From the Canadian shack to the Canadian cottage: Heated Rivalry as slash

Abstract

Slash fan fiction as a genre has traditionally been marked by its focus on explicit fantasies, professional equality, erotic intimacy, and meaningful nonverbal communication. Reading the TV show Heated Rivalry (2025–) through the stylistic and thematic lens of slash allows us to articulate and explain many of the more unusual aspects of the show, such as its odd pacing, lack of narrative action, extremely long sex scenes, and seemingly dated stories of the closet. The popularity of the show has catapulted into the open the particular appeal of slash fan fiction as it mainstreams a fannish mode of queering (and queered) interpretive readings.