My Shame Is TL;DR

[Earthling] Pigeon Petition

2013-04-16T19:00:03Z

The earthling is four, and he's loved the Pigeon for half his life. This is an enduring love, is what I'm saying. And during all that time, he's believed that Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus is a basically unfair book. The Pigeon should get to drive the bus, is his feeling. It's not like there are any good reasons why not, beyond what a bus driver who didn't even stick around to drive his own bus wants.

But recently we bought the earthling the Pigeon app, and that has taken his Pigeon-bus anguish to new heights. You can change a lot of things about the story in the app, but you can't change the one thing the earthling desperately wants to. No matter what, you have to keep telling the Pigeon no.

I can only conclude that this strikes the earthling as terribly, fundamentally wrong. He's complained to us. He's protested to the app. Every time he plays the app, he gets his stuffed Pigeon out and lets him drive all the cars and trucks he owns, carefully playing through his ideal scenario, which goes like this:

"Can I drive the car transporter?" Pigeon says.

"Yes, you can. I'll help you."

"I'm so happy! This is the best day ever. I'm driving the car transporter!" Pigeon says.

This is an actual transcription, word-for-word, of one of his recent rounds of Pigeon Gets to Drive the Things. (Including the dialogue tags, because the earthling knows you have to specify who's talking.)

So it was against this background of extreme concern over rampant Pigeon-related injustice that I uttered the word "petition" to the earthling yesterday.

"What's petition?" he asked.

I tried to explain. "A petition is a letter you write to someone, asking for something you think should happen. And you sign it, and other people who agree with you sign it, and it's a way of showing that lots of people feel this way."

"Oh," he said, thinking. "Can we write a petition?"

"You have to have a thing you want to happen," I told him. "Like better lunches at school."

"Or the Pigeon to drive the bus?" he asked. I agreed that that is a thing you could write a petition about. "Let's do that," he said.

"But you need a reason," I said. "A good reason why the Pigeon should drive the bus."

"It will make him happy," he said. He thought some more. "He keeps asking and no one ever says yes. You have to say no even if you want yes."

"Any more?" I asked.

He thought some more. "It makes me sad to see him always get said no," he told me.

"You mean you'd rather see him get what he's dreamed of and worked for?" I asked, interpreting some.

"YES," the earthling said.

Those are perfectly good reasons, in my opinion. So, yeah, I made a petition for the earthling. And I'm asking you to sign it. Tell your friends, tell your family: we want the Pigeon to ride the bus. He's been asking for ten years and no one has EVER said yes. It's time to figure out how to make it happen.

Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

New Story! (Hockey RPF, Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin)

2013-03-22T17:08:49Z

Fastening One Heart to Every Falling Thing (51519 words) by thefourthvine
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Hockey RPF
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin, Evgeni Malkin/Alexander Ovechkin
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulbond, Trope Subversion/Inversion
Summary:

Geno can't. Sidney won't.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

Yuletide: Reveal!

2013-01-01T19:07:51Z

I wrote one story for Yuletide 2012, for the doughty shrift, who gave me the best prompts in the world.

This Side of Paradise (17031 words) by thefourthvine
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Losers (2010)
Rating: Explicit
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Carlos "Cougar" Alvarez/Jake Jensen
Summary:

"I'm a good boyfriend," Cougar said.

I tell you what: in the planning stages, this story seemed like it would be fun and short, but it really only delivered on the fun front. I blame Jensen. Key lesson learned this Yuletide: If you want to write a Yuletide story that's less than 10k, don't use the motormouth's point of view. Use the PoV of the laconic guy with the sarcastic eyebrows. I mean, Cougar doesn't go into lengthy digressions about rude Canadians and the etiquette of three-ways and Star Trek.

And speaking of geeky movies, I totally salute thehoyden and frostfire for pointing out, during my Fucking Chris Evans Is in Fucking Everything breakdown, that he's never been in Star Trek. (And I salute frostfire for this conversation via IM while I was deep in the middle of writing this:

Frostfire: Hi! How are you?
Me: WEEPING BECAUSE SPOCK.
Frostfire: Did you watch Wrath of Khan again?
Me: DANTE'S PRAYER.
Frostfire: Awwwwwww.

Fandom: the place where people will always understand when you're sobbing incoherently about how he TOUCHES HIS CHAIR OH GOD.)

So, anyway. This story, thanks to Why Jake Can't Shut Up Jensen, became so long that I was in the painful position of not even being able to complain on Twitter about how long it was, because that might de-anon me. But it was a barrel of fun to write, for real.

And Nestra, Norah, Queue, and thehoyden, were heroes of Yuletide for beta-reading this with such aplomb. Thanks, guys! Next year, I will try for shorter, and also way fewer run-on sentences. I swear.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

Yuletide: Gifts for Me!

2013-01-01T06:39:25Z

I was going to do this as one general end-of-Yuletide wrap-up, the way I usually do, but the authors aren't revealed yet, and I don't want to wait any longer to brag about my gifts. So, hey: I got cool stuff! I got two fantastic stories:

My Only Self (4587 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Space Girl - The Imagined Village
Rating: Explicit
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Space Girl/Servo Robot Rocket Pilot
Characters: Space Girl, Servo Robot Rocket Pilot
Summary:

In the aftermath of a disastrous accident, Space Girl and her robot find a new understanding of each other—and possibly, forgiveness.

This is a story for the song Space Girl, by the Imagined Village, and it is wonderful. (It's also the first time I've read my Yuletide story and had suspicions about who wrote it.) Even if you've never heard the song (although I maintain that it is well worth a listen), if you like robots or technological sex or human-machine interaction, this is a story that is designed for you. (Well, technically I guess it was designed for me. Still.) Read!

And because I am the Luckiest Yuletider, I also got:

this obsessive idea (2847 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Literary RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Charles Baudelaire/Jeanne Duval
Characters: Charles Baudelaire, Édouard Manet, Jeanne Duval
Summary:

Paris, 1863. Édouard's new painting is finished, and he must decide if he should submit it to the Salon for consideration. Charles can't bring himself to care.

All those of you who have, through the years, looked at my ridiculous Charles Baudelaire prompt and wished someone else would write it: SOMEONE DID WRITE IT. And whoever it was did an amazing job. This story is incredible. Beautifully written, and it perfectly integrates the demons and terrors of Baudelaire's imagination with reality, so neither he nor you is ever sure what's real. So, so great.

And both of these stories deserve way more love than they've gotten. PLEASE GO LOVE MY STORIES THE WAY I DO.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

[Rant] So You Want to Arm the Teachers

2012-12-22T03:16:16Z

My son is in preschool right now. Since Newtown, I've been staring at his school, at his building, at his classmates, and thinking of all those kids who are dead now. I don't think any parent can help that.

And, hey, I am willing to do whatever it takes to stop that from happening again. Suggestions I've heard from gun control proponents: Reduce gun access, reduce rate of fire, increase waiting periods, make smart guns (with biometric chips to prevent firing by someone other than owner) mandatory.

Suggestion I've heard again and again from gun fanatics: Arm teachers. When every teacher has a gun, every child will be safe.

Gun fanatics, guys, can we talk about this? I like that you're trying, I like that you've acknowledged we have a terrible problem and we need to solve it now. But I don't think your solution is going to work. I keep running through it in my mind and hitting walls.

First, if we arm the teachers - well, it's not enough to arm them, right? (Although I tell you what: as a parent and taxpayer, I really am not thrilled with the idea that my school taxes will be going on guns instead of books. And please tell me you don't expect the teachers to buy their own guns.) You also have to train them. And this isn't a situation where you'll be training someone who wants to learn - most of these people will be afraid of guns, unwilling to fire them, unwilling to learn, because guess what: people who want to fire guns go into the military or law enforcement or gun shop ownership or whatever. They don't become teachers. I mean, sure, there are some teachers who like guns and are good with them, but it's not going to be the majority by any means. Most of them are going to be like me. I am sure you could teach me to safely own, handle, and fire a gun. I'm also sure that it would take a lot of work on your part, because I have limited dexterity, I don't have good aim, I (like many people) tend to freeze and shut down when I'm scared, and most of all: I don't want to learn to shoot a gun. I mean, most teachers will be like me unless you prioritize the ability to use firearms over the ability to, say, teach reading.

And these people can't just be trained a little. They have to be good enough to make a targeted shot when they're terrified (and remember: a lot of them, like me, will be prone to shutting down or freezing in an emergency; that is a human thing that happens), in a classroom where any miss means they may become the child-murderer. They have to be good enough to know when to fire. They have to be good enough to know when not to fire. Even police officers aren't always that good (links to many, many cases available as necessary), and police officers go into their careers expecting to learn to fire guns.

In other words, you're talking about adding a whole lot of training. For every teacher in every classroom in the country. Even though some states are so desperate for (cheap) teachers they've cut requirements and allow teachers to get certified for teaching over time as they're teaching. But the gun training - to be safe with a gun, to be useful with a gun, you have to know all this stuff before you step into the classroom. So you're proposing we prioritize educating teachers about guns over educating teachers about teaching.

Now. Let's say you get your wish. We no longer have teachers. We have a vaguely-educated militia heading up our nation's classrooms. Wow, I really hope no teacher ever loses it. And I say this as someone who once watched her teacher have a nervous breakdown. We sat frozen in our seats, twenty-two fourteen-year-old targets, as he yelled, wept, and threw things at us - pencils, chalk, a mug, books. Despite the noise and the open door, it took twenty minutes for someone to come help us. If he'd had access to a gun, boy, that would have gone a lot better, right?

No. I'd be dead.

And, hey, let's hope no teacher who has been trained to respond to threats by shooting them, trained to shoot instantly and well, ever feels threatened by a student at all. Or wants power over a student at all.

Or are you saying you're okay with that kind of collateral damage? With kids at risk from their teachers if the teachers are having a bad day or a bad time? Because to me this sounds like a recipe for more dead kids, not fewer. And what I want is no dead kids.

I don't know how to solve that one, but let's assume you do. (Spoiler: You won't.) Now we have our teachers, and they're trained, and they're armed, and they're ready and willing to shoot. Where do you keep the guns? If they're safely stored in the classroom - in a locked box, ammunition separate from the gun - then I'm not really clear on how the teacher is going to get to the gun in case of a mass shooting.

And if they're not safely stored, if they're on the teacher - look, have you been to a classroom recently? Not a high school. A preschool. A kindergarten. A first grade classroom. Those teachers have a lot of physical contact with the students. It's inevitable. My son is carried around by his teachers, he sits on their laps, he hugs them. And he's curious. He gets into everything. I can tell you: if you spend a lot of time in physical contact with a small child, that child will investigate your bra, your glasses, your hair, your buttons, the contents of your pockets. The inside of your nose and ears if you have even a moment's distraction. There's no strap or buckle that will keep kids out of anything; you need a lock. With a key in another location. That the kids don't know about. (Yes, of course a four year old can use a lock to open a door and can find a key if he knows where it's kept.) But we just discussed how locks won't work.

So how do we keep these curious, investigating kids away from the guns? Are we back at biometric sensors? Hey, then can we just try the biometric sensors first, see how that works, and then maybe spend a fortune and incur a huge risk to raise our very first teaching army? Seems like the biometric sensors would be easier, cost less, and be faster. Or are you saying that you want the teachers six feet from their students at all times? Because you'll need a fence if you want that. An unclimbable one, let me just mention, as the parent of a climber. (And you'll also need an adult on the other side of the fence, one who isn't armed, because the younger kids don't respond well to teachers under glass. And that adult can't be armed. Wait, we're back to unarmed teachers. WHAT NOW?)

Now let's summarize, proponent of armed teachers. Your vision of our safe, glorious future:

Teachers untrained in teaching.
Who are crack shots with extensive weapons training.
Who are armed.
Who teach from behind Plexiglas walls.
In disintegrating schools (because I can't imagine you're going to approve massive tax increases to pay for all this training and arming of teachers).
With minimal equipment aside from all the guns and ammo (because again).

Holy shit. You've just turned the education system into a giant prison system, incarcerating children as young (in my state) as three. And, let me remind you, unless you think every single teacher, all 7.2 million of them (according to the US Census), is safe and stable and unlikely to snap, you've put the kids at greater risk.

No. No, no, a thousand times no. If this is your plan, if this is the best you can do, then you really, really, REALLY need not to be firing guns, or carrying guns, or in the presence of guns. You are exactly who should not be armed. Because you're fucking dangerous, out of touch with reality, frothing at the mouth rabid.

And I thank you for showing me how to vote. I will absolutely vote to take your guns away.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

[Rant] Politics Without Should

2012-11-15T18:08:04Z

(TW: abortion and the politics thereof.)

(Additional warning: serious business.)

Recently, I tweeted this:

"If you’re pro-life, you’d better also be pro-welfare. If you vote pro-life but against welfare, you’re actually pro-child-misery."

I assume this requires no explanation, but here's a brief one. Women know when they shouldn't have a baby. Many of them, when that is true, seek abortion. If your vote prevents them from getting it, you've forced a child to be born in a bad situation - just to name two examples, that child is at much higher risk of poverty and at much greater risk of living in a household affected by domestic violence. (Yes, you've also inflicted a great deal of harm on the woman herself, but if you're pro-life, you're okay with that. So we're focusing on the child, here. The person you claim you want to protect.) Welfare is one of the means we use to protect children in bad situations. If you simultaneously vote to stop abortion and to cut welfare (and, I might add, other government services), then what you're really saying is, "I'm absolutely in favor of children suffering. I'm entirely willing to increase the number of children in harm's way in this country, and I'm also entirely willing to make sure there's no help for them. Because that's easier and better for me."

In short: congratulations, you're a fucking asshole.

So tweeting this was interesting. I got a lot of FUCK YEAH type replies. I also got some replies from righties. And my discussions with them all fell apart at the same place.

"But the woman should take responsibility!"

"The woman should work to support her kid!"

"The man should stay and help raise his child!"

Yup. Every conversation fell apart as soon as the righty used the word "should."

Here is a true fact: fuck should. Should has no place in policy. We make laws about what is actually happening, not what would happen in an ideal universe, because, newsflash: we don't live in an ideal universe.

So I would point out that hey, this isn't how the world actually works. In reality, men leave. In reality, women can't simultaneously support their kids and pay for childcare on a minimum-wage income. In reality, a woman forced to have a child is in a bad situation, and it is likely to get worse, and if we have a law that put her in that place, that's on all of us. (And in case you think I'm just talking about abortion, and if we just allow abortion we can cut the safety net no problem: until we fix education, racism, abuse, addiction, and poverty, among other major issues, we've still got to step in. Because we owe it to our fellow humans not to let them suffer needlessly when we can help. The end.)

And the social conservative would either step out of the conversation entirely, or go into a sort of a critical error of the brain, except the blue screen of death in this case was just the repetition of the words "personal responsibility" and "should."

Social conservatives appear to think that if they just make laws that perfectly reflect their ideal universe, that universe will somehow be willed into being.

This hasn't worked yet. It's never going to work. It's fucking stupid. And these conservatives actually already know that. (Proof: most of these people are Christians, and Christians are supposed to be into peace and against killing, and yet I never once heard any of them argue that we should abolish the military.) They're just using their talisman words, "should" and "responsibility," to avoid confronting the fact that they, themselves, are personally responsible for the suffering of children.

So this has resulted in the formation of my new rule of political discourse: If you can't phrase your political argument without the word "should," you can't participate in the discussion at all. Seriously. Go away. You're done with politics; you need to take up model airplane building or knitting or something. (Tell the plane that the parts SHOULD be easy to put together! Tell the wool that it SHOULD NOT tangle!)

It's time for people who make some attempt to see reality to design policy.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

Dear Yuletide Author

2012-10-25T17:08:27Z

Dear Author Person,

We matched! So, hey, here's some good news: three of my four requests this year are five minute fandoms - you can master all three of them in the time it takes to eat a sandwich. I hope that is a joy and a comfort to you, especially if we matched on the fourth request, which is, um, slightly more complicated.

I am, as always, going to provide you with all the details, because that's what I always hope to get from my recipient. But if that's not you, please tap out of this letter now. Just know that I really, really cannot handle child or animal harm or death, and I love you for volunteering for one of my tiny fandoms. See you on the 25th!

Me

I love so many things, Yuletide author. Here is a small sample:

Happy endings. (Um, I mean of the happily ever after kind. Although I am also a big fan of orgasms, not gonna lie.)
Humor.
Stories that earn their payoff.
Slow build romances and slow build sex scenes.
Action and adventure.
Snappy dialogue.
Classic fan fiction tropes.

Sadly, I also have some squicks:

Animal and child harm or death. These are my deal-breaker squicks; I can't handle them at all.
Embarrassment and humiliation.
Misogyny, sexism, the abuse of women.
Incest.
Sex involving children (by which I mean people under 13ish) in any way).

So that's the general stuff. Let's talk fandoms. I'm including the complete text of my requests for each fandom in italics, in case you - whatever. Need that in some way, I guess?

This Is Where It Starts (Ben Watkins/Meng Ling)

Slashy basketball players of the future: it's like this commercial was made for a focus group consisting entirely of me. I love the glimpses we get in it of Ling and Ben growing up, of course, how much they have in common. I love the moments of intense rivalry and the other moments of equally intense connection. And I love the tiny but fascinating hints about the future we get from the commercial. But let's be real: what I love most is Ling and Ben's relationship. I have not seen eyefucking of this quality and intensity in years. So mostly I am hoping for a story that takes that rivalry to a relationship. If you're feeling slashy, then that relationship can be filled with lust and sexual tension and, in the fullness of time, bodily fluids and eternal togetherness. If you're feeling genish, then that relationship can be filled with tension that resolves in some other way! Whichever way, the key for me here is Ling + Ben = ONE TRUE RIVALRY OF THE FUTURE.

I saw This Is Where It Starts and knew it had to be a Yuletide fandom, because - okay. For a commercial, this tells a remarkably complete story about Meng Ling and Ben Watkins growing up and working hard and competing and getting each other and becoming rivals, and then for some mysterious reason it cuts off just before they fuck for the first time. So basically it's a really amazing commercial, but I want more. Yuletide time!

And because I posted excitedly (and accidentally) about this, and lots of people shared my excitement, I have a resource for you, author o' mine (or author not actually mine but wandering past and feeling suddenly inspired to write about future basketball players locking eyes from across a court). Check out this amazing comment by helens78. It's about the rivalry between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, two people I know nothing about except that they played professional basketball a while back and were apparently seriously weird about each other. So, you know, as useful background for how basketball rivals get, there you go.

Beyond that, just - the relationship is RIGHT THERE. I just want MORE. More, please! With, you know, a happily ever after for all involved, because these are clearly quality dudes who deserve the best life has to offer.

CinderFella - Todrick Hall

Prince Charming/Cinderfella and their glorious future together, complete with evil fairies at the christening of their heir (I mean, seriously, can you imagine what christening curses look like in this world?)! Or the Fairy Godmother on her days off! Or Jasmine, getting it on with the princess(es) of her choice! Or pick a totally different character than the ones I have listed; you can write about anyone from the video and I will be filled with joy. What's the deal with the three wallflower princes? Where did Tarzan get his degree in alternative family law, and who does he eventually hook up with? Or, hell, make up characters (or port ones in from other fairy tales or Disney movies) and do some worldbuilding; that would likewise be awesome. I love the video because it's gorgeous and funny and delightful, because it queers the fuck out of the traditional fairy tale narrative, because it sincerely believes in happy endings for everyone, and because it's fabulous. Write with any of those features in mind, and you will make me a very happy Yuletide recipient.

Okay, I talk to a certain extent about CinderFella in my pre-Yuletide pimping post, and by "a certain extent" I mean "a ridiculous amount." Plus, you know, all blather in the prompt itself. I'm not sure there's more for me to say. Fairy tales! Disney! Queerness! Joy! Dancing! Lone giant epaulettes! THERE YOU GO. Now go follow your bliss to wherever it leads, as this video clearly advocates, and I will revel in the result on December 25th.

Space Girl, by the Imagined Village (Space Girl, Servo Robot Rocket Pilot)

If you're feeling shippy, I would love to read about the romance of space girl and the servo robot rocket pilot and how it turns out he was her superman all along. (I just can't not ship them. The romantic adventurer, blaster in hand, and the servo robot rocket pilot with the heart of gold!) If you're feeling genish, anything about space girl's adventures would be awesome. (And in this one, the servo robot rocket pilot is totally optional; I prefer absent robots to sad robots.) Either way, I am hoping for the adventures of a kickass lady through time, space, and parallel dimensions. Feel free to go retro or realistic or campy or however you want to approach this. The universe is yours!

Space Girl, was, as far as I can tell, made for me. I don't know the Imagined Village, so I'm not sure how they managed this, but - is there another person out there this song might appeal to more? I really cannot for the life of me see how. (Although, hey, if you know that person, introduce me.) It's the tale of a wayward girl who becomes a kickass space adventurer with her very own blaster! And she hooks up with a robot. (I mean, okay, I guess technically in the song she doesn't stay with him, but in my heart she finally realizes it was true love all along, and they go off to have more adventures together, hand in metal hand. I'm a romantic that way.) This is the best song in the world, basically.

One thing I should probably say: though I linked to the music video, and although that video is adorable, I'm not all that interested in fan fiction for it. The story of the song is way better than the one in the video. (If you want a version of it without the music video, there's a live version up on YouTube, and although I know nothing about the lead singer of this band, I will love her forever for singing the hell out of a science fiction torch song while very pregnant. She is clearly a box of awesome.)

So basically I really think the prompt says it all. I love this song for being fun and lighthearted and sex-positive, and I also love it every bit as much for putting a real actual lady into a classic SF narrative. Ladies can adventure through space and hook up with hot robots, too! And that is basically my entire hope for a story from this.

Literary RPF (Charles Baudelaire)

I recycle this one every year; the only thing that ever changes is the category where Baudelaire is located. So this is copied entirely from Yuletide letters past.

I'd love to see a story in which the things Baudelaire describes in his poetry are real - where he's surrounded by vampires and demons and tormented by things other people can't see. If you want to go to a crossover place, Angelus/Baudelaire would be lovely, but truly, any Baudelaire story would be extremely welcome. (Baudelaire/Duval would be insanely awesome.) Realistic setting and place is important to me. I guess you could say my ideal here is: Paris! But with demons!

There's a reason why I always put this request fourth: it's - weird. Or maybe I am. But still. I love Charles Baudelaire so much, and I find the world he describes in his poetry so fascinating, and I would love to see a story about him, especially if it's set in the world his poetry describes. (If you're wondering about the origins of the Angelus/Baudelaire thing, it's the episode "She" from the first season of Angel. I just think Angelus having been around could explain everything about Baudelaire, that's all. And Angel makes it clear they knew each other, so...)

I have no single favorite translation of his works; I think most of the translators rocked some of the poems and totally lost it on others, so I kind of pick and choose. However, in case you're unaware of it, there is an awesome resource for Baudelaire's poetry online: fleursdumal.org. You can find translations of all the poems there, and there's at least one good one for almost all of them. I whole-heartedly recommend it.

(Oh, and I should note: I don't speak French. I know, I know, I'm totally pathetic, reading Baudelaire in translation. I own it. My point is - a realistic, period Paris background is desirable; I've done enough reading about Baudelaire that I would love that. But realistic language would be kind of a problem, since, you know, I couldn't read it.)

And, well - in general I love lighter, happier stories with happy endings. I crave the happy! Except here. Baudelaire's story is not happy, and neither is his ending, and I would in no way want you to change that. Go to town - go for creepy, go for tragic, go for crazy. Whatever you feel works. (Just, I know with Baudelaire it's tempting, but if you could try hard not to hurt animals or children, that would be awesome. Feel free to abuse Baudelaire all you want, of course.) I will read with gratitude and wonder, and I will fully appreciate it, because Baudelaire's story is totally a lush, insane tragedy.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

227: Get Well, Gus

2012-10-22T19:03:40Z

This is a recs set with a special purpose: to give some entertainment to alexandrina, whose three-year-old son, Gus, has brain cancer. Obviously this is not a thing I can fix or even help with, but kidfic is her happy place. So I am recommending some long, happy kidfics for her; at least this way she'll have something to read on the many sleepless nights in her near future. (So far, by the way, the news on Gus is basically all good, or at least all the news that followed "he has brain cancer." I'm hoping hard that things stay good for Gus. And if you pray, alexandrina has asked that people please pray for him to reach ten healthy and strong and relapse-free.)

The Only Fan Fiction Ever to Make Jeweled Teeth Endearing. (Note: Jeweled Teeth Are NOT Endearing.) The Place of That Desire, by yekoc. Swimming RPF, Ryan Lochte/Michael Phelps.

For those of you who, like me, were not really paying attention to the 2012 Olympics, let me assure you: Ryan Lochte is an appalling human being. This dude recently picked Auburn to win a college football game between Texas A&M and LSU, so we can see that he is not the brightest brick in the Duplo box. He has a signature word, and it's such an awful one that I refuse to type it here because I might teach my autocorrect terrible habits. He once tweeted "A Qm" (complete, total tweet) and people favorited the hell out of it as vintage Lochte at the very peak of his communications prowess.

And that's not even getting into his - attire issues. I mean, okay, I knew he had some weird thing about jeweled "grills," but I managed to persuade myself that this must merely mean buttons or maybe Elton John type sunglasses until I was in the middle of this story, when I could resist no longer. I googled. And then I bowed my head and WEPT FOR HUMANITY. (Don't google. If you haven't seen it, DON'T GOOGLE. Just know that he wears bejeweled mouthpieces and be grateful that the phenomenon hasn't spread to other sports. Or, if it has already spread to other sports, don't tell me about it.) And then I showed the picture to Best Beloved so we could weep a little more together. (TFV Marriage Tip #121: Spend a little time each day being mutually appalled together.)

But when we were done, I wiped my tears and kept reading, because this story is fantastic. I have a special love for stories that manage to make seriously disastrous people lovable without erasing any of their problematic elements. And I basically worship this story for convincing me that Ryan Lochte, Ryan Lochte, would be adorable with a baby. And good with a baby. And an actual quality parent. And that he's - yeah, okay, lovable.

Frankly, this story is not just sweet and adorable, and it doesn't just have its best scene take place in a pool, it's also deeply inspiring. At least if you are the kind of person (me) who can be inspired by the discovery that even profoundly flawed human beings can still be reasonably awesome ones. And if that's not enough for you, this has perhaps the best coming out scene in all of recorded fan fiction. At least if you like your coming out scenes the way I do. (My impression of coming out was forever warped by my own experience of it, which was notable for the following conversation between my mother and sister:

My sister, cranky because seriously don't talk to her in the morning she's a fuzzy ball of snit until ten: Are we out of milk?
My mother, on the phone to me: Your sister's a lesbian.
My sister: Fine. I NEED MILK FOR MY CEREAL.

If you're going to come out, and you're worried about the response you might get, I encourage you to practice on my sister in the morning. Okay, really any time, but you'll get much more amusing results if you start early.)

Location of the mother: Absent. But, I mean, this is a character who had unprotected sex with Ryan Lochte, so I can't think anyone would be surprised.

The One That Leaves Me Wishing I Could Download All the Adorable Photos Taken During the Story. Whyyyyy Can't I Make Photos Appear with Just the Power of My Brain? I Swear I Would Use My Power Only for Good! Enough to Crush Your Veins, by doctor_denmark. Hockey RPF, Jeff Skinner/Eric Staal.

When this story first came out, I had several late-night arguments with people about it. And that is definitely a sign of a quality story: people, some of whom have CHILDREN and all of whom have to get up in the morning, spending precious sleep time a) reading a story and b) communicating with friends in other locations who are also up way too late reading the same story. (My father, when I was little, used to tell me about a strange time in our country's history when almost everyone watched the SAME TV SHOWS at the SAME TIME. It was like the world's least social party, the way he described it. "That'll never happen again, of course," he said. If he were alive today, I would tell him that it still does happen. Sort of. In the sense of several thousand people all reading the same pornographic fan fiction story at the same time and mutually shrieking about it via email and Twitter. The thing about my dad is that he would probably have found that inspiring proof of humanity's basic amazingness.)

Anyway. So basically this is the story that put nanny AUs in a box marked done for me, because I'm never going to be able to read all the way through another one without taking this one out and reading it again. It is GREAT. It is CLASSIC. And it works for me - well, okay, first it works for me because the toddler OC is an actual toddler. (I cannot read stories featuring alien toddlers from another dimension. Unless of course they are billed that way. Which reminds me: why don't people write Vulcan toddlers more often? WHERE IS THE VULCAN TODDLER FIC?) But mostly it works because it takes an abused, overused plot element (two people who really need to talk to each other and yet don't) and perfects it. This is how that's supposed to be done, is basically what I take away from this story: two people being idiots, yes, but because of reasons! It makes all the difference.

And, oh, there is so much glorious stuff here. I don't want to spoil it for you, but trust me: if this is the kind of thing you like, then you will basically want to wallow in this story, roll around in it, maybe print out a copy so you can put hearts in the margins in some places. Not that I have done any of those things. (Except I do re-read this basically every time I'm sick, which, given that I have my very own germ vector, means I've re-read it at least 20 times since it was posted. In April. One area of raising a toddler where this story does not achieve realism is in the area of constant illness, but I just assume Eric and Jeff and Joey all have superhuman immune systems, which are probably issued to you free through public health care up in Canada.)

Location of the mother: Present (albeit temporarily in another country)! A good parent who is ACTUALLY INVOLVED IN HER CHILD'S LIFE WHAT IS THIS MADNESS.

The One That Confirms My Theory That Airports Were Put in This World to Test Us to Destruction. Don't You Shake Alone, by dira. Generation Kill, Brad Colbert/Nate Fick.

I always feel like I'm cheating when I recommend a story by Dira. Everyone knows she's good by now, right? Everyone who would even consider reading a lengthy Generation Kill based kidfic did so immediately after she posted it, right? It's like: Dira wrote a good story. In other news, Neil deGrasse Tyson is a basically perfect human being and this Labrador Retriever puppy is cute enough to make your teeth hurt.

But in the end, I don't recommend a story based on whether I think there's an English-reading fan anywhere in the solar system who is unaware of it; I recommend a story because a) I want to write about it and b) I want Best Beloved to read it. (She refuses to read stories I go on about at length unless I actually sit down and write about them. This is the motivation for like 90% of the recommendations I've made in the past four years. TFV Marriage Tip #382: Know how to motivate your partner, and then use that knowledge to make her do things she actually wants to do anyway.)

So. This story is incredible. And not just because it's frankly adorable kidfic set against a background of realistic PTSD, which is not something most writers could manage. This story - like, I read this and I cannot believe that Dira doesn't have children, because she depicts, perfectly and clearly, the complete sea change a new baby brings to your life, and how being a new parent is kind of like - well, in birth classes they talk about "pain with a purpose," because the purpose is supposed to make all the difference. As far as labor goes, this is bullshit. Labor pain is pain. (It's pain with an END, which is way more important than a purpose, at least to me.) But being the parent of a new baby actually is pain with a purpose, and the purpose is making you attach so fiercely to a tiny helpless human that you would cheerfully kill hundreds of people to protect the useless larva that has kept you from sleeping or doing any uninterrupted tasks for the past three months. If human beings were intelligently designed, it was by someone with a massively warped sense of humor.

And if there was ever a fandom designed to underscore the warped nature of human reproduction and development, Generation Kill is that fandom. No one gets how fucked up basically everything is like Marines, is what I'm saying. Plus, the fundamentals of baby care involve a lot of sleep deprivation and random bodily fluids. Again, sort of the wheelhouse of the US Marines. (I'd suggest everyone hire a Marine as a babysitter, but it would have a deleterious effect on the vocabulary of the next generation.)

So this story is just fundamentally right. Plus, you know, hot, sweet, gorgeous, perfect - enough said GO READ.

Location of the mother: Planned absence.

The One That Proves That What Every Parent Really Needs Is Superhuman Senses and Magical Powers. I - Find This Unfair. Kindred, by maldoror_gw. Naruto, Gaara/Rock Lee.

Yes, okay, technically this is a sequel (although you could read it as a standalone, but why in god's name would you want to?) to Diplomatic Relations. I'm recommending it anyway because:

It is a great story in its own right.
If you haven't read Diplomatic Relations yet, that's a tragedy, and if you want to live a tragedy that is your choice and I can't be held responsible. All I can do is try to show you the light.

So. Either you should go read Diplomatic Relations, stopping off if necessary at my original recommendation of it, or you have already done this task (and thus been fitter, happier, and more productive for the past four years) and are ready to move directly on to Kindred. Either way, let me tell you about Kindred.

My own theory for how maldoror_gw decided to write this story is that she was sitting in her home one day, thoughtfully considering Gaara, as you do, and she suddenly realized there was something even more terrifying to contemplate than Gaara in love: Gaara with a CHILD. Parenting a child. Raising a child! (If you have no idea who Gaara is, it shouldn't hold you back from reading this story, by the way. He's a psychopathic, demon-infested ninja whose childhood consisted entirely of trauma and killing. But as an adult he's really much improved, and some optimistic people even believe he might have a facial expression someday. In short: spacetoaster!) It really is the kind of concept to give you nightmares.

But this story is the exact opposite of a nightmare. Yes, that's in part because Rock Lee, whatever his other faults (mostly excessive enthusiasm and sincerity, and if you don't think sincerity can be a fault, obviously you need to read up on Rock Lee), was basically designed to be a good parent (despite having a traumatic childhood; as far as I can tell from my limited exposure to Naruto, the number of ninjas with traumatic childhoods is all of them). But it's also because Gaara is used to working around his faults, and there is no more accurate description of parenthood than that.

This story is funny, fun, and touching, basically all the things good kidfic should be. Plus it features ninjas in love. I'm not sure how things can ever be better than that. (Okay, maybe if you also added robots? I don't know, it might be overkill, but in my experience robots usually make things better.)

Location of the mother: Deceased, but this is Naruto, where like 80% of adults don't make it past 30, or at least that's how it looks to me from my place of total lack of canon knowledge. (To give you some idea, Rock Lee was orphaned at an early age. Gaara's mother died when he was born and his father died later; you could list "Gaara" as the cause of death for both of them with reasonable accuracy.)

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

Yuletide: My Sordid Signup History

2012-10-15T19:09:42Z

It's Yuletide time! And thus time to bring out the Yuletide advice posts.

Every year I try to persuade someone new to Yuletide to sign up for it. I don't always succeed, but I always try. And part of what I offer to support them in the Yuletide hurly-burly is advice on signing up and selecting fandoms. And then I thought: what if there are other people, people who are signing up for the first time even though they are not being harassed by me, who might also want to know this stuff? Anything is possible!

So I am sharing. Selecting fandoms for Yuletide, TFV style.

The central thesis here - my single key piece of advice - is basically DON'T DO WHAT I HAVE DONE. And while I've made mistakes every single year, my first few years I made doozies. Let's discuss my errors, so that you can either learn from them or, you know, just laugh at me. Either one is a totally valid choice.

2004 was my first year, and I signed up in a total panic. I couldn't believe I was doing it, actually signing up for Yuletide. Because - this amazing challenge that actually got me into fandom! And me, who had never actually written any fan fiction! Surely a bad combination. Also I had a high fever. And that's why, instead of actually looking at all the fandoms, I went through the fandom list from the top - this was waaaaay back when, and the fandom list was this drop-down box with a billion options, ordered alphabetically. I just picked the first three fandoms I knew, fandoms that all began with A, and went back to bed.

This was an error. I missed several key steps in the offering process, including:

Considering what people might want in that fandom.
Considering how it would be to write in that fandom.
Imagining what a story in that fandom might actually look like, coming from me.
Involving my brain at any point in the process.

This is why I ended up getting assigned All Creatures Great and Small. Which, okay, back then the format for Yuletide fandoms wasn't written in stone the way it is now, and I didn't even know that there was a British TV miniseries based on the books. So I was offering the books. My recipient was requesting the miniseries. Problem! Also the books are these totally heartwarming stories told in a distinctive first person voice. I - do not do heartwarming. Another problem! One I really should have considered before I got my assignment. As I did not, by all rights my first Yuletide should have been a disaster. A fandom mismatch! A fandom I couldn't actually write! Oh god whyyyyyy? CUE PANIC.

I have three people to thank for getting me through that Yuletide: Best Beloved, who read and edited and soothed and supported, laurashapiro, who beta-read the story after BB was through with it, and Cassie, our beloved and much-missed Labrador Retriever, whose lifestyle choices (chew all the things, basically) gave me something to write about. I also have to thank artyartie, who saved my life by providing a very useful prompt, and who was the best recipient a first-time Yuletider could hope for. (Dear recipients everywhere: if you really want to make your writer's day, come back a year later and say how much you still love your story. artyartie did that for me, and my confidence as a Yuletider totally soared. Which I needed.)

My take-home lessons from my first Yuletide: Read the whole list of fandoms. Also, get a loved one to review your signup for sanity.

The next year, 2005, I was determined! I would do Yuletide again! I would make fewer mistakes this time! It was a good thing my goal did not involve making no mistakes, let's just say. I downloaded a spreadsheet with all the nominated fandoms on it and eliminated everything I didn't know, followed by everything I couldn't write. Then I considered what was left. This was a much better process. Unfortunately, I missed two key steps, which were:

Considering what people might want in the fandom.
Remembering that I might be assigned either gen or pairing.

The previous year, I'd been assigned gen. (For which I am eternally grateful to the Great Yuletide Sorter, because I don't think I could have stood it otherwise. I am bad at porn anyway, and given everything else I did wrong that first year, oh god no no no.) I forgot that lots of people, me included, sometimes want fan fiction that has sex in it. I had not, at this point in my fannish career, written any explicit porn. (There are many people who do Yuletide who are only really interested in writing gen or very non-explicit romance. At least some of them game their signups considerably to avoid fandoms where straight up smut is a likely request. I did not do this. This was an error.) And that was how I ended up getting assigned Mr. and Mrs. Smith, with the prompt of "hot het porn." I had never written het. I had never written explicit porn. I had never written anything hot. CUE PANIC.

I survived this Yuletide thanks to Best Beloved, my amazing betas, and my Emergency Yuletide Whining Filter. Best Beloved in particular went above and beyond the call of duty by saying such things as "get her hands on his cock right now" and "I really think you ought to get her skin-tight pants off before they have penis-in-vagina sex" and also reminding me that while I cannot write porn, I can write teasing indefinitely. And queue wins points forever for being the person to point out, gently and kindly, that I had given John two cocks, and this was not canonical.

My take-home lessons from Yuletide 2005: Sometimes people want pairings, and even porn. Also, only write doublecock porn if your recipient specifically requests doublecock porn.

In future years, I learned advanced lessons about considering what kind of time you have, what kind of Yuletide experience you want to have, what access to the source you have. But the basics are pretty simple:

Get to a short list somehow. I go through the entire list of fandoms and delete everything I don't know and then everything I couldn't write, but you can do it however you want.
When you have that short list, look at each one of them. Imagine how you would feel if you got it assigned to you. Imagine opening up your assignment letter and discovering that this is your fandom, that you have only a few weeks to write at least a thousand words in it. Imagine what story you'd write.
Think about what stories a recipient might request. Common requests include:
- A pairing of any two of the nominated characters. M/m, m/f, and f/f are all options, here. Threesomes are also a possibility, although I think less likely (based entirely on how I've never received a request for one; yes, this is SCIENCE).
- Background. The history of a character, the history of some institution, how everything got to wherever it is in the canon.
- Futurefic. How things turn out after the story ends.
- Something just like canon - another episode, say.
- Worldbuilding. This is obviously especially likely in any canon that takes place in a world obviously and significantly different than ours.
Imagine writing each one of these types.
If, after all that, you feel good about it, leave that fandom in. And if you can't imagine writing a story for it, throw it out.

Take whatever is left and divide it into two lists: fandoms for which you must specify characters (always an excellent choice if you're, say, happy to write Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, but aren't really sure you could hack Bill/Ted's mom) and fandoms for which you can honestly offer any and all characters (because you are happy to write Bill/Ted's mom, or Bill/Billy the Kid, or Socrates/Joan of Arc!). Pick your top five specific-characters fandoms and offer those (or, if you have fewer than five, offer them all). Make the rest your bucket list.

And then PROFIT. Or, okay, don't profit, because this is fan fiction. My point is: click that submit button and go on your merry way. (Until you get your assignment letter a week or two later and inaugurate the great tradition of Yuletide Panic, at least if you're me.)

Anyone else have any tips to share?

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

Yuletide Fandom: I'm on Fire

2012-08-30T07:17:41Z

Sometimes you see something and think, "I want more of this. So much more." And so you make it a Yuletide fandom. And sometimes you see a thing and think, "There is more to this story, and I want to know what it is," and so you make it a Yuletide fandom. This is both of those things. Go ahead, watch. It's better unspoiled, and it's three minutes long.

It's the video for Camille Harp's cover of "I'm on Fire."

Okay, so you've seen it now, right? So, like, there's an obvious narrative here, but what I love is that it doesn't quite work; it doesn't explain everything that we're seeing. THERE ARE SO MANY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS. (And unanswered questions are what a Yuletide fandom needs to thrive! Or at least to get to a thousand words of story.) What does she say to the dude over the phone? It can't be what we're hearing. What exactly does the dude think when he gets there? He's not pissed off and rageful, more rueful, like, well, crap, she got me. Might as well drink some of this alcohol she left for me and study the photo she partly burned and ponder this story that all three of us know so much better than the viewer. And what is this woman? She's wearing a tank top on a cold night and yet is obviously not cold, and also she seems sort of - strange. My own theory is some kind of supernatural deal, here (succubus for ladies?), but there are so many possibilities.

And then there's also the possibility for hot femslash. Which, you know, I am bang alongside. Basically, this is a no-lose Yuletide fandom.

(And even if you aren't interested in Yuletide, still click through so you do not miss the awesome genderswitched cover of "I'm on Fire." You can't tell me that isn't relevant to your interests.)

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

Sixteenwins Payoff: Kidfic!

2012-08-28T15:40:39Z

For my second sixteenwins payoff, I had to (Had to! Like it's a chore!) talk about kidfic. And, okay. I have always adored kidfic, but ever since I had a kid of my own, it's been - complicated. I still want all the characters to have all the kids, except the characters who obviously should not be permitted within fifty feet of children, but I have all these - opinions and standards and issues and shit. It's awful when reality gets in the way of your legitimate enjoyment of fan fiction.

So I guess I could have given quettaser a lengthy screed on my kidfic issues, but I'm trying to produce something she'll actually read all the way through. So instead: four summaries and snippets from kidfic stories I yearn to read. YEARN.

Thanks to my Flyers beta, paxpinnae, my Habs beta, katarin, and my pre-readers, thehoyden and Best Beloved.

Claude Giroux has a problem. Danny knows the answer.

Summary: Claude gets better.

Story snippet:

Clement wakes up every hour, all night long. Claude deals with it fine at midnight and one and two, but at three he finds himself giving Clement a speech while he heats the stupid fucking bottle. (He's now incredibly grateful that Danny made him make all these bottles before he went to bed, but he'd be even more grateful if the bottles made Clement sleep for longer than 45 minutes.)

"Why don't you just sleep?" Claude says to Clement, who is attached to the bottle and completely ignoring him. "It's not difficult. And I will be a much nicer person to be around tomorrow if you just let me sleep."

At the four o'clock waking, Claude walks into the door on the way out for another fucking bottle. "If I just concussed myself feeding you," he says to Clement, and manages to bite back the rest of the words. But he's starting to understand why Melanie had to go into the hospital. Maybe she's not, whatever, depressed, fucked up - her mother used a lot of different words, but Claude was kind of focused on the part where he was going to have to take care of this baby. Maybe she's just tired because the kid never fucking sleeps. Maybe she'll get some rest in the hospital and get better and tomorrow she'll come take Clement back.

At five, Danny comes out as Claude is standing there, eyes closed, waiting for the microwave to go off while Clement screams in his ear, and says, "I'm up." Claude doesn't even blink. He hands Clement to Danny and is back in his room and asleep before the microwave beeps.

That buys him two and a half hours of sleep. "This is impossible," Claude says to Danny at breakfast.

Danny thumps him on the shoulder. "People do this all the time," he says. "Stop whining."

The day is okay, if more fueled by coffee than is Claude's usual plan in the offseason, and then the next night is hell again. This time Clement wakes up at three and won't go back to sleep. He doesn't want a bottle. He doesn't need his diaper changed. Maybe he's sick? Claude tries to calm him down for ten endless minutes and then goes into Danny's room; he's been kind of avoiding coming in here since - since the thing before, but he's desperate.

Danny jerks awake as soon as Claude opens the door, probably because of the wailing infant he's carrying. Danny sits up and holds his arms out for Clement, and starts jiggling him, which looks kind of dangerous but makes Clement happy. After ten minutes, Danny says, "Got it?"

"He looks happy where he is," Claude says warily. Danny's the expert. He did this three times, which Claude is starting to think is way more of an accomplishment than winning a Cup would be.

"He's your son," Danny says sharply, and Claude reluctantly steps forward and takes Clement.

Thirty seconds later, Clement's screaming again, and Claude wants to punch himself in the head.

Even with the bonus sleep in the morning, Claude's a fucking zombie the next day. "I came here because I thought you'd make it easy," he tells the table top, while Danny makes him breakfast.

"Kids aren't easy," Danny says, and he sounds - huh. Kind of irritated. Claude makes a note to think about that, when he can think again.

"I'm getting that," Claude tells him. "Jesus. How does anyone do this?"

"It's just like hockey," Danny tells him, and Claude raises his head to give him a jaded look. "You do the work, you get the rewards."

"And the reward is - eventually the kid sleeps?" Claude says blearily.

"The reward is that eventually you're a parent," Danny says, and since Claude is looking at him, he can see that Danny looks - severe. After a few seconds, though, his face softens, and he says, "Eat breakfast and then catch a nap. I have the boys after school, and it'll be crazy. Sleep while you can."

Claude does, inhaling his breakfast and then stumbling upstairs to sleep. Danny's words keep going through his head, though. It's the first thing anyone's said about parenthood that makes sense to him. You do the work, you get the rewards.

Claude falls asleep wondering just how much more work there is to do.

When he was a teenager, Mike Richards made a mistake.

Summary: Jeff's not used to being the adult in the room.

Story snippet:

Richie walks in carrying two big suitcases, and the girl who follows after him looks exactly like him. Exactly like him when he's in the penalty box, to be precise. Jeff already knows what's coming, even before Richie says, "Jeff, this is Avis. Avis, Jeff."

Avis blank stares him. Of course. Jeff knows better than to engage with this; all his Richie instincts kick in, and he just nods at her and looks back at Richie, who looks - shit. Jeff steps forward to try to derail what's coming, but he's too late.

"Avis. I'm sure you can say hello to Jeff," Richie says. His voice is patient and a little slow, with big spaces between the words, so yeah, he's pissed off.

She tosses her hair and folds her arms. "I could." Jeff can tell, easily and painfully, that she's pushing it because she's unsure. And, damn it, he can't remember how Richie learned not to do that. If he'd known back then he'd someday have to deal with Richie 2.0, he'd have - well, okay, he wouldn't have taken notes, because let's be realistic here, but at least he might have paid closer attention.

Richie turns and opens his mouth, but this time Jeff's fast enough to cut him off. "Let me show you your room," he says to Avis.

She shoulders her backpack and says, "Oh, so I get one?" God, she even sounds like Richie, like Richie back when Jeff first met him. He's kind of smiling as he leads her upstairs.

Fortunately, she spends the rest of the afternoon locked in her room, which gives Richie time to get a little less angry. Then it's dinnertime. Jeff goes upstairs to tell Avis the food is on the table and leaves it up to her whether she comes down, which is probably why she does.

Richie's spent the afternoon swearing to be friendly, so he starts out the conversation by smiling - fake smile, press smile - and saying, "What do you want to do tomorrow?"

Avis takes a huge bite of chicken and chews and swallows before answering. Jeff is kind of helpless in his admiration of that, because she's only 11, and she's already so much better at this than Richie ever was. Once she's drawn it out for so long that Richie's hands have gotten tighter on his silverware, she says, "I don't know. I mean, I've never been here before, so I thought maybe you'd have some suggestions." She pauses, then adds, "Dad."

She's so fucking snotty. Jeff finds himself openly smiling at her as he says, "Well, there's always sulking all day in your room. That's a good time."

"Oh, are you my biological father? I thought you were just the 'roommate,'" she says. She makes air-quotes around roommate and everything. It's hysterical.

Jeff hears Richie's sharp intake of breath, but he manages to answer before Richie gets there. "At this point, I'm the guy whose buttons you aren't punching," he said. "So probably it's a good thing I'm the one talking to you."

She rolls her eyes. "He's so uptight. Doesn't he, like, meditate or anything?"

"He does yoga," Jeff tells her. "And Pilates." There aren't many sights better than Richie's downward-facing dog.

"I can stand on my head for fifteen minutes," she says. "Doesn't make me a nicer person."

Jeff can't help it. It's stupid, it's just going to piss Richie off, but he just can't help laughing at that. "No, it really doesn't," he agrees. Under the table, Richie puts his hand on Jeff's thigh and digs his fingers in so hard Jeff will for sure have bruises. "But then," Jeff adds sincerely, "basically everyone at this table is an asshole." He shrugs and eats some broccoli. Avis seems more interested in that comment than anything else that's happened since she showed up.

Figures. Jesus, she's so obviously related to Richie that Jeff can't believe it took her mother eleven years to figure that out.

Sidney Crosby doesn't parent like anyone else, either.

Summary: Sidney has to get used to doing it someone else's way.

Story snippet:

Sidney leaves the meeting furious. He's better than ever at hiding it, though, and he's pretty sure Nate doesn't even notice. He texts Geno with fingers that shake just a little: Fucking fuckers. He hates the therapists, hates the way they look at Nate, hates the thoughtful pauses as they write shit down on their forms. He knows in a few weeks he'll be hating the evaluation those women write up.

Nate reaches up for Sidney's hand as they step off the curb, and Sidney wants to go back and grab that one woman, Julie, and show her that yes Nate does interact and yes Nate is aware of his environment and yes he does know the rules. Sure, he shuts down when strange women wave toys in his face, but Sidney can't blame him for that.

Once he gets Nate buckled into his carseat, Sidney takes two minutes to just sit behind the wheel of the car and breathe. Okay, it's over. It's no big deal. It doesn't matter what they say about Nate. It's just words. His phone chimes and Geno's texting him back with a series of frowns. It chimes again: meet at park?

Sidney checks the time reflexively, but he already knows they have an hour before they have to be home so Nate will actually eat his lunch instead of screaming about it. Yes he sends back, and puts the car in gear.

The park is always where Nate has done best; Geno and Sidney spent a lot of time sitting here when Nate was a baby, just grateful for the respite. As soon as he sees where they are, Nate's whole body gets happy, and he's looking past Sidney - well, that's not a surprise, but he's looking at the grass and trees and sand before he's even unbuckled. Sidney walks him in and lets him go. Nate sits on the grass and picks and rolls individual leaves of it, which used to make Sidney crazy - it leaves his hands green forever - but, whatever, it doesn't actually hurt anyone. Then Geno shows up and they go for a walk.

Sidney knows that now that Nate's three and a half they shouldn't talk in front of him. There's no way of knowing how much he understands. But they have to talk sometime.

"What they say?" Geno asks, his eyes following Nate as he marches along the side of the path, running his fingers along the bushes, totally silent.

Sidney shrugs. He doesn't even really want to say it. It's always a list of deficits, always a list of what Nate can't do, doesn't do, won't do. Sidney goes to the meetings because he doesn't want anyone else to have to hear them, and he goes alone because he doesn't want to make Nate's life any more about his parents than it already is. But Geno needs to know, of course. "He isn't talking. He's obsessed with repetitive motion. He screams when certain things touch his skin. He's ahead in gross motor and fine motor and way behind in everything else."

Geno nods. "You tell them about -" and he makes the hand signal Nate has been making lately for no.

Sidney nods. They'd been excited when he brought it up, but not - it hadn't mattered. There was a picture in their heads, and Nate didn't fit it, and that was where it ended.

And then Geno and Sidney both stop talking, because they're coming to the end of the path. This is their favorite part of the walk, the reason Sid and Geno always come back to this park. Because at the end of the path there's a soccer field that's almost always in use.

Today it's two teams of preteen girls playing a real game, not just a practice, and Nate freezes for a second before breaking into a run, bolting for the bleachers. By the time they catch up with him, he's already seated, already staring, his whole body alert.

As usual, Sidney and Geno don't really watch the game. They watch Nate. Nate's eyes follow every move, and then - yeah, there it is. Nate's not just tracking the action on the field, now; he's predicting it. He's looking at the goalie as soon as a player sets up a shot. He's already slumping in sadness before the ball goes out of bounds.

Sidney, watching his son watch the game, feels something in him unwind. Yeah, okay, the therapists and teachers think Nate's got lots of problems, and honestly, he does. But Sidney watches Nate's face break into a smile as soon as he knows the goalie's going to catch the ball, seconds before her hands actually close on it, and he knows Nate's in there. Nate's going to be fine.

After all, Sidney wasn't a normal kid, either, and he turned out okay.

No one can resist Carey Price with a tiny child. What chance does PK have?

Summary: CAREY PRICE AND PK SUBBAN WITH A BAAAAAAAYYYYYYBEEEEEEEE. CUTEST THING EVAR OMG. [Note: This is the summary because I had to write over two thousand words to turn out an actual story snippet. I kept getting distracted by the adorability factor and writing endless words about snuggling and tiny socks and Carey feeding a baby shirtless and PK dancing around the living room singing to her. SORRY PK AND CAREY AND A BABY IS JUST REALLY CUTE OKAY.]

Story snippet:

PK really should have seen this coming. He didn't, because he likes to give his brain a vacation in the offseason sometimes, and also Cecy wakes up a lot and Carey's house isn't exactly soundproof, so he's been pretty tired.

But, fuck. You text your brothers a couple pictures of you with your teammate's baby - and, okay, a picture of you giving her a bottle, and a picture your teammate took while you were sacked out with her on your chest - and suddenly it's parental visit time.

PK loves his mother. Of course he does; she's great. But he's pretty sure she's never been this far west before, and he's also not entirely sure how Carey's control freak goalie thing is going to deal with an extra Subban in the house.

First things first. He's got to break it to Carey. PK always gets up for the six a.m. feeding - Carey's half dead then, and it helps if there's someone else there to make sure the right part of the bottle goes into the right part of the baby - but this time he takes Cecy so that Carey can get two extra hours of sleep. That's enough to ensure that Carey's functional at breakfast, so PK feels safe saying, "Hey, man, my mother's coming up."

Carey blinks at him. Then he swallows hard and says, "Your mother's coming up to - where?"

"Here. You know, she wants to meet the baby." PK really, really hopes Carey doesn't ask why she wants to meet the baby. He has no idea what he'd say. His mother didn't feel like explaining.

And Carey doesn't ask. Instead, he thinks about it for two forkfuls of eggs, and then says, "Okay."

PK stares at him. "Really?" He didn't think it'd be this easy. Carey can get kind of. Well. He's a goalie, that's all.

Carey shrugs. "Kayla and my parents were here at the beginning. It helps."

Sometimes PK has no idea what's going on in Carey's head, but right now it's making his life easier, so he's good with it.

Of course, later that afternoon it turns out that what his mother meant when she said she was coming up was that she was coming and bringing both of PK's brothers and one of his aunts and a cousin, and PK should just count himself lucky that his father has to work. They show up right after Cecy's second naptime, which is also Carey and PK's naptime, so PK is standing there in boxer shorts - Carey needs to look into a/c, for real - and introducing a baby in just a diaper (a cloth diaper, because Carey's a freak) to his family. "People, this is Cecelia. Cecy, these are - people."

"Ohhhh, look at you," PK's mother says, in a voice he's never heard her use before. She swoops in and grabs Cecy, who beams at her and goes for her ear. He's got to get her trained off the ears before the season starts.

Carey comes out carrying a clean onesie. "PK, I - oh. Hi." Carey stands there awkwardly, and for some reason PK is wishing one of them had put on pants. It's stupid, because no one in his family has eyes for anyone but Cecy right now - and, shit, that's not exactly true. Malcolm is looking at Carey, not Cecy, and then he looks at PK.

PK says, "Uh, I'm going to get dressed," and escapes. Later, he's going to have to explain to Malcolm how the part where they're brothers means he doesn't get to use the goalie stare on him.

PK brushes his teeth and puts on not just pants but a t-shirt, too. When he gets back out to the living room, his mother and Carey are sitting on the couch with Cecy, having an intense discussion about night feedings. Jordan is documenting the conversation with a camera, crouching down so he can get just the right angles on it, taking a billion photos for no discernible reason. Malcolm has Twitter open on his phone. The others have already broken for the kitchen, where they're cooking like it's a funeral or a wedding or something.

PK's life has never been weirder. He watches for a few minutes, long enough for Carey to look up and almost smile at him, and then he goes for the kitchen, too. If things are going to be this crazy, he's at least getting some bulla cake out of it.

View poll: Kidfic poll

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

Sixteenwins Payoff: Inverted Tropes!

2012-08-27T22:30:44Z

So, I put together two brackets for the Stanley Cup playoffs, and - I didn't think the Kings would win, okay? (I take comfort in the fact that no one thought the Kings would win. As the playoffs went on, I spent a lot of time collecting especially querulous articles talking about the Kings. Professional hockey commentators seemed a touch cranky. I can only conclude that the Kings fucked up their brackets, too.)

So, in the particular pool I was in, you have to pony up not money, but fannish stuff. I offered words. I have many, and other people generally want fewer of them, but in this case quettaser inexplicably wanted more of them. Her request:

You don't have to combine this into one massive post, if you don't want. Two separate posts would be more than fine. Tell me about all the hockey players who secretly find a baby on their doorstep or are suddenly in charge of their niece/nephew for the day or have a threesome with a lady and whoops she's pregnant (LOOKING AT YOU RICHIE AND CARTS). Basically, tell me about all of the ridiculous kidfic scenarios that should happen that haven't happened yet. Or things completely unrelated to babies like best AUs not yet written for hockey fandom or a pairing you think isn't being written enough. Basically, just ramble at me about stories you think should exist already.

Now, extremely conveniently, just before she posted this request, I spent some time whining to frostfire about the particular manifestation my Bitter Old Fandom Queen disease was taking. Namely, I want all the tropes. But I want them backwards. So in part one of my payoff, I'm going to write about how, now that hockey fandom has done - okay, most of the tropes, although there is always room for more, or for that matter for the same ones again - it is time to shake the tropes, turn them inside out, and see what's in their pockets. (Not recommended with Jeff Carter or Mike Richards, since what's in their pockets this summer is: an assortment of, uh, entirely legal substances, condoms, lube, phone numbers scrawled on beer-stained napkins, an SD card containing the video of the threesome they had with the Cup, a half-eaten PowerBar from the sweep against the Blues, a badly-photoshopped picture of Paul Holmgren rimming himself, and a small laminated card that Kings management gave to all the players that says "Hi! I am a Stanley Cup winner. If I am found too drunk to walk or talk, please call my team and someone will be sent to collect me. REWARD.")

So, here are some inside-out tropes that I really, really yearn to see in hockey fandom. (And, uh, sorry, quettaser; I am a Penguins fan, which I think means we are sworn enemies for life and if we ever meet in person you are required to consume 3/8ths of my liver. But in both this and the kidfic post, I made a sincere attempt to include some Flyers content. And we can at least meet peaceably in the drunken, homoerotic presence of the Flyers West.) I have included concepts, summaries, and also story snippets.

Thanks to paxpinnae for being the Flyers fan beta, and to thehoyden and Best Beloved for general pre-reading.

Also in fairness I should note that I have 30k more words written on the full version of one of these. I. Look. It's been a long postseason, okay?

Kaner and Tazer wake up divorced.

Summary: Kaner's had some bad mornings in his life, but this is probably the worst one yet. He's lying on the floor of a hotel fully dressed, with a pounding headache. Next to him is a certificate of divorce from one Jonathan Toews.

Story snippet:

Patrick pulls out his phone with slightly shaky hands and calls Johnny before he really figures out what to say. "Did we ever get married?" is definitely a bad way to start the conversation, but, "Hey, did you know we're divorced?" is probably even worse.

Fortunately, Johnny takes the decision out of his hands. "Thank fuck," he says when he answers. "Where are you?"

"Not sure," Patrick says. "Somewhere with really scratchy carpet." He hopes it's somewhere with a toilet, too, because now that he's waking up, he really needs to piss.

Johnny sighs. Patrick's got a lot of practice with those sighs, so he knows this one means Kaner, why do I even put up with you? Although apparently Johnny doesn't have to put up with him any longer. Patrick - is not thinking about that. "I'm getting you lojacked," he says.

Patrick hauls himself up off the floor and looks around. "Hotel room," he diagnoses. "Cheap hotel room." He flips through the stuff on the nightstand until he finds an address. "Apparently I'm in a Super 8 in Morden. Where the fuck is Morden?"

Johnny sighs again. This one means Kaner, you are a burden only I am strong enough to carry. "Morden is two fucking hours from here, that's where Morden is." There's some thumping noises. "I'll come get you, hold on."

Patrick feels like maybe it's a little toolish to let a dude drive two hours to come get you if he doesn't know the two of you are divorced. On the other hand, he still doesn't want to launch right into that, so he tries for, "Uh, so, what happened last night?"

"You were fucking drunk," Johnny says. "You got pissed off and you got in a cab. That's all I know." He pauses. "Oh, except for the part where you shouted that you were leaving me because I was a shitty husband. In front of everyone in Tim Horton's. So we'll probably be getting a phone call from management a little later, and you'd better be here for that, because saying, 'uh, no, Patrick and I aren't dating, he was just drunk' is going to be bad enough, but saying, 'uh, no, Patrick and I aren't dating and also I have no idea where he is' would be fucking terrible." And Johnny hangs up the phone.

Patrick is left holding a dead phone, sort of blinking, because. Huh. He thought they were dating. He thought they were going out to celebrate their three-month anniversary, actually.

His mother might be right about his communication skills needing some work.

Sidney Crosby gets hit on the head and gets extra memories.

Summary: He thought concussions were bad. This is worse. This is so much worse.

Story snippet:

Sid blinks open his eyes and sees the face of Jerry the trainer hovering over him. He's cold, he's in his gear, he's - fuck, he's playing the Rangers and he's on the ice and he took a hit. He blacked out.

He's got another concussion. God fucking damn it.

"Sid?" Jerry says, and he looks really, really worried. He's bent over Sid, talking directly into his ear, and Consol is quiet enough that it's almost like there aren't twenty thousand people watching the possible end of Sid's career. "Sid, do you know where you are?"

"Consol Energy Center," Sid says. "Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."

"Right." Jerry sounds relieved. Sid knows from experience that it's a really bad sign when the trainers are relieved that you can remember where you are. "What's your father's name?" And that's a new one, but that's no surprise; Jerry started switching these up during the second concussion, when Sid got tired of answering the same goddamn questions all the time and pointed out he could probably answer them dead he'd heard them so often.

"Boris," Sid says automatically. He's mostly occupied with wondering why his head doesn't hurt more. In his experience, and he's got way more than he needs, a concussion starts with a screaming fucking headache.

Jerry blinks. "Sid," he says carefully, spacing out his words unnecessarily, "are you listening to me? How old are you?"

"Thirty-three," Sid answers. And that doesn't feel exactly right. But it doesn't feel wrong, either.

"You know what, we're going to take you to the hospital," Jerry says.

"No, come on! I feel fine," Sid says, and he might be whining a little, but the game has barely started. He doesn't want to miss it. "Aren't you going to finish the exam?"

"Uh, no," Jerry says, and he's gesturing at someone.

And then there's a stretcher next to him on the ice. "I can get up," Sid says. Jerry's still holding his shoulders down, but he can totally get up. He doesn't want to get stretchered off the fucking ice like a baby.

"No, you can't," Jerry says. "Sid, you need to move as little as possible, okay? I need you to let us do this. This is important." And Jerry sounds honestly worried, so Sid does his best to comply, through the whole ordeal of the back brace and the neck brace and the careful lifting onto the stretcher and the wheeling out.

Sid can't figure out why Jerry's acting like this. They've all been down this road before, after all, and this concussion seems a lot less awful than the last two. Or at least that's what he thinks until he's a sentence into his medical history and the nurse holds up a hand. "Do you speak any English?" she says, spacing out her words carefully.

"Da," Sid says. But, no, that's not right. What is he doing? He doesn't speak - how can he be speaking Russian? "Yes," he repeats. When he isn't thinking about it, the Russian and the English both feel natural. Now that he is, they both feel wrong.

"Do you need me to get a translator?" she asks, still way over-pronouncing every word.

"No," Sid says. "No, I'm fine." And he is. He just has to take a moment to think about English before he opens his mouth.

Also, he keeps worrying about where his wife and kids are.

This - might be a problem.

Jeff Carter's a hooker. Mike Richards is a hockey player. And Mike never pays Jeff for sex.

Summary: Mike's not stupid enough to fall for a hooker.

Story snippet:

Jeff looks up as Mike comes back with the coffee and grins. "Thanks, man, how much do I owe you?"

"I got this," Mike says, because he's trying to send off the right signals, here. It's been a while - uh, a long while - since he actually tried to talk to someone before he fucked them. He doesn't remember how this part goes. But he's got to get laid in LA eventually, even if it means figuring out how to flirt. He sits down carefully in the teeny chair - he will never fucking understand why Manhattan Beach businesses have such tiny, rickety chairs; he knows people in LA still have asses - and tries to figure out what to say next.

Jeff smiles at him some more and takes a sip of his coffee. "Thanks. I assume a latte won't break you."

"Not even with three different flavors in it," Mike agrees. "Seriously, how do you drink that shit?"

Jeff says, "Well, my mom always said I had no taste."

"Yeah, your hair kind of gives that away," Mike says, which, whoops, is probably a mistake, unless this dude goes for assholes.

But maybe he does, because he comes back instantly with, "Your mom never has any complaints." Mike just can't help it, he likes this guy. He even likes and knows shit about hockey, which makes him unique among the people Mike has met off-ice in LA.

Which makes it much worse when, after two solid hours of talking, Mike says, "I gotta go. But, look, can I get your number?"

And Jeff says, "Yeah, sure, I'd love to do this again." But then, after he takes Mike's phone and programs his number in, he looks Mike in the eye - there's no smile there now - and says, "Just so you know, I get paid to have sex with men. That's my job. I'd never take money from you - I already like you too much - but I know it's an issue. So. There's my number, call me maybe." And Jeff gives him just the slightest wry smile, gets up, and leaves.

It's like a hit to the head, the way that changes everything. Suddenly the expensive highlights in Jeff's hair aren't a really stupid style choice - they're, they're marketing. That toned body Mike was admiring under the bad board shorts and worse t-shirt is just so much meat, for sale to the highest bidder. The joke Jeff made about Mike paying for his latte is, in retrospect, revolting. The fact that talking to Jeff was the most fun Mike's had since he got traded - that's pretty much the worst of all.

Mike wasted two fucking hours with this guy, two hours he'll never get back. Sure, he had some fun, but - he slams down the rest of his coffee and takes off towards his place; it takes a run and a shower to work off the anger.

Mike knows he should delete Jeff's number, and he almost does. Almost. And he's really sure he's not going to call. Which doesn't explain why he dials Jeff's number five days later.

Gay chicken in the Flyers' locker room! And no one ends up having sex because of it.

Summary: There are some things Danny won't watch. There are some things Claude can't do.

Story snippet:

Claude's not really sure how he got into this position, but he's a flexible guy. No way he's going to let Hartsy get one up on him.

"I love you, man," Hartsy says, absolutely sincerely. "I love you like I love cock."

"Less talking, more kissing," Brayden calls out. "Pussies."

Claude kind of leans in a little. Hartsy has obviously never played this game before, though, because he just swoops in and lays one on Claude, full on the lips. Shit. There's supposed to be a buildup. Claude didn't even have a chance to get braced.

"If I kissed him and he didn't kiss me back, I win, right?" Hartsy asks of the room at large.

"Go again," Brayden says. "Best of three."

This time, Claude's more ready. He gets his arms up on Hartsy's shoulders and pretty much kisses back. Hartsy ups the ante by licking at Claude's lips, which is just incredibly disgusting, and then Claude makes the mistake of thinking about where that tongue has probably been and jerks back, hard.

"Loser," Brayden says.

"What the fuck?" Claude doesn't have to turn around to recognize Danny's voice; he heard it over breakfast every morning for a year.

"Gay chicken," Brayden explains. "They probably didn't have this when you were young. You know. Like back when you played with Rocket Richard."

"Gay chicken," Danny repeats, sounding like something tastes even worse than Hartsy's tongue.

"It's like chicken, but gay. So, like," and Brayden's half laughing, just explaining it, "two dudes come in like they're going for a kiss. And whoever jerks away first is, you know, the chicken."

Danny says, in clipped, angry English, "That sounds like a game I will not stay to watch." As he storms away, he's muttering under his breath in French, and, okay, shit, Danny's really angry.

"Danny, wait," Claude says, and hurries out after him.

Claude climbs in Danny's car before he manages to pull out of the lot, and Danny seethes basically the entire way home. Claude knows him well enough to know not to say anything, to let him start the conversation.

He doesn't do it right away, but then, Danny doesn't like to argue while he's driving. Claude follows him into his house, kicks off his shoes, and sits down, braced.

"When you made that PSA," Danny finally says, very precisely, "were you joking?"

"No," Claude says. "Of course not." Danny knows exactly why he did the You Can Play thing. Danny also knows he takes it seriously.

"Then why would you do that in the locker room?"

Actually, that's a good point. It's not like calling someone a cocksucker or whatever; Claude's been trying to be better about that, even though some people - and he's naming no names but it rhymes with Widney Brosby - definitely deserve it. But it is kind of. It's kind of the same.

"I'm sorry, Danny," Claude says, and he means it.

He's apologized to Danny a lot. Danny knows how to hear it. It also takes him about an hour to go from hearing an apology to actually accepting it, so Claude just nods as Danny gestures to the door. Danny's going for a run, which isn't the best idea right after practice, but it will let him calm down.

Claude checks the schedule Sylvie makes every week and grabs the keys to Danny's car. Sylvie's taking the other boys to the dentist after school, so he's going to have to pick up Carson. Danny's in no shape, and it's his fault, after all.

He drives to Carson's school and tries not to think about the same old shit. But he does, he always does.

This could totally be his life. If he were different.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

Yuletide Fandom: CinderFella

2012-08-18T03:49:09Z

Okay, so after my mistaken public posting earlier today, several people led me to an epiphany, which goes like this: why not share my list of Yuletide fandom links? Maybe people will be swayed and nominate them! Or swayed and WRITE them! Or, you know, just squee with me, so I have joy to tide me over until actual Yuletide.

So here's another one. Everyone I've shown this to has had roughly the same reaction, which goes like this:

I - am not sure I can stand this. Do I really have to watch ALL SIX MINUTES?
Things are looking up! Maybe it won't be torture!
OH MY GOD THAT IS THE GREATEST.
No. No, I was wrong, because this is clearly the greatest.
WRONG AGAIN. That's for SURE the greatest.
Ahahahahahaha.
Awwwwwwwww.
...It's over? And I can't even buy the music? Suuuuuuuuuck. Better watch it again, I guess.

My point is, it is really important to muscle through the initial part, which is a little hard to take if you aren't a fan of wistfulness, to get to the parts that are the greatest. And I don't want to spoil it for you, so I'm going to link here and then discuss for a bit. Ready? Watch the WHOLE THING.

CinderFella, by Todrick Hall. (Warning for rapid cutting and flashing lights.)

There. If that didn't make you happy, I don't even want to know, because it makes me really, really happy. And I knew as soon as I saw it that it would be a Yuletide fandom for me, because I would take any story in this fandom. The main pairing, obviously - I want to know their happily ever after, because I am seriously invested in it. The princesses, oh hell yes, I want to know all about that - every detail, if you will. The fairy godmother! I want to know what she does on her days off. Anything. Anything at all.

My only real complaint here is that as far as I know I can't actually buy the music. But everything else is glorious.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

Yuletide Fandom

2012-08-17T15:22:30Z

So, this was in actual fact supposed to be a private post for future (Yuletide!) reference - yes, I really am the person who makes private posts with Yuletide fandom suggestions throughout the year, and it has always served me in good stead - but since I made it public I think I should leave it public. Bottom line:

Watch this commercial, which features basketball players growing up and then fucking each other. You think I'm kidding? You tell me what comes after the last shot. I seriously can't think of anything that doesn't involve cock no matter how hard I try.

(And then prepare to write it for Yuuuuuuuletide!)

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

Help Me Help Myself (iTunes)

2012-08-17T07:38:43Z

Okay, I am fully aware that there is a solution to this somewhere on Google, but I am also aware that the chances of me finding it anytime in the next brief forever are very slim. (Basically, I had a con, which was great and good and wonderful. And then I came back from the con and realized my life is booked for eternity. And also everyone is sick and we are all apparently going to stay that way for roughly the same length of time. I wish there was a rule that illness and busyness were mutually exclusive, but no. Unfair, I say, unfair.)

So. I have a new main computer. Yay! Because of a disastrous third-party software misfire, I used the native Windows file transfer utility to move everything from my old XP computer to my new Windows 7 computer. (Yes, I know Macs are perfect and made of unicorn snot and that using one is basically the same as achieving union with the godhead. This is why I have a Mac laptop. But my main computer cannot be a Mac for work reasons the end.)

In the process, all my music transferred over, and all my iTunes data - play counts and playlists, particularly - transferred over, but iTunes can't find my music. It's not where it used to be. (And the folder in which it lives is locked? I think?) I do not want to lose all that data, because I'm not even sure how to navigate my sprawling music collection without it. On the other hand, iTunes is unusable at this point, which means my iPod is unupdateable, which means I am sad and bereft and pathetic. And Apple of course will not provide me with any support on this front, as I am evil, and Microsoft supporting anything - okay, I'll just stop here while you get the laughter out of your system

And, like I said, I am sure there is a fix for this, and I am also sure sufficient application to Google would tell me what that is. But I'm hoping someone out there already knows what it is. And can tell me. Ideally in steps that can be easily understood by a person on a lot of cough syrup, but at this point I will take helpful links or just basically anything. Even if the answer is that I'm doomed and must do a fresh install of iTunes, that would be useful to know because it would keep me from hoping.

Help? Someone? Please?

FIXED YOU ALL ARE GENIUSES AND I LOVE YOU. Thaaaaaaaaank you!

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

[Poll] Help Me Pack

2012-08-07T00:37:57Z

Okay, so. Today I tried on all my dresses and discovered, to my extreme lack of joy, that exactly two of them still fit over my post-breastfeeding boobs. Like, I thought the boobs were supposed to go back to normal, and in fact I thought they had, but after I saw myself in my pre-pregnancy all things to all parties dress (which I love and cannot stand the thought of getting rid of), with boob up as far as my ears, I was forced to conclude that that had maaaaaybe not happened.

So. Last year at VVC, I told myself that the next time I went, I would damned well bring a dress and wear it to Club Vivid. Obviously, my boobs are calling my bluff, since my choices now consist of:

A nursing dress that, ironically, wouldn't fit over my boobs when I was nursing. It fits now. Pros: It is soft and comfy! It's kind of vaguely pretty! Cons: It's a nursing dress, and I'm not nursing anymore. Also, its style aesthetic can best be described as "schoolmarm who wants ready access to her boobs."
A black lace dress that no one in this house remembers buying. Pros: It fits. And it's black. Cons: I'm not sure it ever was in style. It can best be described as "gothic schoolmarm."
Pajamas. Pros: Comfortable. Cons: Not sure I want to be the girl who wore pajamas to the ball.
My retired swimsuit. This is a suit I bought when I apparently believed I'd be attending a lot of underwater evening parties; it's black with a little drape and a short skirt and basically looks nothing like a swimsuit. Cons: Really not sure I want to be the girl who wore a swimsuit to the ball. Pros: Might be the most appropriate piece of attire I own that still fits over my boobs. Plus, if the hotel floods, I will be completely prepared and in a position to mock the attractive, well-dressed people flailing in their non-water-resistant clothing.

Since I am currently in an aggressive state of dither over all things relating to the trip (my brain currently sounds like this: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEE, with occasionally side trips into what I was even thinking deciding to go somewhere), I can't decide. HELP.

View poll: Dress Me

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

Loving the Spacetoaster

2012-07-22T03:05:42Z

The other night, Best Beloved and I were reading before sleeping, as is the custom of our people, and I had to take a break from the story. In the days when I did most of my fan fiction reading on a computer, that meant just switching to another tab. But now I do most of it on my Kindle, and I can't switch in and out as quickly. (On the other hand, it's way easier to read fan fiction before bed.) So for short breaks, I just kind of - look away from the screen. Which is what I did.

"What?" BB said, looking up from her own Kindle.

"It's getting gross," I told her. I may have sounded a trifle grim when I said it.

There was a pause as she tried to figure out if she wanted to know, and decided she probably didn't, and then realized she couldn't stop herself from asking anyway. (This is, by the way, self-destructive curiosity. Normally I'm the one who has it. Not this time.) "Like - blood?" she asked. "Serial killers?"

"They're having feelings all over the place," I said. And I meant it.

See, even in stories, I prefer feelings in small doses. When people start having impassioned conversations in which they share their innermost thoughts, I have to stare into space for a while, even if they are totally great and in-character conversations and the story is awesome.

I realized, after BB finished laughing openly at me and returned to her book (in which people probably had feelings left, right, and center without her flinching at all, because she is weird enough that she believes a serial killing is more disgusting than emoting) that this was totally related to a question bethbethbeth posed quite a while back, about people's favorite character types.

This might lead you to believe that my favorite character is the strong silent type. And, okay, I do enjoy reading about people who, if they have a feeling, have to go ford a stream or hack through a jungle or venture into deepest space to deal with the trauma. But that isn't my type.

My type is the spacetoaster. I love spacetoasters. I can get into all kinds of fandoms and I can like all kinds of characters, but only a spacetoaster will force me to turn my brain into a sort of heart annex to hold all my feelings of love. (Yes. Irony: I live it.)

So it's probably pretty obvious, but I'd still like to define the spacetoaster.

A toaster, see, is someone with a feelings dysfunction. Maybe the toaster has few feelings. Maybe the toaster has lots of feelings and is totally bewildered by them. Maybe the toaster has spent a lifetime getting distance from any and all feelings, only to be suddenly confronted by them and fail to deal. Whatever. My point is: toasters don't get feelings. They spend a lot of their lives watching other people emote and wishing to be elsewhere, or having feelings themselves and thinking they're maybe hungry or something. (And, yes, there is a bond of sympathy here. I once had an argument with an art therapist in which I finally said, "But I don't have feelings all the time." "You do," she told me, using the tone that therapists used to get with teenaged me after half an hour or so of attempted therapy. "Everyone has feelings all the time. You just don't acknowledge them." And then the hour was up, thank god, but I still think I was right. Sometimes I don't have any particular feelings.)

But not all toasters meet my character needs. There are lots of people who are coldly efficient, or coldly correct, or coldly distant who in no way grip me, or at least don't specially grip me, because I am specifically interested in spacetoasters: toasters who are alien, or alienated. Or maybe just easiest to describe in alien terms. Whatever. My point is, if you have an alienesque person who dreams in black and white, a person who acts like all her feelings are beamed in from a space station orbiting Jupiter, you have a character I'm going to want to meet, and read about, and write about, and possibly pin up on my super-secret Wall of Spacetoasters.

This is why my reaction to Spock was, basically, where have you been all my life, you dreamy, dreamy spacetoaster? Spock is the exemplar, the archetype, the essence of spacetoasterdom. If you're looking for a spacetoaster, you can do no better than Spock. And if you're trying to build a better spacetoaster, I'm just going to have to laugh at you, because they don't get better than Spock. (Although I encourage you to try. So, so strongly encourage you to try.)

But there are other spacetoasters out there, of course. Benton Fraser, I would submit, is a spacetoaster - a guy routinely labeled a freak even by his fellow Mounties, whose only successful emotional relationship, as the series begins, has been with a dog. (Many spacetoasters are better with animals or babies than with adult humans.) Aeryn Sun would rather shoot everyone in a building, or indeed on a planet, than have a single heartfelt sharing moment, and she is, again, an actual alien: spacetoaster! (And, man, maybe it's just that I never really watch - uh, anything, basically - but to me it looks like there is a serious shortage of lady spacetoasters out there. Someone needs to get to work on that, stat. I mean, I get the sense that Temperance Brennan may be a spacetoaster, but I also get the sense that she's on an ensemble show, and I still have scars from the last ensemble show I tried to watch. Beyond that, and of course my beloved Queen of Attolia, I've got nothing.) Jamie Hyneman has three certified expressions, last had a feeling in the fall of '39, and is weird even to other Mythbusters: spacetoaster, spacetoaster, spacetoaster. Abed Nadir is, as far as I can make out, the result of Dan Harmon's actual attempt to build a better spacetoaster. (He failed, of course. There's only one Spock. But Abed is awesome, even so.) And then there's Sidney Crosby, who only has feelings during and about hockey, and who may actually be from space. Spacetoaster. (In fact, the word itself comes from a pathetically long email exchange on the subject of one Sidney Crosby. I am not going to implicate my co-conspirator, though, on the grounds that she might then refuse to finish a story I really want to read. Guess what it's about!)

So, you believe you may have a spacetoaster on your hands, but you aren't quite sure? Here are some signs! (Please note that, like many tests, this is not intended to diagnose. A high score merely provides a basis for further testing. The real proof of the spacetoaster is in the story.)

Is your character highly competent at something that is not feelings or people? (If yes, +10 spacetoaster points.)
Try writing a story from your suspected spacetoaster's first-person point of view. Then write the same story from some other character's point of view. If the first character requires more words to get to the same place, and those words aren't in dialogue, you may have a spacetoaster on your hands. (+1 spacetoaster point for every additional thousand words. In extreme cases, you can just stop the test here; some spacetoaster points of view can add 50k words to a story.)
Imagine writing a story in which your suspected spacetoaster is a robot. Now imagine writing a story in which the same character spends fifteen minutes discussing his or her feelings intensely and sincerely. (+5 spacetoaster points if the robot was easier. +10 spacetoaster points if you fell over laughing when you tried to picture the second scenario. +15 if your character is actually already a robot.)
Picture your possible spacetoaster receiving a heartfelt hug from an acquaintance. (+5 spacetoaster points if the character stands there stiffly. +10 if he or she recoils, flees, or flinches. +15 if it is impossible to picture an acquaintance hugging your character because the Do Not Touch field is so strong with this one.)
Take a random sampling of five stories about the suspected spacetoaster, or five episodes, whatever you have. Count the number of times the character fails to understand some extremely basic human concept. (Example: if you want to kiss someone, that might mean you are attracted to that person!) (+1 point/incidence.)
Consider the same random sample. Give one spacetoaster point for each incidence of the following:
- Someone calls the character an alien.
- The character must engage in some level of research (reading texts, calling friends or relations, setting up an elaborate double-blind study, whatever) to understand a joke.
- The character avoids an emotional scene.
- The character fails to notice an emotional scene.
- The character wishes to be a robot.
- The character fails to respond appropriately to a fairly basic cultural concept. (Example: not really understanding the rules of visiting a friend at home.)

Total up your points. The higher the number, the more likely it is that you should email me with news of your spacetoastery discovery. What, you thought you were taking this test for you? Don't be silly. (You might not even appreciate spacetoasters. Although I hope you do.) This is my attempt to get you to tell me about your favorite spacetoasters, because I might have missed some. And I'm sick. There's nothing like a spacetoaster when you're sick. The hopeless way she stares at you in distressed confusion, pats you awkwardly on the shoulder, and then disappears and comes back with a welding torch - it just sets you right up.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

Tumblr?

2012-07-21T06:47:33Z

Okay, so I am sure you are all very tired of seeing posts by people going, "Who is Tumblr? What is she, that all our fans commend her?" But! I have a question, brought on by thehoyden, who is, it goes without saying, a terrible person. And so, yes, this is another How Does Tumblr post. Sorry.

See, I have always rejected Tumblr as Not for Me, because walls of text are not welcome there, and I am an entirely text-based creature. And I will probably always be a more or less passive Tumblr user, but - I was considering posting, like, shorter, single-thing recs there. For recs that will never fit in a set! Or whatever! It would still be all text, though. Is that a thing I should do? OPINE AT ME, Tumblr denizens! Assuming any of you still read this text-based medium.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

Rant: the boys i mean are not that bright

2012-07-08T16:17:44Z

I read a lot of hockey blogs, because that is the right and proper behavior of the obsessed sports fan, and I want to be right and proper. (Okay, no, that's a lie. I have no interest in being proper.) Yesterday, I found a post about summer hockey-related reading, and, wow. The post has three unsubtle messages for me:

"Alas, these books are not for you." (This is the only message I'm not pissed off about, because it's all on me. Basically, if I'm going to break out of my non-fiction comfort zone, I need it to in some way involve Martha Wells, Naomi Novik, or spaceships.)
"Get lost, this post is not for you."
"Fuck off, this sport is not for you."

Yeah, it's those last two messages I wanted to rant about.

The author of the post is Philip Painter, whose business cards, I have to assume, say "not interested in the ladies" right under "Director of the Puerto Rican Ice Hockey Federation." And we should thank him, for he has provided an excellent, possibly even textbook example of using assumptions about your audience to make that audience smaller. (And, in the process, exclude and hurt a group of people. I get the feeling he'd be more worried about the first part, though.)

Because we all know the only people interested in reading books about hockey are dudes, right? Right, Painter says. But, he continues, these books are so good that "your woman" might actually want to read them, too. You might have to hold her Cosmo hostage to get them back! (Or her alcohol. Or you can just withhold sex. No, I'm not kidding, that's exactly what he says.) Gosh, Mr. Painter. Thank you! That is valuable advice that will surely save my marriage. Oh, wait, no, I meant the other thing. Fuck you. I meant fuck you.

And then there's this line, which is such an amazing gem I can't look directly at it:

...sometimes a female writer can grab the subtleties that men overlook.

Thank you for those few kind words, Mr. Painter. This female writer is really appreciative, and let me tell you, I am exactly the master of subtleties that you assume me to be; I totally get the subtle implications, here. (And since you complain about the lack of graphic sex in the female-authored book that you recommended, let me just reassure you: I do indeed write graphic sex. In fact, if you're short on hockey stories involving sufficient graphic sex, I can totally help you out with that.)

And the thing is, this post comes after a season in which female hockey bloggers had to beg people not to use women's names as insults for their most hated players. (The most tragic part of this: at least one of these articles focused just on begging other female hockey fans not to use misogynist insults. Apparently the male hockey fans are just irremediable, but we can maybe save some of the ladies if we try hard enough.) And let us not forget the delightful clusterfuck that was While the Men Watch, a Canadian TV show meant to bring relief to all the women who were watching hockey but secretly yearning to discuss manicures instead. (Though no one I read on this topic mentioned the sole draw of While the Men Watch, which was that it would give you something to drown out the inane and often worrisomely creepy official announcers. At least, I assume it did, because having to listen to Pierre "My love for Sidney Crosby is unwholesome" McGuire and exceedingly unfunny stereotype-based jokes is surely cruel and unusual punishment.)

But what the general hockey fandom has learned from both of these kerfluffles is, apparently, that the ladies sure do get worked up sometimes. And then you can't have sex with them until they get over themselves. So better do your misogyny where they can't see.

Dear male hockey fans: I can still see you.

I'm just starting to wonder if you can you see me. Like, did you set your shields to exclude female presence back in fourth grade and then forget to switch that off?

If you're wondering why hockey doesn't have a bigger fanbase in your city, if you're wondering why you never seem to meet women who like hockey, if you're confused about the preponderance of dicks on your dance floor, uh, let me clear this up for you: it's your fault. Yes, you, misogynist hockey fan, and also you and you and you. Because when you pull shit like this, and especially when you pull shit like this again and again, and then don't see any problem with it (when I checked the comments on Painter's post, they included one note that the post is, you know, a tiny bit offensive, and that comment was left by a woman - and let's not forget that the Puck Daddy editors let this post fly in the first place), you're doing everything in your power to push the ladies away.

(And so those ladies are going to go somewhere else and entertain each other. And if you just said, "Hey, can I watch?" out loud - yeah, those female hockey bloggers were right. You're irremediable. Congratulations! Now please shut up.)

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

Signal Boost

2012-07-08T07:00:45Z

Does anyone out there live in Edinburgh? Or near it? Or in some other large city in Europe? marina is looking for crash space for a few days in late August. And I hear she brings snacks to share. (So if you're willing to host a multilingual fannish visitor for a few days, she will definitely be a TASTY multilingual fannish visitor.) If you're in the vicinity (...of Europe), please go read her post!

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

Story: Your Daddy's Aim Is True (1/2)

2012-06-15T03:03:02Z

I appear to have written a thing! And, since I'm concerned that the Archive might fall over and go boom again soon, I'm posting it here, too. ...I'll be honest; I've kind of forgotten how you post fan fiction to LJ/DW. Let's see how this goes.

Title: Your Daddy's Aim Is True
Fandom: Hockey RPF
Pairing: Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews
Rating: Explicit
Notes: Written entirely to entertain thehoyden as she struggled with work badness. Thanks to her for beta-reading, and to Best Beloved for the usual stellar alpha-reading.
Also On: AO3, DW.

Patrick answers his phone by reflex, but he can't pry open his eyes, so he has no idea who he's talking to. Or not talking, exactly, because all he can manage is a sort of groan.

"Get the fuck back here," snaps whoever called him.

Patrick runs it through in his mind. It sort of sounds like Johnny, but Johnny's never that - that - whatever the word is for having feelings in your voice. Whoever this is sounds like Johnny would if he ever panicked. Patrick swallows a few times and says, "Uh, who is this?"

"Patrick, get the fuck back here, or I will end your life," and oh fuck, it is Johnny.

"It's not that bad," Patrick tells him, playing for time. Although it's true; it's never as bad as Deadspin likes to make it.

Johnny laughs. He sounds almost hysterical. But that isn't the worst part; in the background, Patrick can hear a high, hideous noise, unearthly and terrible. "Johnny," he says, genuinely scared now, "did you summon a demon?" He's read about that shit. It never goes anywhere good.

"Did you?" Johnny says, and he sounds - he sounds serious. Patrick doesn't have anything to say to that. "Just get the fuck back here," Johnny says, and hangs up the phone.

Half an hour later, Patrick's at the airport, buying a plane ticket back to Chicago. He doesn't have his shit - he can't remember where he left it, but it wasn't in his hotel room - but he still has his wallet, and that's good enough. Whoever has his collection of beer-stained t-shirts can just hang onto it. He'll come back as soon as he's figured out what's wrong with Johnny.

It turns out, though, that showing up at the pathetic Madison airport at 6:30 in the morning means a few hours of waiting to get back to Chicago. While Patrick's drinking bad coffee and his third bottle of water, his phone rings. He jerks it out of his pocket, hoping it's Johnny and he's sane again, but it's Sharpy. "If you're crazy too, I don't want to hear about it," Patrick says when he answers the phone.

Sharpy doesn't sound crazy, exactly, but he doesn't sound good, either. "Where are you?" he says.

"The Madison airport."

"Good. Get on a fucking plane and get back here."

"I'm just here for the coffee, man," Patrick says, because he can't not mess with Sharpy.

"Do I need to come out there?" Sharpy doesn't sound amused. He sounds - tense. Maybe pissed off. Everyone Patrick's talking to today sounds weird. Maybe it's to do with the moon or some shit. Or maybe this isn't Sharpy.

Patrick holds the phone away from his ear and checks it out, but that's definitely Sharpy's number. Also, come to think of it, that's definitely Sharpy's voice. "I'm coming back," he says. "What the fuck happened? Did Chicago end? Did they trade me? Did they trade Johnny?"

There's a moment of silence, and then Sharpy says, "Honest to god, I have no clue what happened here. Just. Get back." And then he hangs up.

Patrick wants new teammates, with better phone manners. And then he cringes, because maybe that's exactly what he's getting. He bets Mark Streit is super-polite on the phone. He crosses himself, just in case, and checks the time again.

By the time he's dragged himself through O'Hare and in to Johnny's, Patrick has a new theory: it's a prank. Sharpy got Johnny to front for him. So he's working on an indignant speech when he opens Johnny's door.

He never gets a chance to say it. When he opens the door, he sees Abby Sharp, surrounded by opened packages and boxes, with her boob in her daughter's mouth. Then he sees Sharpy, sitting on the floor putting together something made of brightly-colored plastic, and probably fucking it up, judging by his expression. And then he sees Johnny, who is crazy-eyed and holding a tiny infant. "What the fuck -" Patrick starts, and all three adults in the room look up and hiss at him in scary unison.

The tiny infant in Johnny's arms starts wailing. The sound makes Patrick want to kill someone.

~

It takes forty horrible minutes to make the baby go back to sleep, and during that time, no one can say anything that anyone else can hear. Eventually, Abby manages to get it to stop crying by doing something that Patrick would totally laugh at if he saw it on YouTube. She bounces on her feet and imitates a vacuum cleaner while swaying back and forth, and magically, miraculously, the baby stops crying. Patrick has never wanted to kiss anyone more than he wants to kiss Abby.

As soon as Abby does her magic, Sharpy and Johnny drag Patrick back into Johnny's room. "Shhhhhh," Sharpy cautions him in an undertone. "No fucking yelling, that kid has ears like a bat."

"Why -" Patrick starts. "What -" He doesn't fucking know what to say. He'd have noticed if Abby had been pregnant, he's pretty sure, and also Madelyn wasn't born that long ago. Not long enough ago for the Sharps to make another one. And, okay, things were pretty bad toward the end of the season, but Johnny would probably have mentioned if he was adopting demon spawn or whatever.

"I found him on my doorstep this morning," Johnny says grimly.

"Did you - did you hit and quit nine months ago? Without protection?" Patrick asks, genuinely shocked. Johnny's always so responsible.

"No," Johnny snarls, although he keeps it quiet. He still has the crazy eyes, but now his face is an alarming shade of red and he kind of looks like he wants to rip Patrick's face off. "And this was with him." He hands Patrick a piece of paper.

It's a birth certificate, and Patrick's pretty sure it's real. It feels like it's made out of weird paper, and it has a raised part on it. It even says Birth Certificate in fancy script. The date is May 20, 2012 - Patrick checks his phone and, yeah, that's today.

The baby's name is listed as Stanley Kane-Toews.

Patrick turns to Sharpy. "Fucking lame-ass prank, man."

"No prank," Sharpy says. "Seriously, you think I would?"

"Well, unless Johnny fucked one of my sisters - or someone else named Kane, I guess -" Patrick just trails off. "And who the fuck would name a baby Stanley?" he says. He actually wishes he'd had less to drink lately. His brain won't start.

"You," Johnny says. "You would."

"No I fucking wouldn't," Patrick says. Johnny just stares at him, flat-faced and yet still furious, and he remembers one night two years ago, hugging the Cup and promising to name his firstborn after it. "Not in a year we didn't win," he says, and it sounds pathetic even to his ears.

"Did you -" Sharpy says. He shakes his head, hard, and then manages to say, "Did you do something stupid even for you?"

"Like. Adopt a baby and name him Stanley Kane-Toews?" Patrick says, looking at the birth certificate. "I don't think they'd let me do that. There are probably rules and shit."

"Yeah, there's rules and shit," Sharpy says. "But something crazy had to happen here, and either you or Johnny did it."

"Was at his door," Patrick points out. "So it was probably him." He's pretty pleased with the reasoning, which he thinks will get the heat off him.

"I don't do crazy things, that's you," Johnny tells him. "And probably he got left at my door because you weren't around. Or because you'd have to be crazy to leave a baby at your door."

"You'd have to be crazy to leave a baby at anyone's door," Sharpy says. "And, guys, look. I just did this, remember? You don't have a baby born sometime in the early hours and then check out of the hospital the same day in good enough shape to leave the baby at someone's door. They wouldn't let you. Even if you had the baby at home - the birth certificate says today. You found him at five thirty this morning. That's barely enough time to clean up the blood." Patrick cringes, and he can see Johnny doing the same. Sharpy just keeps on going, though. "You don't even get the birth certificate the first day. It took us six fucking weeks."

"So it's a prank," Patrick says, back on comfortable ground. "Has to be."

"A prank with a live human newborn," Sharpy says, in his Patrick Kane, You Are an Idiot tone.

"People do weird shit?" Patrick says hopefully.

Sharpy and Johnny shake their heads, and that's it, Patrick's done. "Whatever," he says. "That's nothing to do with me. I don't know why you called me back here."

"You need a DNA test," Sharpy tells them.

Johnny nods, and Patrick stares at them both. "How the fuck do you figure?" he asks. "It's not like - seriously, there's no way Johnny and me could ever make a baby. It wouldn't work. Did your parents never give you this lecture? And, anyway, we only did it once, and that was way too recently to -" Patrick has to break off there, because Johnny just dug his fingers into Patrick's shoulder. Hard. Patrick thinks Johnny might actually be trying to dig for bone, there.

"You had sex?" Sharpy says.

"Once," Johnny snaps. "It was a mistake. It won't happen again. And we weren't going to tell anyone," he adds, staring menacingly at Patrick.

That fucking stings. Patrick already knew Johnny thought it was a mistake, because he'd said so in so many words and basically every other way he could find, but it still stings to hear him say that. "It was after the playoffs," he explains awkwardly to Sharpy. "It's not - that's nothing to do with this."

Sharpy shifts from foot to foot, and he won't look at either of them. "I don't know," he finally says. "I don't think we can rule anything out, because none of this makes any fucking sense."

Patrick has nothing to say to that. The baby - Stanley - apparently does, though. He starts wailing again, from the living room. Patrick doesn't understand how anything this new can be so loud.

Abby appears, carrying Stanley. "Look, I already have one," she says, holding the baby out to Johnny. "And mine is quieter."

Johnny takes the baby and stands there helplessly, one hand under the baby's butt, the other behind his neck. Stanley shrieks. Sharpy looks around the room. "Okay," he says, talking really loudly because even though Johnny is trying to imitate Abby from earlier, he's not having any luck. "You know how to make a bottle, you have a co-sleeper and a bassinette and a wrap and a car seat and diapers and formula and spit-up cloths and a swing and a bouncy seat and a monitor and some clothes. I think you're ready, guys."

Patrick just stares at him, because - ready? Ready for what? You do not get ready to take care of a baby by just getting handed one and a bunch of stuff and going to it.

Abby reaches over and pats him on the arm. "I know," she says, and she sounds really sincere. "I felt that way, too. But this is one of those things you have to learn by doing. Call me if you're desperate." And she heads for the living room.

Patrick turns to stare at Johnny, hoping he'll have a plan that involves them not sitting in this condo taking care of this tiny angry red gnome creature. Johnny is staring back at him, and it's pretty clear he's hoping the same thing. "Here," Johnny says. "You take him." Patrick backs up a step reflexively. Johnny sighs like Patrick is so much of a burden and adds, "You have to be careful to support the neck because he can't control his head yet."

"I know how to hold a fucking baby," Patrick snaps at him, rolling his eyes, and it's mostly because he's pissed at Johnny that he steps forward and takes the - the baby. Stanley. He's careful, because, okay, he has done this, but he's never held one this new. Stanley's body is hot, probably from screaming so much, and his face is scrunched, but there aren't any actual tears. Patrick isn't sure if that's normal or not. He tries bouncing like Abby did.

It doesn't work. Patrick apparently doesn't have that magic or whatever. He shifts the baby around a little, trying to get his mouth pointing away from Patrick's ear, and kind of settles him around, and by the time he's comfortable, Stanley has gone from shrieks to hiccupy noises.

"Keep doing that!" Johnny whispers.

"Doing what?" Patrick asks him, but that sets Stanley off again.

After a few minutes, though, Patrick has Stanley settled for real. Johnny's looking at him like he is both amazing and too terrible to stand, which Patrick is really used to. Johnny mimes something a few times, and Patrick is pretty sure he's asking if he wants a drink, which, fuck yes. He can't ever remember wanting a drink more than he does right now, standing in Johnny's bedroom with a mystery baby falling asleep on his shoulder. But Johnny comes back with a bottle, so clearly he fucking sucks at life and charades.

Patrick shakes his head at the bottle - Stanley's sleeping, and Patrick's not about to wake him up. Johnny nods and gestures at the door, so Patrick heads out to the living room. He sits down on the couch too hard, and Stanley makes a noise but goes back to sleep.

It's like holding a stick of dynamite or something. Patrick can't move or talk or play anything or watch anything. Next to him, Johnny carefully, slowly drags out his laptop, and Patrick hopes he's going to do something interesting, but instead he googles "baby won't stop crying." Patrick kind of reads over his shoulder, as best he can.

Stanley sleeps for two hours. In that time, they read fourteen websites and Johnny orders five books and three DVDs from Amazon.

~

When Stanley wakes up, Johnny goes to the kitchen and comes back with a bottle, which he hands to Patrick. Patrick has been sitting in one place forever and wants nothing more than 1) to take a piss and 2) to do something, but he shoves the bottle in Stanley's mouth because the kid probably can't cry while he's drinking.

Blessed silence returns. Johnny leaves again and comes back with a piece of paper, on which he starts writing. Patrick reads over his shoulder for a few seconds, but the first two things are:

1. Pediatrician
2. Call the team

And Patrick doesn't even want to know what would come after that.

"Pediatrician? We're seriously going to take this baby to a doctor? He's going to wonder how we got it," Patrick says. It actually feels kind of weird to talk, after two hours of enforced silence.

"So we'll lie," Johnny says. Patrick just blinks at him, unable to believe that Johnny of all people is suggesting, whatever, defrauding a baby doctor. That has to be a crime. "Anyway, the birth certificate has both our names on it, so maybe the doctor won't ask."

Patrick stares at him, because he did not look at the parents' names on the thing. He didn't get past the Stanley Kane-Toews part. "It has our names?" he repeats, his voice cracking.

Johnny rolls his eyes and stomps off to the bedroom. When he comes back, he holds the birth certificate in front of Patrick's face. It reads:

Parent 1: Jonathan Bryan Toews
Parent 2: Patrick Timothy Kane, Jr.

Patrick recoils, and Stanley pops off the bottle and makes a scrunchy face. "Hey, no, no, no," Patrick tells him, and manages to get the bottle back in his mouth before he starts crying.

Johnny grimaces. "You're better with him than I am," he says. "I'll make the phone calls." And Patrick can't even argue that Johnny has the easier job, there, so he just watches Johnny head back to the bedroom.

Fifteen minutes later, Stanley is fed but still awake, and Patrick is trying to figure out if he can put him down long enough to piss. Johnny comes back out looking pale and set. "We have an appointment for tomorrow at 11:15," he says. "With a doctor. And we're going to see Bowman and Rogowin at four."

Patrick looks at the clock - shit, how can it still be only one in the afternoon? He says, "Your turn with the monster."

Johnny shakes his head and says, "He'll cry."

"I'll piss on your floor, Johnny, come on," Patrick says, and Johnny looks like he still wants to object, but he steps forward and takes the baby.

Stanley shrieks in rage, and Patrick basically runs to the bathroom. When he comes out, Johnny is standing there stoically, holding furious, furious Stanley, and Patrick feels something weird twist in his gut.

Maybe he's hungry. Patrick heads into the kitchen and makes two sandwiches. He bolts his down, then carries the other one out to Johnny and trades him for Stanley. After a few minutes, Patrick manages to get Stanley back into his not-crying mood. But while Johnny's eating, Patrick realizes something terrible: Stanley needs a new diaper. "We have to change him," he says to Johnny.

Johnny nods like he's just been told to do a bag skate, puts down his sandwich, and heads over to one of the piles of packages. He extracts a diaper and a package of wipes and comes back over and offers them to Patrick.

Patrick won't take them. He's not stupid. "We'll do this together," he says.

They manage to get the diaper off, no problem, and fortunately it's just wet. Then they have to figure out how to get another back on, and that's - not impossible. It'd be easier if Stanley hadn't started crying again, but Patrick has realized that Stanley is basically always going to be crying, so they have to suck it up.

Just as Johnny's about to bring up the diaper, Stanley pees. He manages to hit Johnny and Patrick, but Patrick is really grateful for Johnny's superior reflexes, because he somehow gets the diaper over Stanley before he gets, like, the wall or the ceiling or the couch.

Johnny fastens the tapes, and they stare at each other. For once, Stanley is quiet, and if Patrick didn't know better, he'd say he was smug. "Uh," Johnny says, grimacing. "If he finished going in the diaper, does that mean we have to change it again?"

"Better now. While he's empty," Patrick points out, and Johnny nods. It only take them like three minutes to get the diaper on Stanley this time, and no one gets hit with anything. When they're done, Johnny and Patrick high five, and Patrick feels stupidly proud.

"Shower now," Johnny says, because he's all noble and shit. "I'll go second."

Patrick takes basically the fastest shower in existence and then changes into some of Johnny's ridiculously big clothes. When he comes out, Johnny's sitting on the couch with his peed-on shirt off, holding Stanley against his bare chest. Stanley's asleep. Patrick creeps over and takes the shirt away to the laundry, then comes back and finds a baby blanket in the pile of gear and puts it over Stanley.

Johnny's staring down at Stanley on his chest, and it's. It's cute. Patrick wonders if there's some kind of way to just - keep Stanley quiet forever. He's really kind of okay when he isn't screaming.

~

The meeting with management is eight kinds of hell. Just getting there is a certain amount of hell; getting the baby seat in Johnny's car is basically impossible. Like, Patrick honestly does not believe anyone ever does this, because he and Johnny are two of the most determined people on the planet and there are times when they're both tempted to give up.

And after they finally do get the stupid car seat installed, they have to drive in with Stanley shrieking insanely in the back seat. Patrick can't sit still while he's doing that, and every time anyone in front of them brakes for any reason he has to genuinely talk himself down from getting out and beating the shit out of the driver. He thinks he's just over-reacting until Johnny mutters, "Remind me to put a baseball bat in the car," and then he realizes - well, that they're both over-reacting, probably. But the image of taking a baseball bat to every car in Chicago gets him through to the rink, at least.

And of course Stanley hates the conference room and cries wretchedly through the entire meeting, making Johnny and Patrick look even worse than they already do, which is actually kind of impressive. That kind of skill really makes Patrick wonder if Stanley actually is related to him. Usually only Patrick himself can accomplish this level of image-lowering.

Johnny and Patrick have to take turns standing in the hall with shrieking Stanley, so that people in the conference room can think and hear, and it's hard to say whether it's better to be the guy in the hall or the guy in the room. It's obvious no one believes them when they say they have no idea what happened, and Rogowin from PR keeps looking at the birth certificate with an expression Patrick has absolutely never seen before on anyone. He looks like he's foreseen his own death or some shit.

After everyone talks it all through like three times, Bowman breaks the deadlock. "You have a baby," he tells Patrick, whose turn it is to be in the room. "In the long term, we need to work on how that happened and where we go from here, but in the short term, you need to take care of the baby. So do that. We'll brainstorm here."

Patrick nods and goes back into the hall, trading out with Stanley so Johnny can hear Bowman tell them the same shit. Johnny comes out, grimaces, and they walk back to the car together. Stanley actually calms down once they're outside. He seems to like walking.

"They won't trade us for this, right?" Patrick says hopefully.

"After this gets out, no one will take us," Johnny says grimly, and they buckle Stanley into his seat, which pisses him off again.

~

They spend the rest of the day handing Stanley back and forth. Around seven, they manage to eat take-out, which Johnny sadfaces about because even in the offseason he hates fun, but he can fucking deal, because - well. Stanley. They change more diapers, including a shit-filled one that Patrick is never thinking about again. By 8:30, Patrick's completely fucking exhausted. Johnny looks tense the way he gets when he's tired.

And Stanley looks wide awake and prepared to scream all night long.

"Please," Patrick says to him desperately, after he's been crying for an hour, "please just stop." He's not sure he can stand another minute of this. He pretty much wants to die.

Stanley doesn't. Because misery is the fucking mother of invention, or something, Patrick says, "He liked being outside before. Let's take him out." They do, Patrick carrying Stanley and Johnny opening doors and stuff, and outside Stanley finally stops crying. They walk him around for about half an hour, and he goes to sleep, suddenly much heavier in Patrick's arms, his head on Patrick's shoulder.

They creep up to the condo with him. The Sharps left them with a, like, basket-thing and also a crib, but Patrick cannot imagine Stanley sleeping through being put down. He's only ever happy when he's with a person.

"Can you just - hold him?" Johnny whispers.

"I have to sleep sometime," Patrick whispers back. Actually, he has to sleep right now. One day with Stanley is basically the equivalent of a playoff game that goes into six overtimes. He's so fucking tired.

"Sleep with him," Johnny says, and he looks genuinely desperate.

Patrick thinks about it. The only time Stanley really slept well was on Johnny's chest earlier, so. He's willing to try it. He sits down super carefully, then wriggles his shirt up so that Johnny can pull it off him. He settles down in the chair, then settles Stanley on his chest, and Johnny covers them both with a blanket.

Patrick isn't sure this will work, but he's so tired he's falling asleep even as he thinks that.

~

Stanley wakes up at midnight, and Patrick totally has to give Johnny credit. He's right there, already getting a bottle, and he feeds Stanley while Patrick goes and brushes his teeth and changes into a pair of Johnny's sweats. Stanley, wonder of wonders, actually goes back to sleep after the bottle, and Patrick takes him back and goes right back to sleep in the chair.

Stanley wakes up again at two. And three. And four. At 5:30, he's up for good, which he announces by crying and crying and crying. By six, Patrick and Johnny have drained two pots of coffee and still can't keep their eyes open.

While Johnny's feeding Stanley, he says, "I'm going to talk to the doctor about this. This can't be normal."

Patrick raises his head off Johnny's kitchen table long enough to say, "Because you know so much about babies?"

"If all babies were like this, there wouldn't be any second babies. Or any people," Johnny points out.

When he's right, he's right. Patrick puts his head back down and catches five more minutes of sleep.

~

The pediatrician's lobby is filled with toys and little kids, which is one of those totally obvious things Patrick just didn't expect. Her office staff is like wall-to-wall hot chicks, and Patrick can't even front like he can flirt with them, given that he's carrying a baby who is currently doing a really good impression of a goal horn, and also he's covered in formula because of a bottle accident they had in the car, plus some puke from after the bottle accident. Turns out sitting in the back with Stanley doesn't make him any happier, but does put you in range of a lot of horrible stuff.

They stand in the lobby, surrounded by quieter kids and their far better parents, and take turns doing all the stuff the websites suggested - bouncing Stanley, rocking him, making a really loud shushing noise - but nothing helps.

After fifteen minutes, a woman with a kid who is, objectively, probably not all that old, but who looks like a giant compared to Stanley, leans forward and says, "How old?" She's gesturing to Stanley.

Patrick actually has to think about it, which makes him feel like a dipshit. "Uh, like two days," he finally manages. He's working on his second day, anyway.

She says, "Mine didn't start crying like that until she was seven days old. And then she didn't stop crying. And I swear I spent more time crying than she did. I honestly thought it might be possible to die from being around a crying baby too much." Patrick just nods, overwhelmed. He's never felt so understood before. She continues, "It ends. I swear it does. Just get through this."

"When does it end?" Johnny says, and he probably sounds fairly calm to someone who doesn't know him, but Patrick can hear the desperation in his voice.

The woman says, "For me, it took three months, but it started getting better at seven weeks."

Patrick moans.

"It will end," she repeats firmly.

"Thank you," Johnny says automatically. He's staring at Stanley, and he looks - stunned. Patrick has no idea what he's thinking. Then they get called back, so Stanley can get weighed (he hates it) and get a weird thing put on his foot (he hates it) and get his temperature checked (he really, really hates it, but Patrick can't blame him, because it turns out babies get their temperatures checked through the back door, and no one should get surprised there, it's like a basic human right). Then the nurse, who is super hot, smiles and leaves.

Stanley seems louder in a small room, and it feels like they wait forever. After - however long, Patrick isn't checking clocks anymore - Patrick succeeds in getting Stanley to stop crying and go to sleep, and that, of course, is when the doctor comes in.

She's calm, cool, and collected, basically everything Johnny and Patrick are not and may never be again. "I'm Dr. Anzel," she says. Johnny and Patrick introduce themselves and Johnny shakes her hand. She smiles at them and continues. "How are you doing?"

Johnny and Patrick look at each other and finally Johnny says, "We're doing. Uh. Okay." Patrick wonders if the doctor can hear that it's lie.

Apparently she can. Dr. Anzel says, "The first days are hard for everyone. Let's talk about how things are going."

She asks them questions about how they adopted him, which they manage to stumble through, and then takes them through what he's eating and how much and how he's sleeping and how often.

"Do you have a birth weight?" she asks them.

Patrick and Johnny exchange panicked glances, and Patrick finally says, "Uh, no."

Dr. Anzel nods and makes a note in her computer. "It would be helpful to get that, if you can," she says.

There are more questions, which Johnny and Patrick mostly fail to answer. Patrick keeps waiting for her to realize that they aren't competent to be - whatever, in charge of a baby - and, like, call in some kind of strike force to take Stanley away from them. She's a doctor; she should be smart enough to notice how much they suck at this. Patrick is wearing clothes that are way too big for him, and he and Johnny are both covered in formula and baby barf, and neither of them can make a complete sentence. Dr. Anzel acts like she sees this shit all the time.

"First night rough?" she asks.

Apparently this is the cue that Johnny's been waiting for. "He won't stop crying," he says. "He cries all the time."

The doctor nods. "You know, it's a little early for colic to start," she says. "But it could be that. Or it could just be him trying to adjust to things. He's eating well and he looks good, so it's probably nothing to worry about."

"Except for the part where we're both going to be crazy in another couple of days," Patrick points out. Then he adds, "Assuming we're not crazy right now."

"I know it's rough," she says sympathetically. "Tell you what. Let's go over some strategies you can use to address his crying, and then we'll do the physical exam and make sure there isn't some kind of underlying cause for this."

Patrick actually feels his gut clench at that. Like, what if he's been crying so much because he's sick or hurt or they're not treating him right? He feels so panicky about it that he kind of tunes out her discussion of ways to keep Stanley from crying. It's okay, though, because Johnny is taking notes in his phone. Patrick just wants her to look at Stanley already.

Eventually, she says it's time. "Let's try to do as much of this as we can with you holding him," she says.

She pokes and prods Stanley, waking him up. He takes it fairly okay. But then it's time to put him down on the crinkly paper. Stanley, predictably, cries and cries and cries. She checks him all over, completely ignoring the crying, and then hands him back to Patrick.

The doctor apparently has a lot of practice at talking through crying, because Patrick can understand her perfectly when she says, "You know, he's looking really good. He's doing well. I can see that you're having a hard time of it, but Stanley himself is fine."

And then she leaves them in the room, promising to come back when Stanley is calmer.

The final verdict is that Stanley is totally normal and they have to do it again in two days. "Usually," she says, "we wouldn't bring you in so quickly, but this was really his baseline visit, and I want to keep an eye on the crying." Patrick figures she wants to keep an eye on them, actually, and he can't blame her.

Patrick and Johnny nod and make their escape. At home, they feed Stanley, who immediately goes to sleep. Johnny whispers, "I'm up" and strips his shirt off before getting into the recliner. Patrick hands over Stanley like he's passing off a live grenade, and then he goes into the bedroom for two glorious hours of entirely horizontal, uninterrupted sleep.

~

Over the next few days, they manage to get a sort of rhythm going. They wake up way too early, stumble around drinking coffee and Red Bull, feed Stanley, change Stanley, carry Stanley. On the 25th, when he's all of five days old, they try to wash him. Turns out Stanley likes the water. Also turns out two professional hockey players are incapable of bathing an eight-pound baby without covering themselves and an entire bathroom with water.

The next day Patrick snaps. "We have been in your apartment forever," he tells Johnny. "I've got to get the fuck out of here." They've been out to go to the rink, to go to the doctor, and once Patrick went to his place to pick up some shit. Other than that, they've been here. Patrick is starting to hate Johnny's walls.

Johnny looks genuinely alarmed. "You'd better fucking come back," he says.

"I'm not saying I have to go alone. I'm just saying I have to get out. I have to go somewhere fun."

"Stanley's too young for your kind of fun," Johnny says, really snottily, and fuck him. Patrick's been doing his share, here. No one can say he hasn't been pulling his weight in this insane baby team.

"Fine. Then fuck you," Patrick snaps, and storms out the door. He ends up coming back like half an hour later, though, because he forgot his wallet and his keys.

When he opens the door, he can hear Stanley crying and Johnny talking to him, too quiet to make out the words. And when he walks into the bedroom, the stark relief that flashes across Johnny's face, just for a second, makes him feel - it makes him feel okay, he guesses. And kind of guilty for leaving.

"We could take him out somewhere," Patrick says.

"Yes," Johnny says instantly, so either he's tired of being stuck in here, too, or he's sorry for basically suggesting that Patrick would take their - whatever, their Stanley to a bar or someplace. "We should get out the carrier thing," Johnny adds.

Patrick thinks that's a brilliant idea - carrying Stanley everywhere basically makes it impossible to do anything, especially since they both still freak out if they don't have both hands on him at all times. And then he gets out the stupid wrap thing that the Sharps apparently picked out, and he realizes it's the worst idea anyone has ever had. If he wanted to wrap Stanley up like a present, he could probably use this thing, but he has no idea how to make it attach Stanley to his body. And Johnny keeps insisting on reading the fucking directions, which is totally useless. Stanley, who they had to put down to figure this out, is, predictably, screaming. After two minutes, Johnny and Patrick are yelling at each other at a volume that almost beats Stanley's.

After ten minutes Patrick's done. "Look, let's take him out and try to figure it out out there," he says. "Maybe he'll cry less. Maybe we'll suck less." Worse comes to worse, they can just carry him forever. It's not like they both need their hands. And they're hockey players. He's not that heavy.

Johnny nods and shoves some diapers and bottles and formula into a diaper bag with - holy fuck, with rainbow cupcakes on it. Patrick knows absolutely and completely that Sharpy picked that bag out, and also that he is a far sicker fuck than any of them had suspected. Johnny bundles the weird horrible wrap thing on top of the junk in the bag and they get the hell out.

On the street, Stanley seems happier, especially after they start walking. "Where to?" Johnny asks.

"Let's go to the Bean," Patrick suggests. Stanley seems like the kind of warped individual who would think the Bean was awesome. At least, if he takes after Patrick at all he will.

As they walk, Johnny rereads the instructions and pokes at the wrap, and Patrick carries Stanley. He finds himself pointing out sites of interest to Stanley, which is probably actually crazy, but his whole life has been crazy since the playoffs started. He's in the middle of telling Stanley about the wonders he'll behold at Millennium Park when a guy - taller than Patrick, really bulky, beard like he's in the Cup finals - stops them on the street.

"Hi," he says, and Patrick's heart just about stops, because - yeah, he's fine with fans, except how will they explain Stanley?

"Hi," Johnny says, making what Patrick knows is a really brave attempt to look glad to see a fan.

"We had that one," the guy says, "and it's a bitch unless you know the trick. Want me to show you?" Patrick realizes, belatedly, that he's indicating the wrap thing.

"God, yes," Patrick says fervently. He wants to be able to use his hands someday.

The dude takes the wrap, folds it, unfolds it, bunches it, twists it around Johnny's body, ties it, and then says, "Okay, now you put the baby in here, just kind of slide him in." Johnny does, and Stanley doesn't even mind being passed over. "Now you pull up this part and it goes like this," he continues, and - bam, just like that, Stanley is strapped securely to Johnny's chest by about eighteen yards of bright pink fabric, his head poking out at the top and pressed against Johnny's chest, and Johnny's hands are free. This dude is clearly a fucking magician. Patrick wants to marry him.

"I love you," Patrick tells the guy sincerely. "I'd offer you my firstborn, but he's really cranky." Johnny flinches sort of weirdly when he says that, but fuck him: Stanley is legit cranky.

The guy laughs. "They get better. Hey, congratulations, okay?" He waves and walks off, and Johnny and Patrick continue toward the Bean. Johnny doesn't even look upset about the bright pink aspect of things.

If Patrick were a lesser man, he'd send a picture of this to the entire team. But then Johnny'd make him wear the wrap, probably. He keeps his phone in his pocket.

~

Stanley loves the Bean and then sacks out right in the wrap, making it absolutely the best day of his life they've had so far. Johnny and Patrick pick up hot dogs and head home, and they actually have a really nice evening. The wrap thing is great. Yeah, when they have to take it off Johnny, they'll never get it back on, but in the meantime, Johnny and Patrick can eat at the same time. They can play Xbox. It's a miracle.

Until Patrick's neglected phone starts buzzing and buzzing and buzzing. When Johnny checks his, it's dead, but as soon as he plugs it in, it starts buzzing, too. They stare at each other for a moment of supreme horror, and then Patrick picks up his phone and looks.

So many texts. So many voicemails. His phone rings, and Patrick just looks, and then he carefully refuses the call and goes to his texts. The first one is from Erica:

OMG YOU LOSER. Y didnt you say u had baybeeeeeeee w j? Did u name her after me?

The next one is from Seabs:

Congrats i guess but srsly wtf

And the one after that is from Patrick's cousin Jimmy. It has a link to Deadspin.

"You look," Patrick says. "I have Deadspin issues."

"You look," Johnny tells him. "You're used to this shit." Normally, Patrick would be pissed off about that, but he's too busy going through his usual stages of having been Deadspinned. He's at the stage where he still thinks he can just spend forever not looking.

Johnny makes an impatient noise and grabs Patrick's phone. "I guess it could be worse," he says after a few minutes. He sounds shellshocked. Patrick's gotten all the way to the ripping off the bandaid stage, so he grabs it back. The headline reads:

It's The End Of Manliness As We Know It: Patrick Kane And Jonathan Toews Have A Baby

There's a helpful picture with the article; it's them at the Bean, with Stanley strapped to Johnny in the bright pink wrap and Patrick carrying the stupid fucking rainbow cupcake diaper bag. Patrick's bending over a little, talking to Stanley, and Johnny appears, bizarrely and basically uniquely, to be smiling.

"Oh, shit," Patrick says. "Oh, shit."

His phone rings again. It's his mother.

Johnny's face has gone absolutely white. "I have to call -" he says. "But you first. Go ahead, answer."

"I - seriously? What do you expect me to say?" The phone stops ringing. Patrick can't hide his relief.

"Waiting isn't going to make it better," Johnny says. "Call yours. Then I'll call mine." He gets up and goes into the bedroom still wearing Stanley, leaving the field clear for Patrick.

Patrick tries to figure out if he could maybe just pretend to call, and then Johnny pokes his head back out and says, "Call. Now." He's using his captain voice, the one that suggests that it's a choice between doing what he says and losing your dick.

Patrick picks up the phone and dials.

"Patrick," his mother says when she answers. Her tone is absolutely level, and Patrick is already fighting the urge to confess everything he's ever done wrong. She waits, and she just - she can always fucking wait him out.

"It's not what it looks like," he tries.

There's a pause, his mother obviously thinking, and then she says, "To me it looks as though you and Johnny have a baby. If it's not how it looks - did you kidnap her?"

"Him. Stanley," Patrick says, and winces. "Look, it's. It's complicated."

"I can see that," his mother says. She's waiting again. The phone is basically totally full of her patient waiting, no words required.

Patrick caves and explains the whole thing. At the end, his mother says, "You have a baby."

"Right," Patrick says.

"And you decided I should find out when Jackie's friend Brenda sent her a link," she continues.

"We didn't know it would get on Deadspin," Patrick says, and even he can hear how weak it is.

"He's my grandson," she says. "My only one. And I found out about his existence from Deadspin."

Patrick is so, so dead.

Part 2

Help?

2012-05-29T07:00:42Z

Okay, so, recently I've been having this thing where sometimes I post an entry, and it looks posted, but if I log out, I can't see it, even though it isn't locked (and doesn't have any icon indicating that it's locked.)

This time, something even weirder than that is happening: I just posted an entry, and I can see it, even logged out, on my computer, but I can't see it if I'm logged out on my iPad. I have checked this several times on each device. SO CONFUSED.

So if you've got a moment, I'd appreciate it if you'd go to my journal to see if you can see the entry - Fannish Psychological Testing - and if you can't, let me know. Lord knows I will need ALL THE DATA if I'm going to ask LJ support about this one.

Fannish Psychological Testing

2012-05-29T06:38:06Z

Recently, Best Beloved and I had the pleasure of being test subjects for rachelmanija. She needed a local couple that had been together at least six months to take a psychological assessment tool, and, well, we have indeed been together for more than six months, which apparently makes us something of a rarity in the greater Los Angeles area. I'm not depressed about that at all.

We filled out the instrument side by side, as instructed, which was a problem because, uh, Best Beloved and I are used to sharing our opinions. (And also asking for clarification. Given that when you're administering these tests, you can't say anything but "Just do the best you can" and "Pick whichever one seems most appropriate" without invalidating them, we are probably the worst subjects ever. Rachel used those sentences a lot. And the thing is, I knew she couldn't clarify, and yet I still wanted her to, which is a problem I have had with psychological tests since, basically, ever. I would just like everything to be clear, okay?) And we had a lot of opinions about that test. So it sort of went like this:

Me, to Best Beloved: Number 26. I mean, not on purpose, but -
Best Beloved: I know! I guess - false?
Rachel: Maybe try to collude a little less?
Us: Sorry.
Best Beloved: 44, though. I can't just do yes or no on that one!
Me: Well, I put true, because it's more true than false, but yeah, I need a scale.
Rachel: You're colluding again.
Us: Sorry.
Me: Oh, god, 81.
Best Beloved: I don't even know. Could go either way. I'm putting false.
Rachel: STOP COLLUDING.

I gather from this that relationship therapists have to spend a lot of time telling their clients to stop talking to each other, which is not how I envisioned it prior to this experience.

But my major take-home from all this was that, frankly, the instrument sucked. It was unclear, it had questions that were absolutes, and it had questions that made me want to write lengthy essays as opposed to circling true or false. (Also, it was hugely biased in favor of heterosexual, monogamous, gendernormative couples, which was no big deal in our case since we were basically taking it for kicks, but makes it much less useful in practice. If you're not straight, or not monogamous, or genderqueer, or in any way not in line with the cultural norm, then finding a relationship therapist is probably fraught with extra stress - like, not only do you have to go in there and deal with your shit, but you also have to go in there and hope the therapist takes your relationship seriously, which has got to just massively suck. And how great would it be, feeling that way, already nervous for all kinds of reasons, to sit down and take this very biased survey that says, "Hey! When I say 'relationship,' I don't mean you." NOT THAT GREAT, I'm guessing.)

Also, the test was just boring. I'm sorry, but people who already have problems should not be subjected to lengthy tests that are roughly as interesting as an eight-part documentary on dryer lint. I could not help it; I was compelled to write some more fannishly oriented questions. So, here you go:

The Fannish Relationship Survey

If I were transported to another universe, I would immediately try to find my partner's analogue. (T/F)
If it was an evil mirror universe, I would still try to find my partner's analogue. (T/F)
I would also expect my partner's analogue to find me, even if said analogue had no way of knowing I was there. (T/F)
My partner and I are capable of having complete conversations using only eyebrows, shoulder punches, or awkward, shuffling silences. (T/F)
Other people have sometimes accused my partner and I of being telepathic. (T/F)
If my partner or I were to turn evil, so that we had to spend the next fifty years as mortal enemies, I would still expect us to be there for each other in times of personal crisis. (T/F)
I have brought my partner back from the dead, or my partner has brought me back from the dead. (T/F)
I have sacrificed my life, my sanity, or other people's lives to bring my partner back from the dead, or vice versa. (T/F)
I have remolded reality to protect my relationship. (T/F)
Our souls, or a representation of our souls, have merged. (T/F)
My partner's soul is as much my responsibility as my own. (T/F)
If my partner is ever grievously injured, I will violate hospital protocols, not to mention health and safety regulations, to keep a weeping bedside vigil, even during lifesaving surgery. (T/F)
If I am ever grievously injured, my partner is likely to quit, go catatonic, go berserk, or otherwise become a less than functional member of society. (T/F)
At least one improbable being (mystical creature, copy of me from another dimension, minor deity, etc.) has declared that it is my destiny to be with my partner. (T/F)
Basically the entire universe has declared that it is my destiny to be with my partner. (T/F)
I am fairly sure that if I ever leave my partner, the universe will end. (T/F)
My partner was at some point literally the only boy/girl/other in the world, and neither of us minded. (T/F)
If one of us was transformed into a vampire, that person would immediately transform the other. (T/F)

(Scoring note: One point for every true. Anyone who scores more than 14 on this survey should probably take a different test. One that measures how well in touch you are with reality.)

See? Now there is a test that I would enjoy taking. Although I admit most of the pleasure would come from working with BB to identify all the couples references, which would mean Rachel would have to spend even more time telling us to stop talking to each other. (Eventually, she'd probably have to threaten to put us in separate rooms. The motto of psychological testing is, and always has been, "Stop having fun or I will turn this session around and no one will get any therapy.")

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

226: GIANT COCK ANGST

2012-05-22T07:17:18Z

frostfire tends to tell me about whatever media she's consuming. (So, for example, I know a lot about True Blood for someone who has never seen it and never will. This gives me joy, since it lets me pretend I have some real connection with popular culture, instead of just a really long mental list of all the fictional people who should be fucking each other.) Recently, she told me about a story she was reading. (Just to give you some idea of what it's like, this is a story that forced us to use the terms cocksobriety and gaymaker a lot. Proper usage, in case you're curious: "That's it, he's fallen off the wagon. His cocksobriety is a thing of the past." "Yeah, [character] totally hit him with a gaymaker, and now he's just COCK COCK COCK all the time.") It is glorious. I can't remember the last time just hearing about a work of fiction made me so happy.

And probably the thing that has made me happiest is this key plot element: One of the characters has an enormous penis, and this gives him angst. Yes. This man's main source of anguish is his GIANT COCK. (No, this is in no way attached to other gender issues. He just - has tremendous insecurity, caused entirely by his HUMONGOUS WANG.)

Well. Obviously this is the best thing in the world. Because, first, it has finally given me a TV-Tropes-type name for a fiction phenomenon that has long irritated me, which is when the character has a trait that 99% of people would think is totally great and maybe even pay lots of money for, but which the author pretends is a major problem leading to extreme and possibly insurmountable trauma. I needed that. For the rest of my life, when I encounter a character who is gleamingly perfect except for all the tragedy arising from being, like, too happy or whatever, I will go, "Hello, GIANT COCK ANGST!" and giggle a lot.

But GIANT COCK ANGST did not stop giving there. I'd been thinking of TV Tropes, and from there it was a short step to just plain old tropes, and I realized that GIANT COCK ANGST is a concept that needs further exploring in fiction. I mean, just consider the potential in hockey RPF alone! Sidney Crosby (who was once rumored to have a giant cock) and his GIANT COCK ANGST, caused by the many remarks made in the locker room about his, you know, horsedick. (Obviously, Sidney would be a virgin because of his GIANT COCK ANGST.) And, of course, there should really be like eight stories called The Giant Cock Angst of Patrick Kane, because come on. Patrick Kane totally has GIANT COCK ANGST, despite having a completely normal-sized penis. (And he definitely talks about his GCA all the time, too, which leads to Tazer having a cock-related breakdown. (Quote from this imaginary story: "Baby, there is nothing average about this gorgeous piece of manmeat," Kaner says, sprawling really offensively to display his goods to maximum advantage. Johnny is pretty sure Kaner's practiced this in front of a mirror, just to make him crazy, and it pisses him off how well it's working.))

But the sad news I have for you today is that there I have no actual GIANT COCK ANGST stories to recommend. There's just the one I know of, and obviously I haven't even read it. So I am going to share with you these other stories. (I just want you to be thinking about GIANT COCK ANGST. Forever, basically. I know I will be.)

The One That at Long Last Satisfies My Desire to See a Vampire Get Called an Idiot a Lot. Look, I Read Interview with the Vampire at a Formative Age, Okay? Where the wild things are, by liketheroad. Hockey RPF, Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews.

Midway through this story, I realized I was in pain. My face hurt. After several seconds of careful consideration, I realized I was experiencing muscle pain from smiling too much. And, you know, I smile a lot anyway, but apparently I don't smile for protracted periods of time without at least a small break. My cheek muscles were cramping.

So that's the center of my recommendation: This story made me smile until my face hurt so much I had to keep taking breaks to play Bubble Shooter. Maybe it will make your face hurt, too! Worth a shot.

And, okay, I have never read Twilight, and beyond the sparkling vampire thing, don't really know what goes on it. But if it's all Bella, like, yelling at Edward to get over his issues and stop being so creepy, and trying to force him to be more like an actual functional person, I am so ready to read it. I will borrow my mother's copies right now. (Yes. My mother has read the entire series. I don't want to talk about it.) This story - look, when there's an old immortal doing the Bonding Tango with a high school student, I worry. But that is seriously not a problem in this story, where Kaner is actually the one in charge of the entire pursuit-capture-turning thing, and Tazer's job is to stand around being confused and creepy and occasionally saving Kaner's life. (Kaner is also the more functional human being, which, given that we are talking about Patrick Kane, should tell you something about how vampirism affects Tazer.)

Although I really have to ask those of you who have read Twilight: Does Edward for serious spend his entire immortal life endlessly repeating high school? If so, why? Is he being punished? Because if he is, I salute the vampires for figuring out the perfect way to punish someone you can't really lock up or kill or spank or whatever, but I can only assume Edward did something really and truly awful (...attempted to destroy the planet?), in which case probably they shouldn't let him near Bella. And if he didn't do anything and is just spontaneously choosing to repeat high school endlessly, clearly there is something seriously wrong with him, and, again, he shouldn't be allowed near Bella. (Even if he was okay to start with, eternity in high school would eventually leave him barking, in which case, yes, he shouldn't be allowed near Bella.)

The One That Proves That at the End of the World, You're Going to Want to Be Able to Pickle. And Maybe Also Deal with Your Issues, but I Don't Know If It's Possible to Be Able to Do Both, and This Story Does Not Clear That Up. In Search Of, by toft. Mythbusters RPF, Jamie Hyneman/Adam Savage.

Okay. There are some stories you know you shouldn't read. This is absolutely one of those stories for me. It has animal harm! Child harm! The world ends! Bad stuff happens. And I am not a copes-well-with-bad-stuff person. I am a person who recently had an argument with her sister about who cries more easily. (We were waiting for the crowds to clear after a performance of Billy Elliot. It was topical. The conclusion, by the way: There comes a point where it doesn't matter, and that point is significantly behind both of us.)

So. This is not the story for me. I read it anyway. Partly that's because, hey, toft! She's good in anything! And partly - look. Sometimes I have Bad Story Sieges, where every single thing I attempt to read, no matter how good it looks, no matter how much I love the concept, no matter how sure I am it will be awesome, turns out to be a disaster. (I'm not sure if I hope I'm the only one this happens to, or if I want company in my misery.) In those situations, I will take risks I maybe shouldn't to break the siege. (For the record: If a beta of a story who knows your reading tastes only too well tells you that you absolutely should not read it, do not believe anyone else who tells you that you could. The beta knows it better. The end.) And this story did in fact break that particular streak of fan fiction disasters. You have to love a slumpbuster, even if it's not your usual fare.

But even if this story hadn't broken my siege, I think I would still have loved it. Yes, even though I reacted badly to certain sections. I love it enough to put up with the pain. Because, let's face it, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman are near the top of your Real People I Want to Team up with if the World Ends list. (Don't even tell me if you don't have that list, because I will just fret. Proper preparation prevents poor performance, people!) Because this story is something to bring to mind the next time you're stuck in traffic and wishing everyone would just disappear. Because Adam and Jamie adopt a baby and they name her Leia. I just: Adam. Jamie. Apocalypse. Baby. That right there is a winning recipe.

...If you can handle animal harm. For real don't read this if you can't.

The Series That Proves That Dira Can't Resist Having Babies of Some Species in Her Stories. Or, in Other Words: PUPPIES! (I Approve.) Every Marine a Wolfbrother, by dira. Generation Kill, Brad Colbert/Ray Person, Brad Colbert/Nate Fick, Brad Colbert/Awesome.

Okay, I think every single person who is willing to read a series featuring US Marines psychically bonded to wolves has already read this, but my philosophy about that is that I don't care, I'm recommending it anyway. If I worry about things like timeliness and so on, I will never get anything posted. (This is why I don't instarec. If I did, it would read like, "OMG you guys totally go check out Dorothy Sayers! And this Murasaki lady is pretty darned awesome as well!")

And I would actually have recommended it earlier except I kept debating about which of the stories in the series to recommend. I finally realized that this was a sign I should just go with the whole series. (Yes, I did already recommend the first story in this series. So good I recommended it twice!) Because this is amazing. I've mentioned before that I have never and will never read A Companion to Wolves, but this series does such an incredible job of updating it, bringing it into a modern context, and making it make sense. Which is. You know. Amazing. I mean, this is Dira, so you sort of expect amazing, but still. This series is basically the equivalent, in terms of challenge level and so on, of writing a Tolkien barista AU and making it work. (Oh, man, I bet Rivendell is the name of a massively snooty coffee shop (although people in the know call it Imladris), where all the employees are seriously gorgeous but will not give you the time of day. They have Dead Language Open Mic Nights and Crystal Instrument Musicale Tuesdays. Arwen is the daughter of the owner; she gets harassed a lot for wanting to marry this dude who is totally scruffy and, like, mainstream. No, wait, I am stopping this right now.)

Given that Dira makes this central concept work, it's almost beside the point to mention that she makes so many other things work. I mean. I can't quite call to mind any other story I've read recently in which the main pairing gets bored in the middle of sex and talks about surfing (no, Dom and Brian, talking about cars doesn't count, especially since for you that is sex), but that happens in one of these, and it works. Probably the key miracle in this series is that Dira switches pairings between the stories, which. Uh. I have a very sensitive OTP Detector, and generally I can read only one pairing per fandom. Multiple pairings in a single series is tough. Multiple pairings involving the same dude - that's basically impossible. (Although not hugely surprisingly in this case, since a side theme of the series, as with every Generation Kill story I have ever read, is "Wow, Brad Colbert is really awesome. I mean. Wow. I just. SO GREAT, people. SO GREAT. I think he's made entirely of sparkledust and swear words!") But Dira made me read it, buy it, and like it. I think she wins the Impossible Feat of the Year Award, hands-down.

Unless someone really does write that Tolkien barista AU, I guess. (Suggested name for a new AO3 collection: Tolkien AUs Are Fucking Hardcore.)

The One That Leaves Me Wondering if Anyone Ever Buys a Robot Who Totally 100% Means to Buy a Robot, or if in the Future All Robot Purchases Will Occur While Drunk, Upset, Concussed, Confused, or Whatever. (And Yes, I Do Wonder How That Will Affect Marketing Strategies.) The Chinese Room, by tyrannicides. Football RPF, Iker Casillas/Cesc Fabregas.

Okay, so this is a robot AU. Stop rolling your eyes at me, youngun. I do not recommend every single robot AU that comes down the pike. Just the awesome ones. It is not my fault if the trope tends to lead to awesome stories.

And this one is sincerely awesome. Unfortunately, it's incredibly hard to write about without spoiling it. (Although I will say this: if you read it and like it, read it twice. I liked this on first reading - lovely writing, gorgeous story, solid characterization given that I have basically no clue who these people are, etc. And then I re-read it and picked up so much more of what the author was doing. First time good, second time better!)

But this does leave me in a quandary. For reasons that do not require spoiling at this juncture, I can't talk about the story, beyond, you know, the basics (There's a writer with agoraphobia! He buys an android!). And since I don't know the characters basically at all, I can't talk about them. (They play for - football teams. In Spain. Beyond that, all I can tell you is that my conclusion is that Iker maybe has some issues, and might also be a trifle uptight. And Cesc is a puppy. Probably this one.) So what do I talk about in this rec?

I mean, I could tell you about the world building in this story. (Remarkable, especially given that we're talking about one character who basically does not leave his house and another character who has no understanding of what the world actually is.) I could tell you that this story really made me think about all the things you can do with a robot AU. (I guess there's nothing that lets you get to the heart of humanity like writing about someone who is not technically human and doesn't actually have a heart?) I could tell you about the writing. (It's lovely.) I could tell you how compelling this story is. (Very.) I could tell you this story legit made me tear up in several places. (Granted, this is not all that challenging, but still.) Or I could go the rec-unrelated-to-the-story route, always a favorite of mine, and, say, tell you about how I recently discovered that my son's first preschool teacher maaaaaaybe has been able to hear my wife and I having sex for the last three years. (Whoops.)

Or I could just tell you to go read the story. Yeah, let's go with that option. (Go read it! It's good!)

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.

Hockey: Love. And Pain. But Let's Focus on the Love.

2012-04-16T03:14:26Z

The playoffs are depressing the fuck out of me, people. (And it's not like this week was not already bad enough. I mean. Someone should have warned me the playoffs would be agony (ALL OF YOU should have warned me the playoffs would be agony), and then I would not also have chosen this week to attempt a major technological change and a major household change.) So I thought I'd take a moment to remind myself why hockey is not just misery and pain. Because there are things I love about hockey, too. Right? Right. Let's talk about THOSE for a change.

Why I Love Patrick Kane. The Kaner Shuffle video.

Okay, so. When I first watched this, the person who linked me to it made me liveblog it. And she was right: watching it unspoiled and reacting to it in realtime is the way to go. So watch it now, and then we will talk about why this is the essence of awesome, and also the essence of Patrick Kane, which leads us to the dubious but mathematically indisputable conclusion that Patrick Kane is awesome.

Done? Okay.

Here are the things I just cannot get over about this video:

Tazer saying, "Nice shirt. Looks good on him." And I have had this video analyzed by a Johnathan Toews Sarcasm Specialist who is really pretty sure he's being HONEST when he says that. OH REALLY, TAZER? Everyone else noticed that that was a terrible shirt that basically made him look like a sack of cheap souvenirs they sell tourists in Honolulu. You think it looks good on him? Tazer also says, in all sincerity, "That's an NHL superstar, right there." I mean. He's trying to make fun of Kaner, but he calls him a superstar. Hmmm. From this, we can learn that a) Tazer has absolutely no taste and b) Tazer has absolutely no ability to conceal how completely and totally he adores Patrick Kane. Like, he doesn't just love him. He adores him. Wow.
Patrick Kane saying, "Haters can keep hating, but I'm just going to dance." That, right there, is all you need to know about Patrick Kane. How can you not love this guy?
So many of the Blackhawks are impressed with slow mo. It's like they keep them in a box and only let them see technology if they're advertising it. I'm a little worried about them, to be honest.
But here's the great part, the amazing part, the best part of all: Patrick Kane is the best dancer. On the entire team. They all laugh at him, but they're worse than he is. Which, see - with the Christmas singing video, I was like, fine, whatever, these guys can't sing. But they're athletes. How can they not DANCE? How is it that not one of them can hear a beat or move his upper body in coordination with his lower body? Seriously, the lack of (non-hockey) talent on the Blackhawks roster is amazing. I'm starting to suspect that if these guys weren't playing hockey, they'd be on exhibit in a zoo somewhere.

In other words, as I said in the comments a while back, this is the video that perfectly explains Kaner. He's the worst! But he's HONESTLY the worst, and he's FINE with being the worst, and also sometimes you think he's the worst and he's actually the best.

Why I Love Sidney Crosby. Sidney Crosby Does Not Understand Humans, by impertinence. (Make sure you read the linked inspiration at the top of each one, both because Mark Doesn't Understand Animals is pretty funny, and because it will help you grasp the pure joy of this post.)

Okay, so this is only part of why I love Sidney Crosby, but god, I love it (and him) so much, because this ALL MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. Sidney Crosby just - he missed out on the "understanding humans" part of his education! (He's sure got the being a brat thing covered, but I think his parents wrote him a note to get him out of all his Human Studies classes.)

Now, let's talk favorite bits of this. First, there's the one I think of as Sidney Crosby Is Actually Fine with Humans, Provided They Are Under the Age of Four. Because, I mean, until someone actually makes the NHL Players with Babies Tumblr I yearn for, or until I break down and do it, this is as good as it gets: Sidney Crosby being really good with very small children, and then sort of recoiling in confusion from older children. You can almost hear him thinking, in the middle panel of the kids one, "But this one looks like a person, not a baby! What do I doooooo?"

And then there's the one with Jordan Staal. (You will recognize him. He's the one with the blondest, most unfortunate hair you have ever seen, unless you spend a lot of time looking at hockey players, in which case you have seen a lot of unfortunate hair, so much that this doesn't even register. Spend too much time in hockey and you start to think all haircuts are great unless they are, like, mullets with random tufts of hair missing AND a terrible perm, all on the same head.) Read it and I promise you will never be able to behold a Staal without thinking, "Oh no! This one is all poofy and stuff." Seriously, it improves Penguins, Rangers, and Hurricanes games by at least 15%.

But, basically, if you've ever wanted to see Sidney Crosby staring cluelessly at the entire human race, but for some reason you don't want to just google random pictures of him, this is the post for you. Go. Revel.

Why I Love Alexander Ovechkin. Alexander Ovechkin talking about jerking off, ably translated by marina.

Someday, marina is going to write the best Ovechkin primer in the world. I am hoping that day is soon. Like, in a week or two would be ideal, because by then my teams will probably be out of the playoffs, god damn them all to hell, and I'll have lots of time to read the post. And it will keep me from crying.

But until that glorious day, this is a really damn good substitute. Marina has spent her time trawling the internets for Ovechkin stuff, which I think we can agree is the best possible use of said time, and basically she's found all the most fabulous things in the world. Including this video, which is in Russian, but which she has helpfully translated so that we can all appreciate the beauty of Alex Ovechkin laughing, on stage, in front of an audience, about how he jerks off every day. That is the kind of thing that would deserve a Great Service to Fandom award, if we gave awards for that. (Actually, I guess we do? But it's mostly in the form of commentfic. Which - wait, where is the Ovechkin masturbation commentfic? NOW I FEEL DEPRIVED, FANDOM.)

And even if you do speak Russian, for real, read her translation, because her comments on the amazing acting talent of Alexander Ovechkin are worth it, my friends. Ovechkin: Maybe not the guy you'd pick first to cast in Hamlet, basically. Even if you were doing an all-NHL-player version of Hamlet. (Worst. Idea. Ever. Although I'm eager to discuss who would get to be Ophelia. I am thinking maybe Roberto Luongo.)

Why I Love Goalies. Colorado Avalanche: The Oldies, by vamm_goda.

Okay, so a bit ago vamm_goda posted the most amazing primer I have ever read, for the Colorado Avalanche, a team I had barely heard of. (Like, my sole point of reference before then was from when I shared an office with the world's most dedicated sports fan, who once spent an entire work afternoon arguing violently and fiercely with internet strangers on the subject of Colorado Avalanche: Stupidest Team Name Ever? Seriously, he took regular breaks to stride around the office and rant about the most irritating comments to us, gesticulating wildly and demanding we agree with how crazy this was, which, you know, we did, but only because he was himself clearly worryingly unbalanced. I mean, to give you some idea, I remember his flailing arms with great clarity, but I've forgotten what side he was on.) Anyway. I read this primer over the course of a couple of days, and I went from knowing nothing at all about the Avalanche to being genuinely interested and caring, which is - let's just say that even if I'm the only one who had that reaction, this primer still made an appreciable difference in the current total worldwide level of caring about the Avalanche. An impressive feat!

But if you don't want to read the whole primer - and you should! - you should at least read this post, because like all teams, the Avalanche has had some amazing and fascinating people on its roster. And if you don't read the whole thing - though you should! - just scan down until you find Patrick Edward Armand Roy, because - okay. Recently, someone on my friends list was asking why goalies are always said to be crazy. This post will answer that question. (Spoiler: IT'S BECAUSE THEY ARE CRAZY.) Patrick Roy was a fantastic goalie with an unnatural interest in his teammates' underwear, a desire to beat the shit out of any player who touched his net, and an apparent total lack of skill at pillow fights. (YES. Pillow fights. It's like that one commercial come to life! With a lunatic French-Canadian in it.) Basically, either he was crazy to start with (which I think is true) or being a goalie drove him crazy (which I also think is true), but either way: Dude was batshit.

But fun batshit. It's people like Patrick Roy who remind me why I love hockey. It isn't because my teams win (they don't, those motherfuckers). It's because the people involved are fascinating, and by fascinating I mean really weird and vaguely gay.

Okay. I think I can survive another week of the playoffs now. Tune in next week, when I will probably be doing a post entitled Screw It, Here's All the Reasons Hockey Is a Heartbreaker.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comments.