#blahblah

I'm counting from their first cagematch entry in 2005, so yay I just covered the first decade! up to this point that puts me at 323/551 with the vast majority of missing ones being 2005-2008. 9 matches from my notes aren't listed on cagematch. a lot of the very early ones I'm not too hopeful about (though wouldn't rule out forever – a lot of it did exist once), but there's def some gaps I already know how to fill <:

the other day I saw a post from a few years back along the lines of 'the bucks have such uncomfortable chemistry that people crop nick out so they don't have to explain it' and like. yeah. at the time this was a bitter joke about him being excluded, but as a nick fan this sentiment is very present all the time. canonically the bucks are an unbreakable set and they have a rotation of thirds. they handle the sharing of those men differently and approach the relationships with different emotions, have different interactions, of course fans divide on wanting to look into that with more detail. but (with the exception of okada) it's always nick that gets excluded. being anti-bucks-being-weird-and-suggestive-and-married ultimately will go against their canonical representation of these relationships. which of course as always, it's absolutely within everyone's own right to not enjoy or want to explore whatever it is the bucks have going on, but it does go against canon. and so what do you do to avoid that canon? historically it leads to this really clunky, dismissive handling of nick that presents him as less important in that relationship, often less important to matt, too, and generally just a spare part.

which, y'know, someone has to be the third wheel if not everyone is into weird questionably legal polyships, but it's nick specifically. it doesn't go both ways. to make a ship you have to first explain away the canonical three-way nature of the relationship. this generally means that nick's love, investment and interactions with these people doesn't matter, or he isn't attractive to their middle guy, or his feelings are inherently just less interesting. it would take enough people within fandom to be interested in nick in the first place to know that he totally does have a top/bottom alignment, that he has is own unique and loving ways of interacting with people, and to even notice when he has those interactions (and to then care At All and not simply dismiss it as friendship). and sometimes? he has to choose his unwavering love for matt over saving a relationship with someone else that would've still been viable to him.

it's the dismissive nature of it that's so frustrating, like he just stops existing. like no matter how provocative a moment he has with a guy is there's just nothing there because he isn't matt. and then! the way people complain about a lack of fic that ships nick with someone other than matt but never look within fandom to see how he's treated. do you know what I mean. who is hyping up nick ships or even allowing him to be in them outside of the minuscule circle of his own fans – it's how despite having long established thirds, ao3 nick ends up with these random rare pairs gaining traction after a small interaction only we cared about. both bucks kiss adam cole but it's only matt that gets implied to want tongues involved despite adam and nick having plenty of interactions. hangman is a deep relationship nick could salvage if he didn't have to side with matt, but he does, and it still winds up only about matt and his big feelings. kenny wins something and the automatic assumption is he'd celebrate with matt when we literally have a photo of the three of them naked in bed together with nick in the middle. both bucks can say they love kenny in the same breath and the majority are only gonna hear or care about matt. that's preference, but it's pervasive to the point of being the default that their significant relationships are split by fandom into matt being the romantic/sexual partner while nick is just there (even if there is naked in bed). maybe he gets to sympathetically care for matt after it's all gone wrong.