For Sale: Fire Extinguisher, Never Used

As a threshold matter, I want to clarify my stance on the Sokovia Accords. The motivation behind the Sokovia Accords was presented as a need for accountability. Superheroes should not be able to roam unchecked. They should be accountable for the actions they take in the exercise of their powers. And I actually agree with all of that. The MCU is a world that’s undergone extreme change in a very short time. The law needs to change with it to account for the new threats and dangers and demands of this world. When I disagree with the Sokovia Accords, it is not because I think the avengers should be able to do whatever they want with no accountability.

I disagree with the Sokovia Accords because they objectively do not achieve accountability. If anything, the Sokovia Accords get rid of accountability.

Before I explain why I think this, I think it’s important to first define accountability. Oftentimes I read through discourse on the internet and it becomes abundantly clear that the disagreement is because everyone is operating from a different definition of the same word. Language is flexible, words have multiple meanings, so I want to be clear about what I think accountability actually is before explaining why I believe the Sokovia Accords do not achieve it.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines accountability as “an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions.” In a legal system, accountability for state actors is usually achieved in two ways.

The first way is to make officials ask for someone else’s permission before they do something under state authority. And the second way is to punish or penalize officials who abuse state authority.

A great example is search warrants. We’re gonna talk about search warrants from an American legal framework because that’s the law I’m trained in.

In America, the state has the authority to go through your shit and look for evidence that you committed a crime. That is a lot of power to have. To make sure it is not abused, the law holds officials accountable through two main avenues:

First, they make the police ask for a judge’s permission before they conduct a search. They have to go before a judge and explain why they think they deserve to get a search warrant to go through your shit. They have to explain to them what you did wrong that gives them the right to exercise their authority against you. And that judge can say “no, that explanation’s just not good enough, you don’t get to go through that person’s shit.”

But maybe that judge is just bad at their job and terrible and let the police search things they shouldn’t be allowed to search. The judge holds the police accountable, but who holds the judge accountable?

The law adds another judge.

If you are arrested and the police have conducted a search of your property, you are allowed to challenge that search warrant. You can argue to a different judge “that was bullshit, the first judge made a bad call, my shit never should have been searched.” If the second judge agrees, the evidence against you is suppressed. Because the police abused their authority, the law penalizes them. They do not get to use the evidence they have against you. A judge says to them “you did the wrong thing and this is the consequences you must accept for it.” They are held accountable.

What if the second judge is bad at their job?

The law adds more goddamn judges.

You can appeal to the second judge’s opinion to the appellate court. If the judges on the appellate court are bad at their jobs, the law grants you the opportunity to petition even more goddamn judges on the Supreme Court to review your case and sometimes they decide all those other guys before them got it wrong.

When the law tries to create accountability for state actors, it tries to account for bad faith and human error. It does not assume that everyone is going to exercise their power well or responsibly. Accountability is created by trying to make a system that asks, “if the last guy fucked up, who can you go to in order to make it right?” and just trying to add as many layers of protection as possible.

The law has different ways of holding private actors accountable. I’m talking about accountability here through the lens of state actors because the Sokovia Accords proposes to make the Avengers state actors. They are supposed to act under the direction of a UN panel—they would be acting under the color of state authority and are ergo state actors.

Who do we want to hold accountable with the Sokovia Accords?

We cannot just say the Sokovia Accords are directed at the Avengers. Like. First off, who do we define as “The Avengers” to begin with? The roster changes. Is it just the original people who were on the Avengers? The people who were on the Avengers when the Accords passed?

That’s just not how the law works—and it shouldn’t be how the law works. Legislation is not directed at specific individuals. Congress does not come into session and open the floor with “and fucking DAVE has been a real problem lately so we need to make rules SPECIFICALLY FOR HIM.” Laws are directed at everyone—i.e., “no one is allowed to murder”—or qualifying groups of people—i.e., HIPPA, which sets rules for individuals who practice in the medical field. But we don’t write laws saying “these are JUST FOR DAVE.” So we can’t say the Sokovia Accords should just apply to Steve Rogers or Wanda Maximoff or Tony Stark.

We could say that these laws apply to the Avengers as an organization. We pass laws all the time governing how specific governmental organizations are run. Maybe it’s just these rules should apply to whoever the UN says is an Avenger. But if we only apply these laws to the avengers, we’re not accounting for if the Fantastic Four or any other current or future superhero group decides to fuck around and find out. We’re not solving the actual problem, which is “we have super heroes running around and we don’t know how to hold them accountable”

Secretary Ross stated that Sokovia Accords were motivated by the disaster in Lagos. The Avengers went in on a mission that went wrong and it resulted in the death of bystanders. They did not ask for permission to go on this mission first. They seemingly did not face substantive consequences for it after. Similarly, Secretary Ross cited other incidents like Ultron where the Avengers acted without prior government sanction in conjunction with a mass casualty event.

Based off of Secretary Ross’s PowerPoint presentation, the Sokovia Accords were nominally meant to create a system of accountability for powered individuals acting in a quasi-militaristic role to either prevent them from causing harm or to impose consequences for the harm that they inflict. That’s not what they actually do, but that was the sales pitch with the PowerPoint. The Avengers had, from their perspective, made a series of bad decisions that resulted in loss of life. They were drafting the Accords to ensure more oversight in the decision-making process and/or impose consequences for bad decisions. Nominally, this is specifically about the enhanced individuals who go out and choose to use their abilities in a way that impacts others.

What they actually do is gut the civil rights of every single enhanced person in existence. But we’ll get to that.

With that framework for accountability in mind, let’s analyze the text of the Sokovia Accords to see if they actually create accountability.

One provision of the Sokovia Accords suspends the right to due process for enhanced individuals. It’s unclear if this is the exact language found in the Accords itself or just the Wiki editor’s summary, but the Marvel Wiki recounts this provision as follows:

“Any enhanced individuals who use their powers to break the law (including those who take part in extralegal vigilante activities), or are otherwise deemed to be a threat to the safety of the general public, may be detained indefinitely without trial.”

So this is literally as far as you need to go in the analysis to know the Sokovia Accords are utter bullshit. Like. We’re gonna go farther, but honestly you could stop here.

If one side’s position is predicated on suspending due process for anyone but especially for a group of individuals based on their innate, immutable traits, they are automatically the bad guy. They are automatically the bad guy.

I think it’s important to understand what due process actually means. Due process broadly means that if the government wants to deprive you of your life, liberty, or property, they have to give you notice and an opportunity to be heard. They want to take something from you, so they have to give you a chance to argue why they shouldn’t be allowed to do that. It’s what’s supposed to make sure the government treats you fairly.

The classic example is a criminal trial. The government has accused you of breaking the law. They want to take away your liberty by putting you in prison. But before they can do that, they have to give you notice and an opportunity to be heard on why that shouldn’t happen. They have to give you a trial where they have to prove to a judge or a jury why they believe you broke the law and you get the chance to call up your own witnesses who swear you were with them on the day of the crime and couldn’t have possibly broken the law. That is due process.

If the government is trying to get rid of due process, it means they are trying to make sure that they will not be held accountable for their actions. Due process is accountability and they are trying to get rid of it.

Here’s a question: how do we know the enhanced individual broke the law to begin with?

What’s stopping a government official from pointing at a random enhanced individual and saying “they threw a bus. Right in front of me. Just now. Smashed it right up. Destruction of public property, a crime. Time for the Raft”

And the enhanced person is just standing there

No buses in sight

Having done absolutely nothing wrong

How do they show they’re innocent?

Easy. They don’t. They just go to jail forever.

BECAUSE THATS WHAT YOU CAN DO TO PEOPLE

WHO HAVE NO RIGHT TO DUE PROCESS

“Well they could prove to a jury they’re innocent—” No they can’t. That would be due process. They don’t have that.

If they have the chance to contradict what the government is saying, they have due process. If they legitimately do not have due process, the government can do literally whatever they want to that person and that person cannot complain because if you have an avenue to complain through you have fucking due process.

In the context of this universe, enhanced individuals are extremely valuable to government actors. One of the most common marvel universe storylines is “a shady government agency found out about someone with superpowers and kidnapped them and put them in a lab to experiment on them or forced them to use their powers for the government’s benefit” and SUDDENLY the MCU wants to pitch that it’s a good idea to give the government a blank check to kidnap specifically those individuals and legally hold them indefinitely with no avenue for them to challenge their incarceration. Because that will never be abused.

But, surely, there must be some avenue for them to challenge their incarceration. Because Clint and Scott both get off the Raft and get to do house arrest instead. Like. They are broken out of the Raft by Captain America, but if you break out of prison, the government doesn’t say “aw nuts you got me :( you escaped my trap :( your prize is house arrest :( :(” no they just put you back in fucking jail as soon as they catch you and they leave you in there for longer this time

I think the most probable Doylistic explanation for those plot points is to say that they were a product of Marvel’s unwavering commitment to undermining and contradicting itself at every single turn. But let’s see if there’s an in-universe explanation for how they stay out of the Raft consistent with the legal scheme outlined in the Accords.

They did not get out under the fucking Accords. The Accords text is unequivocal. If you are an enhanced individual, you can be held indefinitely without trial. They can just toss Clint in his cell and let him rot.

There’s two likely avenues to keep them out of the Raft anyway.

We’re gonna approach this from an American legal scheme because the first avenue of relief varies based off of what jurisdiction you’re in and I have no idea who actually has jurisdiction over the Raft. Most countries have similar mechanisms but the specifics vary so I’m just going to use the American system as an example because that’s the system I’m most familiar with.

Governments love to write laws that say “I get to violate my citizens’ rights xoxoxox” and when that happens courts can often strike those laws down. People whose rights are violated get an opportunity to be heard in a court of law regarding the legality of what the government just did. This does not mean they have due process under the Sokovia Accords. It means they have due process under the Constitution and so the Constitution can be used to stop the Sokovia Accords’ attempt to take away their due process rights.

If the government writes a little permission slip to itself saying “I can violate my citizens’ constitutional rights ❤️❤️❤️ they have no due process now ❤️✨🥂” it is not that the courts are going to look at the permission slip the government wrote to itself and say “by god you got me. there’s nothing I can do now” they’re going to say “you can’t do that ❤️ fuck you ❤️” bang the gavel

Say Clint and Scott get rearrested and dumped right back on the Raft. If the government illegally incarcerates you, you can challenge it in a habeas proceeding, which is, again, a type of due process. If the government walks into that proceeding and says “the Sokovia accords say they do NOT get that any more” the court is going to say “yeah, no shit, the entire point of this case is to determine if they’re ALLOWED to say that” and the due process happens anyway. The habeas proceeding would not to consider whether the enhanced individual broke any laws. The only question that proceeding would be answering is “can the government imprison you without due process of law”

I would like to say that courts would answer an unequivocal “fuck no” to that question. Because the answer to that question is an unequivocal “fuck no.” Like. If the answer is ever “yes,” that’s just fascism.

But some of the greatest injustices in American history have happened because the courts said “yes.”

The courts let Japanese internment camps happen in WWII. There was no due process. It was just “are you Japanese-> get in the camp.” They rationalized it based on the extreme needs of war. And they teach those opinions in law school as some of the most shameful failures of the judiciary.

Maybe a court says “fuck no” to the Accords. Or maybe they rationalize it and say “the advent of superpowers is creating some pretty extreme needs.” And if they do that, it will be a huge injustice.

Option Two: Legal Pissing Contest

Clint could hire an attorney while he’s hiding out in a country without extradition who can give the government agent in charge of finding them a call and say

I’m gonna ruin your goddamn life

I’m about to crawl up your ass with a constitutional challenge

You know the Accords are unconstitutional

I know the Accords are unconstitutional

The courts are gonna know the Accords are unconstitutional I hope

I’m gonna make this a fucking circus

I’m gonna have every little old lady my client saved from alien death on prime time television crying about how the government hates the nice young man who kept her from the long goodnight

I’m gonna make sure she reminds everyone that your plan was to kill her with a fucking nuke

I’m gonna have every fucking child in a hundred mile radius crying on the courtroom steps with their fucking Hawkeye action figure

I will end your fucking life

Or we could all just agree to be super cool about this and I can agree that my client comes back and does house arrest and you just promise not to put him in super forever prison and everyone wins 😘

Option two is the most likely way to get Scott and Clint back and on house arrest. It saves both parties from a gamble. The government does not have to risk the courts saying that the Accords are unconstitutional, and maybe with the next challenge they have better facts than we want to indefinitely imprison the savior of the world. Clint gets to go home and be with his family without risking that he becomes the next judicial failure. They resolve it with a backdoor deal that basically amounts to “I don’t try to ruin your life if you don’t try to ruin mine.”

But your average fucking joe—say, a random teenager in NYC whose family lives at or near the poverty line and who obtained spider-themed powers in a freak accident—will not get the benefit of a backdoor deal. They probably don’t even get to call a goddamn attorney. What do you need an attorney for? You don’t have any right to due process

It is the rich or the powerful or the well connected or some combination of the three who get the benefit of backdoor deals. It is the everyday people who are just trying to get by who have to actually suffer the consequences of unjust laws.

But this is just one provision of the Accords. Maybe the rest have merit. Maybe we just cut this one provision out and the rest are fine.

No.

They all fucking suck.

They suck so bad.

Let’s go back to the original motivation for the Accords. These Accords are nominally meant to prevent other incidents like Lagos and Sokovia from happening. The Avengers should not be able to just gallivant around the world and do whatever they fucking please. They are trying to make an accountable decision-making authority who can check the Avengers’ actions. Is that what they actually do?

Unequivocally no.

Ironically, they functionally remove the avenues for accountability that already existed.

Let’s look at three more provisions of the Accords:

1) “Any enhanced individuals who sign are prohibited from taking action in any country other than their own unless they are first given clearance by either that country's government or by a United Nations subcommittee. Governments are forbidden from deploying enhanced individuals outside of their own national borders unless those individuals are given clearance as described above. The same rule also applies to non-government organizations that operate on a global scale (including S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers).”

2) “Any enhanced individuals who do not sign will not be allowed to take part in any police, military, or espionage activities, or to otherwise participate in any national or international conflict, even in their own country. As a corollary, they will not be allowed to participate in any active missions undertaken by private or governmental law enforcement/military/intelligence organizations (such as S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers).

3) “The Avengers will no longer be a private organization and will operate under the supervision of the United Nations.”

On the surface, it looks like this is creating accountability. Look, supervision! No more private individuals running amok in other countries! They have to get permission! There’s the accountability!

No it isn’t. Those provisions are a legal shell game. They look like they’re creating accountability but they’re actually getting rid of it.

First: Were there actually no mechanisms to hold enhanced individuals on paramilitary operations at home or abroad accountable before the Accords?

So it’s already against the rules for countries to send their citizens into other countries on paramilitary operations. Thats called an invasion. Countries still do it, but when they do they’re breaking the rules. There’s no use trying to create another rule saying “you are NOT allowed to send your superpowered freaks to take military action in my country without my permission.” Like. If they do that, they’ve already decided to break the rules. Another rule isn’t going to stop them.

And, fundamentally, the Sokovia Accords aren’t creating another rule that prevents countries from sending their citizens to conduct paramilitary operations abroad without the permission of the other nation.

They are taking a rule away.

Look at the first provision: Any enhanced individuals who sign are prohibited from taking action in any country other than their own unless they are first given clearance by either that country's government or by a United Nations subcommittee. Governments are forbidden from deploying enhanced individuals outside of their own national borders unless those individuals are given clearance as described above.

So if you want to conduct an operation abroad, you need to ask that country’s permission first, right? Which, again, you already had to do under the rules of international comity. If you aren’t asking for permission, you’re breaking the rules.

But the Sokovia Accords creates another option. There’s an “or.” You can ask the country’s permission.

Or you can ask the UN subcommittee.

So. Who’s gonna be running that subcommittee? Every country gets a seat at the table, right? No. If everyone gets to be at the table it wouldn’t be a subcommittee. It’s gonna be a few select representative of a few nations making decisions for everyone.

And frankly it’s most likely gonna be America running that shit.

What you need to understand about the UN is that it has structural limitations by design. It is playground politics at an international scale. And one of the rules of the playground is “whoever has the biggest stick gets the most say.” And America made sure to give itself the biggest fucking stick.

Right now, America’s really pulled back from the UN because it’s just a generally uncooperative country that hates listening to anyone but itself or playing nice with others. But when the UN was created, America was actually one of the UN’s founding members. The UN may not exist if America wasn’t pushing so hard for it. And America has a long history of contributing more of the funding to the UN than any other country. It did not do any of that shit out of the goodness of its heart. It built a structure within the UN to ensure its voice was one of the loudest.

A big example of this is the UN Security Council. The UN Security Council is the council responsible for global threats, international conflicts, global acts of aggression, etc. This is 100% the Council that’s going to be above any subcommittee that manages the Avengers.

Not every country gets to be on this committee. Only 15 countries get to be on it—5 permanent, 10 who cycle in and out on 2 year terms. The permanent countries who get to always always always have their fingers in the pie are the United States, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom. And if you are a permanent member, you get a fucking veto power. No resolutions pass unless those five countries want them to pass.

No one’s getting on that UN subcommittee unless America and the other permanent members want them on that subcommittee.

So. Before the Sokovia Accords, the UN could not authorize a paramilitary organization to enter your country without your permission to conduct militaristic operations within your borders. They just simply did not have that power. The UN didn’t even have a paramilitary team to send over borders. Because the UN doesn’t have a fucking military. Its Ultimate Move in real life is economic sanctions and strongly worded letters of condemnation. They don’t get a fucking strike team. They had absolutely no means or authority to physically go into your country and start running military operations.

But after the Sokovia Accords, they have a paramilitary team. They can send it over your borders. They don’t even have to ask your permission first.

And the countries driving those decisions are going to be the same five imperialistic fucks who have been ruining the world forever.

But hey, maybe the UN in the MCU is different. Maybe it has a different structure. Maybe other countries get more of a say. The MCU can change the rules and have the council be structured different.

And they can.

But they didn’t.

You can always change the rules as a writer. It’s part of world building. But the point of world building is to actually build the goddamn world. If you want a world to be different, then make the world different.

They were the ones that chose to name it the fucking UN. They could have made up a different governmental body that did not exist in our real world and leave it at that. And then I would have absolutely no context to evaluate it by. I could only analyze its operations by the rules they explicitly told me.

But they didn’t fucking do that. They said it was the UN. And so I am allowed to evaluate its behavior by the way the real UN works unless they tell me otherwise. Like. They chained it to something with real world rules. If they want to change those rules, they need to actually change those rules in the text itself.

But also there’s canon evidence to suggest that America is very confident in its authority over the UN subcommittee.

Because the biggest supporter of the Sokovia Accords is United States Secretary of State Thaddeus goddamn Ross.

The second these Accords were tied to Ross, people should have been suspicious. Ross is one of the most cartoonishly stereotypical examples of governmental abuse of power in the entire goddamn Marvel universe. Within the MCU, he outright states that he considers Bruce Banner property of the United States Army. His signature move is to illegally experiment on people, attempt to enslave the ones that get super powers, and then hunt them across the goddamn planet if they escape him. That guy is not supporting the Sokovia Accords because he has a newfound love for international comity. He is doing it because he thinks it gives him control over powered individuals.

Quite literally, at the time that Thaddeus Ross is pitching the Sokovia Accords

HE HAS A MAN

IN HIS BASEMENT

HES MAKING HIM PLAN A PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

THIS IS A MAN WHO HAS COMMITTED NO CRIMES

HE JUST HAS POWERS

AND ROSS DRAGGED HIM TO A GOVERNMENT BLACK SITE

ENSLAVED HIM

AND MADE HIM PLAN

A P R E S I D E N T I A L CAMPAIGN

But sure he’s probably being super normal and above board about the Sokovia Accords thing. There shan’t be any ulterior motives there.

That dude is absolutely gaming the fucking system. He would not be pitching this if he actually thought that every country gets an equal say. This is imperialism at its goddamn finest. They have acquired an elite strike team and carved out a legal avenue to disrespect the border of smaller and less powerful nations. Less powerful countries have actively less ability to prevent other countries from sending in their citizens to conduct unauthorized paramilitary operations than they did before the Accords.

But the Avengers weren’t sent by their country. They were private individuals conducting paramilitary operations abroad without the permission of any country. That’s what we need accountability for.

Babes.

That’s already fucking illegal.

Private individuals already can’t do that.

The thing holding them accountable is called the fucking criminal code.

Steve Rogers is not waltzing around other countries magically immune from being charged with a crime. If a private citizen shows up to conduct an illegal paramilitary operation in your country, you can arrest and prosecute them for that under your existing laws.

Here’s an example. “Don’t punch people” is one that we’ve got pretty well covered in pretty much every criminal code on the fucking planet. Like. Assault is very low hanging fruit. You’re gonna find it pretty much everywhere.

The Avengers punched a lot of people during their operation in Lagos.

It doesn’t matter that those guys were shitheads. It’s still illegal to punch your fellow criminal. The avengers can absolutely be charged with assault for all the punching they did in Lagos, as well as all of the many other crimes they broke. They just weren’t for some reason.

What are possible in-universe explanations for why they weren’t?

It could be that Nigeria just chose to not charge them. But if so, that’s not really the fault of the current legal system. Like. You have a way to hold them accountable that you chose not to use.

Maybe the Avengers have lawyers that negotiated some kind of deal to avoid prosecution. Again, if that’s what happened, that’s not a fault of the current legal system. You have a way to hold them accountable and you chose not to use it.

It’s also possible that America stepped in to prevent any prosecution.

Once the Avengers make it back to America, the only way Nigeria can get them back for prosecution is if America agrees to send them back. They need to agree to extradite them. There’s not a lot of options for Nigeria to get them back if America refuses. In real life, we can’t do much of anything to force prosecutions against Russian citizens who commit crimes abroad and then return to Russia because the Russian constitution prohibits any agreement to extradite Russian citizens for foreign prosecution. Unless they voluntarily leave their home nation, you’re just kind of fucked.

You can try to pressure the home nation to extradite their citizen for prosecution through things like economic sanctions. But this is again a game of who has the biggest stick. America’s stick is a lot bigger than Nigeria’s.

Even if the Avengers are acting as private citizens now, America does not want to fucking extradite its special super boy named Captain America to stand trial on foreign soil. It wants to keep that guy at home and exploit him as much as possible

So if Nigeria said “we’re charging those guys with a bunch of crimes to stand trial for their illegal paramilitary operation in Lagos,” it is entirely likely that America would have responded with “we will NOT give you our special super boy we cannot BELIEVE you even asked us for him and if you don’t fucking quit trying to take him we WILL crush your economy through the most aggressive tariff scheme at our disposal” and then immediately turned around and said to the Avengers “you guys are SO out of line right now and you NEED to be brought into check we CANNOT believe you did this with NO way to keep you accountable for it.”

Before the Sokovia Accords pass, Nigeria could have conceivably arrested the Avengers as private individuals who broke Nigerian law and conducted a paramilitary operation within their borders without their permission. If they arrest the Avengers before they leave the country, they don’t even have to worry about extradition. They can just hold them in the country pending prosecution.

One of the main systems of accountability for private individuals is civil and criminal penalties. If you hurt someone, you have to pay damages for it. You may be charged with and convicted for a crime. Again, accountability is the obligation to take responsibility for your actions. You do something bad, you get punished.

After the Sokovia Accords pass, you most likely will not be able to criminally charge any of the Avengers or anyone on the UN subcommittee directing the Avengers for anything that happens on a mission. Because now they’re state actors. And do you know what state actors get?

Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil suit.

It’s one of the benefits of being government. It is a foundational principle of law that government officials can only be held accountable for the things they agree to be held accountable for. It’s why so many cops literally get away with murder—they all have qualified immunity. They cannot get in trouble for anything they do as cops unless it’s really really out of line. And the only reason why they get in trouble for the stuff that is really out of line is because the government said “okay okay we will let you get us in trouble for really bad things because voters would get mad if we said cops could walk up and shoot people in the head at random without getting in trouble.”

Some officials have absolute immunity. If they did it as part of their job, they cannot be held personally accountable for it. Because of qualified and absolute immunity, it is very, very difficult to go after a government official.

The UN Charter affords its officials broad immunities for actions taken in their official capacity. All of those guys on the UN subcommittee who make all the decisions about where the Avengers go and what they do when they get there? They get immunity. You will not be able to hold them accountable for most if not all of what they do in their official capacity, even if it is a massive abuse of power.

Like. We’re just passing the buck here. The Avengers “weren’t accountable” for the decisions they were making as private actors who are liable to the same laws as everyone else. And now we’re just letting a group of 10-20 guys make those same decisions and they’re fucking IMMUNE from being held accountable. We’ve even written them a blank check to ignore the fundamental civil rights protections that all government officials are supposed to be held accountable by. And five of the most imperialistic nations in history get to pick the fucking guys.

After the Sokovia Accords pass, the exact same events could happen in Lagos. The Avengers are there. They didn’t ask for permission before entering the country and conducting their paramilitaristic operation. You found out they were here when your people fucking died.

Nigeria can’t go after the Avengers.

Nigeria can’t go after the people who sent the Avengers.

Because the Avengers were sent by a legally immune panel that Nigeria most likely does not have a representative on.

It has no way to hold anyone accountable for what it’s people just suffered.

It has less options than it did before the goddamn Accords.

Let’s look at even more provisions from the Sokovia Accords.

“Any enhanced individuals who agree to sign must register with the United Nations and provide biometric data such as fingerprints and DNA samples. Those with secret identities must reveal their legal names and true identities to the United Nations. Those with innate powers must submit to a power analysis, which will categorize their threat level and determine potential health risks. Those with innate powers must also wear tracking bracelets at all times.”

You know what makes me feel really warm and fuzzy at my first day of work? It’s the part where my boss the government locks a goddamn GPS tracker on my ankle so they can hunt me like a wild boar if I ever try to run from them.

Again, the people who have to sign the Accords is every single enhanced individual who so much as “participate[s] in any national or international conflict,” even if they’re in their own country.

What the fuck does participate mean? How much involvement do you need to just participate in a conflict?

What if, say, Matt Murdock is strolling down the streets of NYC on the day the Chitauri invaded. Not even Daredevil yet—he’s still just a law student. And he senses the invasion coming before anyone sees it. The air pressure is changing. Space is ripping a hole through reality and it is displacing the air in a rush he has never felt before. He figures out something is grievously wrong before anyone can see it. He uses those precious few seconds of a heads up to shout at a nearby daycare group about to board their bus to take shelter instead. He doesn’t know what’s happening but his gut is saying it’s cataclysmic. They listen. Instead of being on a bus in the middle of the chaos when aliens came raining down, they’re safely hidden in the daycare’s basement. All thanks to Matt’s warning.

Matt’s enhanced.

He used his powers to give that warning.

An alien invasion definitely qualifies national conflict, if not an international one.

And he changed the outcome of that conflict for every single child who would have been on that bus.

Should he be required to sign the Accords?

Governments love to stretch the definition of words until they break. Someone would try to say he participated. Someone would try to say he should have to sign.

And if he does, that means he has to give the government his fingerprints and biometric data. He has to submit to a “power analysis” which is a really nice way of saying “human experimentation.” We are analyzing his fucking body here and we have no frame of reference for it. He has to go into a lab and let them run tests on him. He has to let them put a fucking tracking bracelet on him so they can know where he is every single moment of every single day for the rest of his life.

If he refuses to sign?

Then they can leave him to rot without a trial on their fascist prison boat.

They don’t have to prove he committed a crime. He doesn’t have to commit a crime to be incarcerated indefinitely. Because “[i]f an enhanced individual violates the Accords, or obstructs the actions of those enforcing the Accords, they may likewise be arrested and detained indefinitely without trial.” The Accords says anyone with powers who participates in a national or international conflict has to sign. He has powers, he participated, he’s refusing to sign. He violated. Prison.

Matt doesn’t even have to participate in any conflict to risk incarceration under the Accords. Because the Accords also allows them to indefinitely incarcerate people who are just “deemed to be a threat to the safety of the general public.” That’s it. The government just has to find you threatening and you go to jail forever even if you didn’t do a single goddamn thing wrong.

Matt risks learning sensitive state secrets every time he stands too close to a government building. I think the government would find that pretty goddamn threatening. “Oh our secrets are to keep the general public safe and he’s compromising that. Time for prison forever, which we are suddenly allowed to do.”

Matt didn’t pick to do that. His powers aren’t his fault. He got hit by a fucking truck in childhood and ended up getting the radioactive shit that made the goddamn ninja turtles in his fucking eyes. He shouldn’t be punished for that. But he can be. The Accords allow you to deem him a public safety threat and incarcerate him without him ever breaking a single law.

And he doesn’t get to challenge the determine that he’s a threat to the public.

He doesn’t get to challenge the determination that he participated in the Chitauri Invasion just by shouting at little kids to get inside fast.

And the government can say he committed a crime and they don’t even have to prove it.

Because that would be due process.

And enhanced people don’t get that.

Every single enhanced person on the planet has a gun to their fucking heads with the Sokovia Accords. Because if the Sokovia Accords are enforced as passed, then the government can pick them up off the street like a fucking penny off the ground. No crime, no trial, no rights. That is what happens when you get rid of fucking due process.

See, I actually agree with Team Iron Man’s nominal stance of “there needs to be a system of accountability in place to account for a newly super powered society.” The law should be changing to reflect the demands and dangers of a rapidly changing world. And I also agree that private citizens should not be able to conduct unauthorized paramilitary operations in foreign countries. But I also think they already can’t do that like come on fucking COME ON guys if they’re private citizens that means they’re just normal guys with no authority. Steve Rogers cannot legally conduct paramilitary operations in Lagos anymore than your fucking buddy Trent who works at a Schlotzsky’s can. You can already arrest him for that shit.

But that is not what the Sokovia Accords actually did. What they actually did is grant a panel of unelected government officials the unchecked authority to strip an entire minority group of their fundamental human rights and chip them like fucking dogs. That panel is likely going to be hand picked by some of the most imperialistic countries in human history. And they will have the unprecedented right to ignore international borders and conduct military operations in other countries without their advance permission using a strike team of super soldiers who they have absolute and unmitigated authority over.

I have no idea what the fuck they were smoking in the writer’s room when they came up with this shit. I could not have written a more cartoonishly fascist and imperialistic set of laws if I fucking tried.

So. Why do I care so much about this?

I’m gonna cede a point. Most people are not walking into the movie theater like “if they do not account for the legal realities of the UN Security Council’s attribution of voting power I will be setting fucking fires.” Most people don’t know about that, let alone care.

But that doesn’t mean that the law is totally irrelevant to art. Legal realism is usually the thing that most media never even considers, let alone cares about. And I think this is a mistake that severely diminishes the quality of their art.

It is not that I think your story needs to be accurate to the laws of the real world be good.

It’s that the law makes for excellent guideposts for world-building.

Artists have the benefit of setting the rules of their own worlds. You do not actually have to follow the law in stories. If a law doesn’t work for your story, you can absolutely set it in a world where the law is different. I personally do that all the time. You can just change the law.

But you cannot escape logic.

Your audience members have brains. They pick up on it when your world-building and conflicts don’t make logical sense. And the real legal system serves as an amazing guidepost on how to make an internally logical world and conflicts.

The practice of law is fundamentally the practice of logic. It is supposed to make sense. Laws are not designed to be arbitrary or illogical or cruel. Sometimes they are, but overwhelmingly they are just legitimately good mechanisms for how society should function. We’ve spent a very long time trying to find a way to make society make sense.

Think of the law of the real world in your world building as kiddie bumpers at a bowling alley. It’s just some guides to keep you on track. You can always take them down or change them—and you may get a gutter ball without them. Or you may be able to make a logical world without them just fine. The law as a model just makes it easier to make a world that makes sense.

You can change how the fucking UN allocates voting power on the World Security Council for your fiction. But you cannot escape the basic logical principle of “it is bad if the government can imprison people who have never committed a crime without ever having to give them a trial or let them go.” That is always, always, always going to be a bad thing. It is too fundamentally unfair to ever be good. You cannot escape that fact.

So if you’re sitting there thinking to yourself “wow, I really want to write a story about two sympathetic characters experiencing an ideological divide. I want both sides to have good points. I know I need to draft some law for the conflict to work. I really hope I don’t REINVENT FASCISM when I do that” you can just use the real law from the real world as a model. Lawyers have spent hundreds of fucking years fighting about the best way to not do fascism and I promise you we can help you with things like “it is really really bad if you get rid of due process. no no really like the government has historically not done super well when they get to do whatever they want to minorities with no consequences. Like the government has tried to do that a lot and quite literally every single time it was super fucking bad”

But it’s just a superhero movie. Who really cares?

I care.

Me.

I am an asshole and I do this for fun

I love drafting my silly little laws to support the world building for my silly little tales. It is so so fun for me. I am the target audience for legally realistic superhero stories and I am not being catered to.

But the serious answer is you should care because it makes art better.

Your audience will pick up on the fact that your world does not make much sense or that your conflict is ill-planned. The entire point of a civil war-type story line where two familiar and sympathetic characters clash over an ideological divide is to present the audience with two reasonable schools of thought and let them be swayed to one side or another. No side should be predicated on something that’s just cartoonishly evil. One side should not functionally boil down to “wow you are such a bitch for not letting the government tag you like a fucking animal.” Your audience will pick up on the fact that that shit is fucked.

Again, I did not decide that the Sokovia Accords were bullshit after I had the benefit of going to law school. I decided that they were in bullshit as a fucking high schooler who had no legal education whatsoever. The story suffered because it could not escape the inherent logical defects in its conflict.

I was able to sit there and say, wow. It sounds really bad if the government can imprison people without a trial. And gee, there’s Bucky Barnes, right there, who’s going to be imprisoned without a trial for a crime that the movie shows he was framed for. And I also watched the movie before this so I know that everything else he’s accused of doing wasn’t his fault. He was tortured and brainwashed and abused. I sure hope he gets a chance to prove that. Oh wait, he doesn’t. Because he doesn’t get a fucking trial.

I could also say, huh. The guy who wants these Accords so so bad is Thaddeus Ross. I’ve seen him before. He was the guy who wanted to declare a real human man government property and forcibly deploy him as a weapon of mass destruction against the enemies of the state. Maybe I should be super skeptical of his claim that this is just about creating accountability. He seems like a guy who may have some ulterior motives.

And I could say, IT SURE IS BAD IF THE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO TAG YOU LIKE A FUCKING ANIMAL SO THEY CAN FIND YOU IF YOU EVER TRY TO RUN FROM THE UNCHECKED CONTROL THEY HOLD OVER YOU

From the bottom of my heart, I have no idea why we accept such mediocrity from movies that have budgets larger than the GDP of a small country. Civil War cost a quarter of a billion dollars to make. Do you have any idea the black tar heroin levels of art I’d be on if you gave me a quarter of a billion dollars. I would leave no stone unturned. I am out here researching what international cellular data plans were available in Russia circa 2014 because I am so dedicated to crafting realistic conflicts for my fucking gay hockey fanfiction and I am doing it for $0. Do you have ANY IDEA the absolute crackhead energy I would bring to the table if you let me make art with a QUARTER OF A BILLION DOLLARS.

There is absolutely the money in that fucking budget to hire a fucking lawyer to sit in the writers room so the writers can say “hey :) I wrote these laws :) they’re my sokovia accords :) do these laws support a logical and balanced conflict :)” and the lawyer can say “no man. that’s just fascism. you wrote fascism” and the writers can say “aw nuts” and write something else that’s not fascism.

If I gave someone a QUARTER OF A BILLON DOLLARS and they delivered to me the major motion film equivalent of a half-assed middle school book report that was written off the goddamn sparks notes I would shoot them with a fucking gun. I gave you a QUARTER OF A BILLION DOLLARS and you just REINVENTED FASCISM?? AND YOU SAID IT WAS GOOD????

My personal stance on fanfiction is that it should be in communication with the source material. I tend to write fics where I’m exploring or developing or subverting some aspect of canon that intrigues me. It’s why I doubt I’d ever write a non-hockey AU for heated rivalry—they can be fun to read, but the part that I’m interested in chewing on is the unique pressures hockey places on this relationship. So even though I could write a non-hockey au I just don’t. It’s just not want I want to talk about.

I tend to force the metros off the team because I am angry that Shane got forced off of the team to begin with. I am so so so sick of the marginalized individual being the one that has to leave. So usually the kind of stories that I want to write for this fandom involves forcing them off in turn. I tend not to redeem the metros because I want to explore stories where the bad actor is the one who has to leave.

That being said, I definitely think you could write stories where the Metros back Shane. Lowest hanging fruit is to just make them non-homophobic to begin with, but I don’t think that’s what you’re looking for with this ask.

If I personally wanted to explore a world where the Metros back Shane, I don’t think I’d do it with a quick, extreme big question the way I do with the Raiders. For the Metros, I’d personally redeem them. And I’d make sure to do it very, very slowly.

I usually give the Raiders the benefit of finding out Ilya is queer in a Big Question Way. They are usually confronted with a question of “do you support Ilya being bisexual or do you want Cap to fucking die? No time to think, answer right now.”

In my opinion, it is sometimes easier to rise to the occasion for the big things versus the small things. Because the stakes are higher. It is harder to live with yourself if you know that your friend may just fucking die if you don’t back them.

And it’s easier to tell yourself that what you just did wasn’t that big of a deal if you’re just, say, not standing up for them when someone calls them a slur behind their back. They weren’t even here to hear it. There was no reason to kick up a big fuss over a stupid comment. If I say something then they’ll think I’m gay too.

The raiders don’t get presented with the opportunity for a slow moral decay. They have to take a plunge. And from then on, they’re just matching the energy they already put out. It’s easier to say on the news that you support your Cap’s relationship with a man when you already announced on the news that in the locker room you personally love talking about taking Shane Hollander in manful fashion against a wall and they all do that, all of them, except for Ilya Rozanov, who is straight. The band-aid has been well and truly ripped off. And like. Your agent said the public loved it, and you suddenly got an offer for a $100k sponsorship offer with a brand that only contracted with you because they want to ride the popularity of you being a #ally, and team management said that jersey sales were way up, great job, boys, but here’s several hours worth of diversity and inclusion training to make sure you don’t put your foot in it next week and—fuck some of it is just momentum carrying you through to being Team Ally. Don’t think about how you called that defenseman from Detroit a cocksucker to Ilya not even a month ago—you didn’t even mean it as like, a gay thing. It’s just something you say. And you’re done saying it now. #ally.

I would rather someone sort of trip face first into being an ally than reject their queer loved one, to be clear. They still did a good thing. They were posed with the question “do I want to accept cap or for him to DIE IN RUSSIA” and they backed their fucking boy. But I think they succeeded in part because they found themselves in circumstances that set them up to be their best selves. They still had choice in it, they still did a good thing, but maybe they would have picked differently if circumstances were less dire. Maybe if the question was “Do I want to call out this guy who I’m hanging out with who laughs about Ilya sucking cock like I’m supposed to laugh too when Ilya’s not even here to hear it and if I say anything they’re going to call me a cocksucker?” they answer “maybe I don’t make a big deal out of it. Maybe I laugh too. It’s easier than explaining why I’m not laughing and fuck a part of me still thinks it’s kinda embarrassing that cap sucks Hollanders dick”

The Raiders are still working to be good allies to Ilya. They have a bunch of little moments where they have to pick to do the right thing in the future. They really do need those diversity and inclusion seminars. But they’re more primed to make those right decisions because they’re suddenly supposed to be Team Ally. They’re just marching the energy they already put out.

With the Metros, I’m not super inclined to have them rise to the occasion in a dire circumstance. Like. They kind of had that opportunity and failed. They could have stood by Shane when he tripped and they didn’t.

For them, I’d make the story about unlearning bigotry. They have to pick to be better for the person they love. And they fail more than once, in a lot of little ways. They have to pick to be better.

You don’t have to make them jump Shane in the locker room to still have them be homophobic. Oftentimes, homophobia is much more subtle. And it’s an unfortunately common experience for queer people to come out to friends and family and end up in a kind of in between. They’re not disowning you but they’re not exactly accepting either. It’s still homophobia. But it’s messy. There’s love but it still hurts.

I think it’s important to write a way back from that. Like. None of us are immune to stereotypes or biases. We fuck up. We pick wrong. Sometimes we just aren’t good people. But we can always pick to be better.

I’d rather live in a world without bigotry, but like. There is bigotry. If I have to live with it, I’d rather a world where we can always pick to be better than we were yesterday. I’d rather your homophobic friend realize that he loves you more than he hates the idea of what you are. I’d rather him be horrified he hurt you. I’d rather him pick to be a better person for you. And I think it’s important to write those kinds of stories. I think it’s important to show each other that there is a way back. But I do think if you write this kind of story, you should be very careful about how you do it. This is the kind of storyline you want to treat with care.

Unironically, I think Jay and Mitchell’s relationship from Modern Family is actually a great model for how to do this.

For those who haven’t watched Modern Family, it was a mockumentary-style comedy sitcom following an extended family. One of the characters, Jay, is depicted as an older, gruff traditionalist. His son, Mitchell, is gay.

Jay undeniably loves Mitchell. But he still subjects him to homophobia. He fucks up again and again and again.

The very first episode, Mitchell and his partner, Cam, adopt a baby together. They don’t tell their families in advance. When they’re trying to make the announcement, Jay thinks that they’re announcing their intent to adopt a baby, not a successful adoption, and tries to talk them out of it. He doesn’t think it’s a good idea to have two men raising a child together.

When he realizes that the baby has already been adopted, he tries to walk it back, but it’s too late. He has once again subjected his son to his homophobia. He didn’t exactly call him a slur, but he didn’t need to for it to be homophobic. He revealed the fact that he does not think his son is the kind of person who should be raising kids and having a family. And he hurt his son in the process.

Jay is shown to fail again and again throughout the series but he actively tries to be better for his son. His progress is slow but it is meaningful. And the show is purposeful about confronting him on his failures.

This show began before gay marriage was legalized. Cam and Mitchell were not married at the start of the series because they could not be married. When gay marriage is legalized, they get married, and Jay is once again shown to be uncomfortable. He doesn’t want to invite his buddies from the club to the wedding because he doesn’t want to admit to them that his son is marrying another man. He doesn’t know how they’ll take it.

But the show is deliberate about forcing him to confront his own prejudice. Mitchell makes a point of saying that it’s not about his buddies at the club, it’s about him. Jay is the one that’s uncomfortable.

Jay even admits it. But he tries to deflect and minimize what he’s done. They know how far he’s come, what more do they want for him. But they don’t let him get away with that brush off, and he is told that if he is so uncomfortable then he shouldn’t be at the wedding at all.

Jay reconciles with Mitchell, but he still struggles. Because it is not as simple as being sorry, and the show goes out of its way to make that point. Jay takes Cam’s father to the club with him in advance of the wedding. When they tell some of the guys at the club that their kids are getting married, they’re asked who’s the father of the bride. They once again grow uncomfortable and leave. Jay is sorry that he hurt his son, but he hasn’t truly challenged his own prejudice.

In true sitcom fashion, the wedding undergoes a series of unfortunate events and suffers multiple failed venue changes. When they are in the process of giving up and cancelling it, Jay intervenes. He’s called in some favors at the club. They can hold the wedding there.

The episode ends with Jay and Cam’s father telling other members of the club that their sons are getting married today. And in front of everyone, Jay walks Mitchell down the aisle. The show does not let him off at simply being sorry he hurt his son. It gives him the choice to make a different choice than the one he made before. He did not want his buddies at the club to know his son was marrying another man, and he changes. He becomes the kind of person who would walk his son down the aisle in front of the guys he didn’t even want to tell about the wedding.

And it is not a change he has to make. Jay chooses differently out of love, not obligation. Critically, no one even thinks to ask him if the club could serve as an emergency back up venue. They were in the process of cancelling the wedding entirely for a later date, and he could have easily let them. The choice to call the club for his son’s sake is purely his own. He loves his son enough to change for him.

Modern Family is actually a fantastic example of why it’s mind-boggling to me why some people prejudge an artwork’s ability to handle serious topics with nuance and care based off of the genre or medium. This was a fucking 20+ episode season prime time tv sitcom operating without the benefit of a single cohesive plot line. It was classic family comedy sitcom shenanigans where every episode stood alone and you get the occasional major plot point or two episode special. This is not the kind of show that you would expect a redemptive arc out of at all, and I unironically think that they pulled off one of the better written redemptive arcs in TV history through Jay. Like. Absolutely any story can be written well. You just have to care enough to actually write it well.

Was modern family a perfect show? No. They fumbled some arcs and handled some things poorly. But they displayed an amazing emotional depth and nuance at times, and it was, again, through the medium of a fucking serialized mockumentary-style comedy sitcom. It was so well done.

One of the best writing decisions that I thought that they made on that show was that they do not minimize the damage Jay did in order to enable his arc. The harm inflicted is not trivialized.

One of my favorite scenes from Modern Family is a talking head by Mitchell. He explains that he came out to his dad in law school. He had to come out three times before his father acknowledged it. Before he came out, his father used to call him every Saturday at 6pm to check in on him at law school and see how he was. But after he came out, he pretty much just talked to his mom.

Mitchell is emotional when he relays the story. The memory still visibly hurts him years later. The show does not flinch from or tru to minimize the harm Jay inflicted on his son over the years.

I think one of the biggest ways I’ve seen redemptive arcs fail is that they feel the need to flinch from the harm their characters inflicted. They keep trying to find ways to make what their character did not that bad. It frankly displays a total lack of confidence in what you’re trying to achieve as an artist. If you think you can redeem them, why are you flinching from what they did?

Lesser writers would have flinched from that scene. They would have centered that story on Jay, not Mitchell. The story would have been framed around Jay’s regret for how he reacted, not Mitchell’s pain around what his dad did to him. You would have only found out about it to showcase how sorry Jay is. Writers who are really flinching would erase Mitchell’s pain entirely. He was so busy back then, he didn’t even notice when his dad stopped calling. Really really really flinching writers would carry the redemption arc by having the harmed minority be the one to talk about how they’re so #different and #better. And in doing so, they’d betray the fact that they don’t actually care about how bigotry hurts people. They just want the laurels of Redemption without actually redeeming shit

If you want to redeem the Metros, let them fail, and let them then choose to be better people for Shane.

I’d personally put it in the period when Shane’s out to them but before he’s outed with Ilya. Showcase all the ways his team’s homophobia is affecting their relationship and harming him.

Shane gets in the showers and suddenly some of his teammates are walking out. They can even rationalize it to themselves. They were pretty much done showering anyway. It’d be weird to try to stay in the shower longer just to shower with Shane. They’re not leaving because they feel weird about being in the shower with him now that they know he’s gay. They’re just done showering.

They’re at a bar together after the game. The bartender is obviously flirting with Shane. Not exactly new—you could not go out with Shane Hollander in Montreal city limits without it feeling like every man or woman with a pulse and eyes is trying to shoot their shot with him—and in the past, when he was just as straight as them, some of his teammates might have even give him shit about how he needs to put in a little effort so the drinks stay free. Do it for the team, Cap.

But they know he’s gay now. Shane could flirt back sincerely. He isn’t, but he could. One of his teammates cuts off the bartender rudely. He looks uncomfortable. Shane notices. He’s quieter. And he leaves early.

It’s not all bad. In a lot of ways, they still love Shane. They celebrate him after good games. They sympathize with him after the bad. They’re still friends. But the discomfort is there now, lurking. And it needs to be challenged. It needs to be atoned for. You need to show them changing to be better.

Canon offers plenty of opportunities. For someone who’s never been hurt by hockey, the other players talk about Shane with homophobic language more than any other character in the series. There’s plenty of opportunities to offer them to be better and stand by their captain.

Confront them with how they’re hurting Shane. Give them opportunities to pick differently, and then let them pick to be better. And then when he and Ilya are publicly outed, they’ve already become the kind of people who would back Shane.

One of my favorite bits for Shane is to have everyone agree for some reason that high level hockey skills is the most attractive quality out there after watching him play. He’ll be playing his little sport and suddenly those around him are gazing at him with lustful intent like “I can’t NOT fuck him about it.” He feels people could be more normal about it. Like he feels this is a overly strong reaction to just being good at hockey but he can’t say shit about it because he met someone on his hockey level and IMMEDIATELY sucked dick about it so he knows better than to throw that rock in this great big glass house

The thing is this bit also applies to Yuna.

The world rediscovers The Force That Is The Truck and is like “oh my god”

He’s so so happy that his mom’s getting the recognition she deserves and he just needs there to be less thirst traps made about it. Please stop asking his mom to rail you okay that’s his mom that’s his MOM

FUN FACTS ABOUT HÉLÈNE WHO I LOVE:

I didn’t want her to just come out of nowhere when Shane embarks on the Metros dream team rebuild so I’m giving her scenes in Sochi. She and Shane have a great conversation in Team Canada’s common room area not long before shit hits the fan.

I love giving the players moments from real game play that I think was sick as hell and I’m giving Yuna “The Truck” Kaneshiro (i don’t think she has a canon maiden name so I’m giving her one) this move that was pulled off by Abbey Murphy. Yuna managed the assist during her Olympic run before she was injured. Shane’s been trying to pull it off for years but has only managed it in practices, never in a game. Hélène managed it in her own Olympic match the day before and when Shane sees her he’s like “oh my god I need to talk hockey with her”

Hélène is absolutely aware of who he is, she lives in Montreal and it’s hard not to be aware of Shane Fucking Hollander in that city and she’s shocked when he absolutely knows that she did not originate that move, it was pulled off in the 1981 Olympic Games by Yuna Kaneshiro.

Oh my god Yuna Kaneshiro is his fucking mom. Hélène sent a love letter to Shane Hollander’s fucking mom.

Hélène, knows it was a love letter: oh my god I sent your mom fan mail

Shane, also knows it was probably a love letter, his mom got a lot of love letters: a lot of people do

Hélène and Shane get on like a fucking house fire. They just immediately click. Shane never acts like Hélène is less because she’s a woman. He never hits on her. It never feels like he’s only talking to her to try to get into her pants. In the course of their conversation she has this moment where she realizes he genuinely considers her one of the hockey greats

The thing is that Hélène knows that Shane Hollander is one of the hockey greats. He just is. Fuck, he might turn out to be the greatest to ever do it. And there had been players who didn’t have half his skill who condescended to her because they played men’s hockey and she played women’s which was Of Course The Lesser Sport. But here was Shane Hollander, Hockey Jesus himself, treating her like a peer of equal skill.

The thing is Hélène knows she’s one of the hockey greats even if no one else knows it

If she had been a man, she’d have gone 1OA in her draft year. She deserved to be in the history books, right up there with Yuna Kaneshiro. But she was a woman, and so there wasn’t any real hope of her ever playing professionally. The CWHL paid a whopping $0 a year.

Hélène attended Concordia in Montreal (alma mater of The Truck) and captained their women’s hockey team (like The Truck before her) where she participated in the time honored hockey lesbian tradition of keeping a photo of The Truck in her locker like a shameful pinup

Oh my god The Truck is Shane Hollander’s fucking mom.

I like the idea that Hélène was a history major for the specific reason that she actually knows a fair bit about WWI. Shane and J.J. are. Sweating. Wasn’t that a hell of a war.

I think she became a teacher for money before she signs with the Metros. The CWHL simply does not pay you. She teaches high school history and coaches the school’s hockey team. She honestly doesn’t have any passion whatsoever for teaching. She just wanted a job where the hours were skewed earlier in the day and had summers off so she could devote her evenings and summers to playing hockey.

Like. She is not a teacher because it’s something that makes her relatively happy even if she can’t play. There’s no latent maternal instinct she’s indulging by shaping the next generation. She is a teacher because she needs money to eat. That is it. There is nothing on the goddamn planet that satisfies like hockey. She wants to play it every second of every day for the rest of her life. She wants to carve her name in the goddamn stars. Cut her open and you find ice. She was put on this earth to hold a hockey stick.

She coaches the boy’s team (there is no girl’s team) and the school board was very doubtful of her credentials before she was permitted to coach it. She had an Olympic gold medal in hockey.

I think it really grates at her. She’s one of the best players on the planet and shes got the Olympic gold to prove it and she’s being questioned if she’s qualified to teach teenaged boys how to play. The teenaged girls don’t even have the option to play for their school.

Hélène wins gold in Sochi and it’s her second women’s ice hockey Olympic gold. She already won once in 2010.

Shane’s been following her career for a while. He’s very familiar with her credentials. He’s watched her games. Shane fucking Hollander considers himself a fan of Hélène’s. She feels like she’s in the fucking twilight zone.

Hélène’s number for the Étoiles (the Montreal CWHL team was the Stars before they renamed themselves to Les Canadiennes de Montréal in 2015. Étoiles is Stars in French. I am clever) was #24 and absolutely everyone on the planet thought it was a Shane Hollander tribute even though she’s slightly older than Shane Hollander and took the number first. No, it was a Yuna Kaneshiro tribute. God if Shane Hollander thinks she tributed him with her number this is going to be so—

He knows it’s a Yuna Kaneshiro tribute

Shane Hollander is also #24 as a fucking Yuna Kaneshiro tribute???

Because Yuna Kaneshiro is his fucking mom???????

She and Shane talk for over two hours. They just get on so well. Their sense of humor is scarily similar. When she excuses herself to go to bed, he doesn’t try to invite himself back to her room, so gold fucking star encounter, 10/10.

Shane rejoins his teammates and they’re like “did you just strike out with fuckin Hélène Laurent” and Shane, who has no idea what about what he just did could be construed as flirting, is like “what.” And they’re like “don’t worry Hollander pretty sure she’s a massive dyke” and Shane is like “excuse me???”

When Shane’s sneaking Ilya back into the Olympic village, he sneaks him in through Hélène’s window.

I’ve reached such levels of mental illness that I looked up the layout of the 2014 Olympic village to plan this fic and I’ve given Hélène a ground floor room located next to the nearby road. Shane’s trying to figure out how to get inside to get his phone so they can contact the Canadian delegation and realizes they’re near Hélène’s room. She lets them in through the window. None of them say a word.

When Svetlana was smuggling Shane out, she stole a sweater from the Japanese delegation for him, gave him another jacket to cover it, and asked him if he knew Japanese. Shane knew some but hasn’t spoken it since his grandfather died. Svetlana says that needs to be good enough.

Like. He was fucked if he got pulled over while he was going to get Ilya. Russia is a very very white country. Shane looks visibly Asian, and everyone’s looking for Shane Hollander, who is Asian. So Svetlana told him to pretend to be a member of the Japanese delegation going fucking sightseeing or something if he got stopped and maybe that would give him a shot at not getting shot. And Shane was like. Svetlana. Is my disguise the fact that white people can’t tell Asian people apart. And she was like. There is also this hat. And Shane was like. Fuck it that could work.

Except he only realizes after he’s back inside the Olympic village that he needs to get rid of that fucking sweater.

Russia is going to be looking for who helped him. If they realize that he snuck out disguised as a member of the Japanese delegation and manage to connect Svetlana to a Japanese delegation sweater, she is fucked. He needs to destroy every possible clue that may give her away.

He gives the sweater to Hélène and mouths Get rid of it to her. She takes it from him, checks the hall to see if the coast is clear, and he takes off for his room with Ilya. They never exchange a single word.

When he was doing the rebuild, all he could think of was how he wished he could get Hélène because she was perfect. They were struggling to find a winger who could keep up with Shane. There just wasn’t a good fit. Except for Hélène Hélène would be the perfect fit. They ended up settling for proposing a guy who could maybe rise to the occasion with a lot of work. But then Shane was sitting in the meeting with team management about to propose the guy and thinking about how much he’d rather Hélène and was like. Fuck it. I want Hélène Laurent.

When he actually managed to get the Metros to agree to her he went personally to tell her that Metros would be making her an offer. Technically he wasn’t supposed to. Management wanted to reach out themselves. Shane went anyway.

Shane knows she’s going to take the offer before he ever walks in the building. She’s like him. She needs to play like she needs air.

He goes to meet her after she’s just finished teaching a summer training camp for her team and when they see Shane Hollander there her students are all like :o :o :o

I think Shane can only bully the Metros into offering her a one year contract and it’s probably only going to be a little bit above the salary minimum under the CBA. Like. It takes so much fighting to even get her in the door. It’s frankly an insultingly low offer considering she has two Olympic gold medals. But Shane swears to fucking god that she’ll be a fucking phenom and when she renegotiates for next year he will back her in negotiations and she can take them for what she’s actually worth and then some. All he could get her right now is a chance.

It’s more than she’s ever had. She takes it.

Before COVID, the NHL salary cap increased proportionally with hockey-related revenue. The NHL sees a massive spike in revenue in no small part because Hélène’s an international goddamn sensation with the rest of the Metros + Hollanov + the Ally Squad. Hélène’s so fucking beloved by women all over the world. Her jerseys are sold out year round. A signed jersey goes on eBay for thousands. The salary cap shoots up the next year because of the revenue spike and when she returns to the negotiating table she’s able to get a massive contract. Contract negotiations are aided by the fact that 1) the Obamas and incumbent prime minister Justin Trudeau openly support her, 2) the metros got in some shit publicly for underpaying her the first time, 3) Montreal is OBSESSED with her, and 4) they’re pretty sure that if the Metros didn’t fight to keep her Shane would actually leave to keep playing with her wherever she went. Like they are such a dynamic duo. Here’s 8 year extension contract please please please sign.

She doesn’t. She signs a slightly shorter contract so her contract expires when Shane’s next contract expires. The threat is explicit. They are a package deal motherfuckers.

Shane and Hélène LOVE playing together

They are the two fastest bitches on NHL ice. They were both heavily inspired by the game play of Yuna “The Truck” Kaneshiro so a lot of their play style is similar. They have a borderline instinctual understanding at what they other is going to do at any given moment. They just compliment each other so perfectly

The salary thing eats at Hélène and not exactly because her first contract is insultingly low. Like that eats at her but the thing is. The insultingly low contract is still mind-boggling amounts of money. She was getting paid $0 a year to play hockey for the women’s league. Like I think once she sees just how much men take for granted in the NHL how little they get in the CWHL stings all over again

People keep telling her to go back to play in the women’s league and she’s like “YOU DONT PAY US THERE”

Hélène’s presence on the metros actually makes the PWHL form faster because 1) she raises awareness and interest in women’s hockey and 2) they’re low key trying to make a paid women’s league so she will get the fuck out of the NHL. Bitch if she goes she’s taking Shane Hollander with her okay she has never been more compatible with a linemate in her goddamn life

Add in Hayden and they are the most unstoppable trio of forwards in the NHL. Goalies weep when they take to the ice.

At one point she’s going to have this sick as hell moment from Jill Saulnier where falls to her knees but maintains puck control and it’s gonna be fucking epic

There are attempts to change the rules to make the NHL officially men’s only and the metros owner is like. Buying a new villa with all the money he’s made from selling Laurent jerseys and is like “WE THE MONTREAL METROS LOVE AND SUPPORT WOMEN AND WILL BE TAKING THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE LEGAL ACTION TO PREVENT THIS” he’s literally just in it for the bag

All of Hélène’s former students and teammates from the Étoiles come to cheer her on for her debut with the Metros. She’s not crying. Hayden shut the fuck up.

It’s not that she wanted to leave her teammates on the Étoiles. It’s that she wanted to make a world where women like her teammates could dedicate their lives to playing hockey the same way a man could. She’s the foot in the door and she’s trying to shove it open for everyone.

She and Shane would kill and die for each other but also they are peak mlm/wlw violence. Their foot is always on the other’s throat.

Hélène can pull bitches

Hélène can pull bitches

Shane keeps leaving his hotel room with his little ice bucket on away games and finding her in the hall making out with beautiful women against her hotel room door and she’s always like. Hey can you grab my room key for me it’s in my back pocket and Shane’s like. Uh huh. One day you could try opening the door before you let a woman climb you like a tree. Hi by the way lovely to meet you ma’am have a great night.

One fateful night Shane opens his hotel room door with his little ice bucket and finds Sandra trying to slip out on her walk of shame and he just turns around and closes the door again

As far as hélène’s concerned it’s not her fault that she’s not as bitchless as Shane. Jesus Christ could someone fly in Rozanov for a dick appointment already she’s about to die from his radioactive levels of yearning

Shane’s like. Leave me alone.

When Shane finally figures his shit out with Ilya it’s on a random fucking away game in a city where neither of them live (someone took a shot at Shane Ilya flew down in a rush it was a whole thing) and so now it’s Hélène’s turn to exit with her little ice bucket and find a needy whore fumbling for his keycard. Oh how the turn tables.

Shane is like. PLEASE leave me alone.

I originally said she was going to be #33 but someone proposed making her #42 so she can still tribute Yuna with just the reverse of her number and I have this vivid image in my mind now of Shane and Hélène photographed in black and white from behind sitting next to each other on the bench with their numbers as the mirror image of each other and I’m obsessed. She’s #42 now. If this was your idea please come forward so I can give you credit, there are too many brilliant people chiming in with ideas in my comments and I cannot find anything on my own blog. UPDATE: the fabulous @math-is-magic is the genius behind your #42, Hélène Laurent.

Yuna manages her because she’s incredibly invested in Hélène’s career for Personal Reasons and Hélène cannot be normal about this. She’s mute in the presence of The Truck for at least the first nine meetings. This is Doing things to her. Sexually. Shane is like “could you be fucking normal about this that’s my fucking mom” but she can’t she can’t even breathe missus truck ma’am please flatten her

David understands the effect his wife has on people. He himself was not immune to The Truck. He’s fine with this.

Shane is not fine with this. That’s his fucking mom. Stop mouth breathing around her.

Yuna sends Shane and Hélène on the press run of a goddamn lifetime and at one point she sends them to do the Buzzfeed kitten interview together and when they’re in the car ride over she’s opening this random fucking $5 multipack of flannels from Walmart and making Shane and Hélène each wear one open over their fucking white tank tops and dudebro backwards ballcaps and Yuna’s internally like “the hoes are gonna go wild for this” and the hoes DO go wild for this. Shane + Hélène are such hockey soul siblings that they apparently split $5 multipacks of flannel from Walmart. They Are The Moment.

Hélène’s in the locker room with the rest of the team. Like. Too much team discussion and bonding happens in the locker room. She’d always be implicitly apart from the rest if she had a separate locker room. And even if the metros built her her own locker room, there wouldn’t be a separate locker room available for away games. They get portable curtain racks and they hang curtains. No dicks are out where other people can see them. Everyone just has to be fucking cool and normal. Shower and change in the little curtained off areas. No one gets weird about Hélène being in here. No one gets weird about Shane and Ryan being in here. No one needs to see anyone’s dick ever. Everyone be an adult and share the space.

The metros legal team loses their mind about the risk of sexual harassment (and the resultant lawsuit) and Shane is like. If a player is a sexual predator. fire. them. Oh my god.

See it kind of fucking grates for Shane because people borderline act like it’s not a big deal if someone’s a predator towards Hélène because Can You Really Blame Them That’s How Guys Are and like 1) that’s fucking gross rapist bullshit and 2) he has never once ogled someone in the locker room okay yes there was that one thing with Ilya but it doesn’t count okay Ilya jerked off at him and he’s spent the past year fielding questions about how they could ever expect anyone to suffer through sharing a locker room with him. But when he says “fire anyone who sexually harasses their fucking teammate” it’s suddenly “oh me oh my can we take such a hard stance.” Fuck this shit.

Hélène means so much to people.

She means so much to people.

So many little girls come to see her and they’re wearing her jersey and holding signs saying they’re a hockey player too and sometimes it hits her that they may get to hope to make hockey their life the way she never got to when she was little. She tosses them pucks over the rink glass and they catch them and hop with excitement and she thinks to herself it’s happening it’s happening it’s happening

She takes so much fucking abuse and vitriol every day but there’s ice beneath her feet and a stick in her hands and she gets to play hockey all day every day maybe for the rest of her life and sometimes she can’t breathe from it

If you’re new to Vonnegut, I would start with either Slaughterhouse-Five, Sirens of Titans, or Mother Night. Whatever you do, do not start with Breakfast of Champions. That book is amazing, do not get me wrong, but Kurt Vonnegut’s novels take place in a loosely interconnected universe where sometimes a character from one novel will crop up in another story. Breakfast of Champions features multiple characters from other Vonnegut stories, so you’ll get the most fulfilling experience if you’ve read other books first. Also, frankly, that book is super goddamn weird in a way he absolutely pulls off, but you’ll have an easier go of reading it if you read some of his other books first to better understand how he experiments with prose.

Kurt Vonnegut is the author that most made me understand that there are no true rules in writing and you should just go out and do whatever the fuck you want and just make art that is experimental and interesting and good. I cannot recommend him enough.

Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. These are fantasy books set in a fictional flat world that’s perched on the back of four elephants which are perched on the back of a turtle flying through space. Terry Pratchett has a molecular understanding of world-building. His books are funny and clever and his prose is gorgeous. There is not a single social issue that he did not try to tackle with his books.

There are a fuckton of Discworld books and entire websites dedicated to trying to figure out a reading order. I personally started with Rincewind the Wizard’s books, but there’s a lot of different paths you could take through this universe. The books focused on the Night Watch are extremely popular (I loved them) and my personal favorite was a standalone book called Small Gods. If you start with the Rincewind books, these feature the earliest books in the series, so his writing style is still evolving. It’s still very, very good, but he definitely develops his style more over time.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams’s similarly features expert world building and hilarious, gorgeous, deliberate prose. Could not possibly recommend more.

House of Leaves is one of my favorite metafictions that I’ve ever read. This book is so dense and complex and interesting. Very unreliable narration and a fascinating experimental structure. I loved it.

El cuarto de atrás by Carmen Martín Gaite was my introduction to metafiction and it remains one of my favorite books. I don’t really have a good translation to recommend because I read it in Spanish but I strongly believe that a bad translation can totally ruin a book so I’d shop around and see if you can find a good translation if you want to read this one in a language other than Spanish.

So I had an entire class dedicated to studying Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes and I think it’s one of the best dissections and subversions of genre norms that I’ve ever read. Like, if you can, I would read this book with academic articles detailing the genre norms of the period and how Cervantes subverted and criticized them because if you have the background you get a much more complete understanding of just how transformative this book was. It’s also really interesting from a “history of fanfiction” perspective because someone published their fanwork of the part II before Cervantes himself published part II and a bunch of people thought it was the real part II and he was so fucking pissed about that fact that he wrote the fanwork part II into the real part II and had the characters talk about how much it sucked ass and how they would never ever do what the fanwork said they did. Cervantes was the original petty bitch. I love him. You get the best experience if you also read his Novelas ejemplares.

I was a really big Greek tragedy/comedy/tragicomedy nerd and I think it’s really worthwhile to do a study of Greek plays in general, especially if you’re interested in tragic storytelling. Aristotle’s Poetics is a great philosophical treatise on narrative structure within the context of classic Greek storytelling so I think it makes for a really good primer before exploring Greek plays.

This is kind of a weird rec because the primer is that I absolutely fucking hated this book when I read it but it’s grown on me since. So The Trial by Frank Kafka absolutely sucks ass to get through. In Kafka’s defense, the book itself is an incomplete first draft. He died while writing it and people went through his shit after he died and published his fucking unfinished first draft and let me tell you if anyone did that to me I would haunt the entire goddamn world. They did him so dirty.

I read that book fuckin. 8 years ago or something and it was like pulling fingernails but after I had time to sit with it I realized he had a really interesting critique of the legal system that I didn’t fully appreciate when I first read it. And I’m still thinking of the final line of that book years later, so there’s definitely something to be said for it.

The Book Thief has a very gorgeous and emotional style, I absolutely adore it.

Native Son by Richard Wright is a landmark novel that was an early dissection of systemic racism. I recommend reading the unabridged version—the book was censored when it was first published, and the abridged version removes critical scenes to avoid controversy.

I did a class on Latin America poetry and became a really big César Vallejo fan through that. We got to pick which poets we analyzed and with every project it was just “here’s syn with more on César Vallejo.” I really like how Vallejo conceptualizes time. Trilce was really good and so were his Poemas humanos but I generally just like him as a poet so honestly I’d read anything by him.

I think El Boom as like, a literary movement had some really interesting innovations in literature and I liked a lot of books out of that time period. I probably liked Gabriel García Márquez the best? Cien años de soledad is a good place to start with him and with El Boom in general.

I really loved Nada by Carmen Laforet and I thought it had a really interesting depiction of gender roles and classism in a post-War society. Really really good book.

The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler is one of my favorite post-apocalyptic narratives.

The Devil All The Time by Donald Ray Pollock is my favorite Southern gothic novel. The writing style feels humid to me somehow. I loved it so much.