Human Empanada

Human Empanada is a Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews fic written by impertinence that features arranged marriage in a royalty AU setting. The work was originally posted to AO3 in early 2012.
It is a notably controversial fic in the hockey RPF fandomfail_fandomanon "Controversial Fanfics" thread. Posted Nov 25 2017. Accessed March 24, 2019. for the portrayal of the main relationship, which many found to be dub-con at best, but which the author maintains is not.Ask from impertinence's tumblr. Posted Jan 23 2015. Accessed March 25, 2019. Archive Link. The fic was also part of a trend of fics in hockey RPF fandom where Patrick Kane was put into D/s situations, generally focusing on him misbehaving and having to be dominated and punished (mainly with physical force).dekedangle-rpfanon "Fic Discussion" thread. Posted Aug 21 2015. Accessed March 25, 2019.
The title often pops up in Fail-Fandomanon "Worst Title" threads, having become an obligatory mention by early 2019.fail_fandomanon "Worst Titles" thread. Posted Jan 20 2019. Accessed March 25, 2019. It is, despite the title, not a Hannibal fic and, in fact, has nothing to do with cannibalism. It also has nothing to do with the Human Centipede moviesIf you don't already know what the Human Centipede movies are, it's probably a better idea not to google them. If you must know, however, here is a link to the first film's wikipedia article. or Pushing Daisies.
==The Fic==
The original summary for the fic was:
Initially the story was marked as "No Archive Warnings Apply" and only had additional tags for the royalty AU aspect, pining, and a D/s relationship between the main characters.Human Empanada. Wayback Marchine link dated March 10, 2012. Accessed March 24, 2019. There was also an initial warning in the author's note when the fic was originally posted:
The author's note also indicated that there was, at one point, a post containing more information about the world of the fic that was presumably privated when the fic was later deleted. In its heyday, however, the fic was quite popular, appearing on many reclist for hockey RPF fics.HOCKEY RPF: JONATHAN TOEWS/PATRICK KANE FIC RECS by colourmeshocked, posted May 06 2013. Accessed March 24, 2019.HOCKEY FIC REC MASTERPOST by rkatz-rkatz, posted Feb 13 2014. In particular, thefourthvine posted a glowing review of the fic:
Another glowing review came from pluckyminna, who posted the following to Tumblr:
It can be considered something of a fandom classic in the hockey RPF fandom, even though it's quite controversial in some circles, with many people saying things like "ive never actualy read Human Empanada by impertinence and i know i should and its not like i dont want to but i can never seem to get started"Text Post by fuckyoucanada. Posted April 28, 2013. Accessed March 25, 2019. and "How can I not read this?? You had me at 'traditionally useless Prince of America'..."Goodreads Fandom: Hockey Slash Comments. Posted Jan 24 2013. Accessed March 25, 2019. It also had a wider appeal than just the people who would be into Royalty AU normally, with one person saying:
By late 2015, the fic had been deleted,dekedangle-rpfanon "Fic Discussion" thread. Posted Nov 24 2015. Accessed March 25, 2019. with one anon on dekedangle-rpfanon saying this about the deletion:
===The Title===
Part of the fic's notoriety comes from the completely bizarre title that makes it sound like some kind of shockfic or an episode of Hannibal. While impertinence has never made a direct statement on the meaning of the title, several people over the years have attempted to explain the meaning of it in the fic on Fail-Fandomanon:
==Controversy==
Due to the fic having been deleted, much of the discussion that went on in the comments is lost to time. However, from nonnie recollections on Fail-Fandomanon, the wank was two-fold: when the awkward nature of the relationship between the two characters was pointed out to impertinence, she "threw a royal fit, even though she'd recently been accusing another author (marycontraire? maybe?) of abuse in their fic."fail_fandomanon "Controversial Fanfics" thread. Posted Nov 25 2017. Accessed March 25, 2019. Another anon went on to clarify:
The general gist of the wank seems to be that many readers felt that the nature of the main relationship in Human Empanada was inadequately warned for when it was posted and said as much in the comments, which both impertinence and her friends responded to poorly.Does anyone remember lucyzephyr? on Fail-Fandomanon. Posted July 20, 2013. Accessed March 25, 2019. Then, in June 2012, marycontraire posted i'll keep an eye on you if you keep one on me, which was another Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews fic with D/s themes with a similarly dub-con relationship.This fic can be found for download still with some googling, and this date was determined by downloading one such copy. Since it was locked to members when available, no links to such downloads will be posted. This fic was posted with "Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings," rather than "No Archive Warnings Apply," and locked to signed in AO3 users. Reports from nonnie recollection on Fail-Fandomanon differ about whether Impertinence or one of her friends was the first to discover the fic and complain about the relationship,Re: From the last post re: impertinence. Posted 15 Jul 2012. Accessed 17 Dec 2019. but the result is that Impertinence and her friends went to marycontraire's fic and "showed up in to tell an author who CNTW that they should basically warn anyway ... despite the fact that that author's fic and one of Imp's fic contained many of the same elements, and Imp's marked 'no archive warnings apply' and not tagged in a way that Imp was asking the other fic for. Instead, Imp added a passive-aggressive author's note."
In response to the controversy,It's actually not entirely clear whether this warning was always present on the fic or not, but the general consensus seems to be that it was added later. marycontraire added the following author's note to the fic:
Impertinence later made a post on her Dreamwidth where she reiterated that she didn't personally think she wrote an abusive relationship.RSS Feed of impertience's Dreamwidth. Accessed March 24, 2019. In the comments of that post, several people suggested that really all that had to be done was for a warning to be placed on the fic. By October 4, 2012, the initial warning of Human Empanada had been updated to the following:
At some point between then and October 2014, the fic also gained the tag "Additional Warnings In Author's Note"Human Empanada. Wayback Marchine link dated Oct 15 2014. Accessed March 25, 2019. before being deleted in late 2015 thanks to the aftermath of Patrick Kane's rape allegationsFor more information about that, check this article or the Chicago Tribune's coverage. causing a huge purge of both Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews fic and fic featuring Patrick Kane. It never, at any point, appeared to have a different AO3 warning than the initial "No Archive Warnings Apply."
Several years later, impertinence responded to an ask on Tumblr asking if she had an response to her being accused of being "pro-abuse" with the following:
==Post-Controversy Commentary==
As with many notorious fandom fics, such as The Milk Fic, several anons on Fail-Fandomanon read Human Empanada out of curiosity. Several of these reviewers expressed that while they generally enjoy the sort of under-negotiated and dub-con vibe that Human Empanada was purported to have, the fic left them feeling skeeved out due to the fact that there was no sense that the author understood what type of relationship was being written.
The general consensus was that while an individual reader's mileage on whether or not the relationship depicted between Patrick and Jonathan was abusive, Human Empanada was overall not a very good fic. There was much discussion about the nature of impertinence's prose, which many readers found to be immature,Anon comment on Fail-Fandomanon. Posted July 29, 2012. Accessed March 25, 2019. flat,Anon comment on Fail-Fandomanon. Posted June 16, 2014. Accessed March 25, 2019. dull,Anon comment on Fail-Fandomanon. Posted May 24, 2015. Accessed March 25, 2019. or otherwise difficult to read. One anon in particular posted a particularly scathing review of impertinence's prose:
The fic has also occasionally been discussed on Twitter, generally poorly.
==Notes & References==
===Notes===
===References===
Category:Slash Fanfiction
Category:Scandals
Category:Hockey RPF
Category:2012 Fanfiction‎