being morally pure. You can, however, decide that you don't want to engage with certain teams or players for any reasons you want -- because they make you feel gross, because you're disappointed in them, because they aren't who you thought they were. Fandom is supposed to be fun, and there's no point in writing or reading about someone who gets in the way of your enjoyment.
It sounds like that's where you are with Jack Hughes right now. Tbh, I'm not sure where I am on him. I do feel disappointed and hurt by what happened, even though I know on a logical level that this was a very predictable outcome of a U.S. win. I didn't have any active plot bunnies for him and Nico -- I've already covered them in my two main universes, and I have so many others to catch up on -- so this is mostly a theoretical feeling. If I did have stories in mind for him, that might be enough to make me decide I'm willing to separate the real person from the fictional version and forge ahead. I don't think it would be wrong for me to feel either way. Feelings are what they are and they aren't the same as ethics.
Social approval
This is where I think the strongest "should" tends to come from. Part of the reason people might shy away from writing Jack at this point even if they'd still like to is because they don't want other people to see it and think it means they endorse the things he's said. I would like to stress that this is a valid reason to choose not to do something. It's not WRONG to avoid writing or reading about someone because you think other people would come after you for it. But it's not wrong to decide to ignore that social pressure, either. Social pressure isn't the same as a moral imperative.
I think also we can get into bubbles on Tumblr where we think the social pressure is greater than it is. People are still reading my 1386 fics. They're showing up in my kudos emails. I suspect we'll see the pairing drop off, but maybe not entirely. I kind of hope not entirely, because it's one I've loved. If it does die off, it's not a moral victory. If it doesn't, it's not a moral failing. It's just a read on where the fic community has landed, emotionally and culturally, on the desire to engage with these people as characters.
If you do want to engage with the characters, I'd invite you to remind yourself that virtue signaling isn't the same as morality. I also suspect, based on my long experience writing unpopular characters, that you'd find the fallout to be less than you think. But if you find it less fun than it was and would rather not, that's a totally fine conclusion to come to.
The actual morality of it
I guess I'll conclude by saying: this can all feel really complicated. At the end of the day, though, this is one of the least morally weighted things any of us do with our lives. How we treat the people around us, what causes we choose to support with time and/or money, those are so much more important than what hockey players we read and write smut about. Which means that how you respect other people's decisions to engage or not engage with a given piece of smut is more morally important than the smut itself. We do have opportunities in fandom to show our values every day -- it's just not about which hockey players we support. It's about being kind to the people in the fandom trenches community around us.
All right, that was a very long answer that only partially addressed your original ask, anon. I don't have an easy emotional answer for what to do about Nico! But fandom is ever changing, and we have so much latitude to do with it what we want. I hope you'll find your answer.
To celebrate the release of the Heated Rivalry TV series on Crave (premiering Nov 28), we’re feeding fandom’s biggest Crave-ings with a fanworks event. 🏒
AO3: Event Page
More info: FAQ
How to Participate
Submit a prompt you’ve been craving to see filled.
Fellow Game Changer fans can claim it with fic, art, moodboards, or other fanworks.
Heated Rivalry focus, but any character or ship is welcome.
Schedule
Sign-ups: Open now
Sign-ups close: Thu, Nov 27, 2025
Claims Reveals: Fri, Nov 28, 2025
More Info
No minimum word count for fic fills.
You can submit and fill multiple prompts.
Tag your posts with #FulfillACraveing and #HeatedRivalry so we can reblog.
If someone gets off to policing a fandom they clearly have no affection for or participation in — pals, that’s just not anyone that needs oxygen.
Writing patterns are patterns, fanon vocal rhythms exist in every fandom, and when I say write what makes you happy I fucking mean it.
I loathe AI and I beg you all not to use it. I want to read the stories you want to tell, not the ones a machine tells for you. (Plus everything else that’s shit with AI) But I’m not going over anyone’s fics with a comb to search for “evidence” and I would encourage you not to waste one second of your wild and precious life doing it either.
I can list all my credentials that could give more weight to this, but I shouldn’t need to. It’s basic fandom etiquette to not engage with things that aren’t for you, not to mention human kindness.
Chase your joy, don’t steal others’.
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