i would headlock the alligator

I personally hate any kind morality thought policing. I'm not Catholic or religious and I do not feel guilty over my thoughts. You are not an inherently evil person because you saw two athletes in an interview and went "Hmmm...... what if...." The Feds are not going to come banging down your door because you wrote about one band member dicking down the other and sent it to your friend.

Wondering about other people's lives is very human. Being nosy about their personal lives is very normal. People have been writing fiction about other people's lives since the dawn of time. Some people even manage to write New York Times Bestselling Books that are "historical fiction" or "alternate reality." It does not make you inherently bad to be curious about the details of someone's personal life. That's being human. Being nosy is kind of fun.

The problem, however, comes with the ways in which people engage with it, and involve the real people in this. Harassing an musician's real girlfriend because it doesn't fit into the RPF ship. Showing up at real sporting events holding signs about how certain teammates should kiss. Trying to get actors to sign art of them fucking their coworker. Flooding social media with comments using the celebrity's full name and speculation. There's a line, there's a fourth wall, and there's fandom etiquette.

I hate the question of "Is RPF ethical" because it feels like morality thought policing. Post your fics on locked accounts, censor someone's name when you tweet about it, blow up your groupchat with hundreds of "DID YOU SEE THE WAY THEY LOOKED AT EACH OTHER??" texts. It's not inherently evil to wonder what other people are doing when they're out of the spotlight. Kill the cop in your mind.

1) the nhl is not the only hockey league on this planet, dipshit. every league that i personally know of in europe has crowned its winner and wrapped up its season. a lot of players aren’t there because they couldn’t hack it in their playoffs but because it is a chance to compete at an international level, representing their country. which brings me to

2) many players, nhl players included, do actually feel pride in representing their home countries in a tournament like this. is every nhler’s goal to make the stanley cup playoffs? sure. but that doesn’t mean they are going to be dicks about an entire other tournament that they are competing in in the meantime if they don’t.

tkachuck is a rude, classless asshole, not that i expected anything else from him, and i’d be more than happy to never see him at worlds again. he didn’t need to come in the first place, his wife (? girlfriend? idk their relationship status) just had a CHILD. one of austria’s best players chose to sit the tournament out for exactly that reason, because he wanted to be there for his wife and child.

what he said could have been phrased several other ways that would have been way less disrespectful, but he chose to be an ass about it.