Pete and Chasten Buttigieg Fanfiction

Pete and Chasten Buttigieg Fanfiction: Thirty-eight-year-old presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg would be winning the election if the election was held on Archive of Our Own, an open-source platform of slightly highbrow user-submitted fanworks from a variety of fandoms. On Archive of Our Own, Buttigieg and husband Chasten Glezman are the stars of user-submitted fanfiction or, more specifically, RPF—real person fiction—which has been popular in fannish circles for decades. In these nearly 70 stories, Buttigieg and Glezman’s relationship is the focus. Some of the RPFs are sincere and sweet, while others are House of Cards rip-offs, with Buttigieg advisor Lis Smith delivering Aaron Sorkin-paced dialogue. And then, of course, are the explicit RPFs, which fantasizes about the intimate details of Buttigieg and Glezman’s relationship. AO3's chaotic, free-for-all tagging system with phrases like “it was supposed to be smut but then I killed someone” and “i swear this isn’t straight angst, (it’s gay angst) it’s clear to see why Buttigieg, of all the politicians running for president right now, would become fannish fodder. It’s parasocial relationships with politicians arriving at its most obvious endpoint.