this world is gonna burn as long as we're going down
ugh so my life is rn a disaster let's talk about the fic i've wasted time reading! if you've been into hockey rpf ever you've read these but i have a lot of feels okay. they're all really long. i'm really into them.
nb: i am pretty explicitly into hockey fic for the fanon characterisations; i watch hockey, too, but i can pretty well separate the two (i also am a hockey BABY so i rely heavily on other people to translate games for me). so basically i don't care if toews/anyone is ooc because i have negative five hundred interest in reading about actual real human jonathan toews boning anyone (real human jonathan toews would probably make me stab him, lbr; fanon tazer is adorable and hilarious). also i will maintain till i die that hockey is a black hole of unattractive dudes, with like two marked exceptions (lundqvist + sharpie, you know what's up). fanon patrick kane basically owns me and will own me for the next long while.
a light-handed approach to regulation. [Kane/Toews.]
I don't talk about it much (as far as I'm aware - maybe I do and have just blocked it out!) but I really love kink-based alternate universes (alternate universes in general but um power dynamics are so great). This is SO GOOD because it's so political, keenly political - Alpha/Beta/Omega universes played straight don't really do a lot for me, but I love the way that hazel built the norms and the laws, the way a lot of it's unspoken so it comes out in a reread (I have reread it SO MANY TIMES). The use of scent is fucking killer and the character dynamics get me where I live (sometimes I'm pretty into played-straight power dynamics but mostly I love it when they're playful, esp ~in bed~). I was really into the way that both main characters maintained their agency. Also, it was pretty hot.
The one thing that really niggled at me though was what happened to the abused sub :( She made me really sad! I wanted to give her all the hugs. I guess that was the point of her? I don't know, the rest of the story was light enough, I guess, that it felt out of place. Again, probably the point.
I'd really like to read more about this Kaner and Tazer - particularly as they start to get more political. I hope they get more political. I hope they interact more with other alphas and omegas; I'd like to watch Kaner learn more about his world, about himself. (Not that the journey he takes in the fic itself isn't incredibly satisfying, and subtle, and well-handled.) I didn't necessarily want to read about other characters in that universe (though I would be interested in Sharpy's take on everything, given his position with a traditional sister and then super reform Jonathan and Patrick) but I did really want more of Jonathan and Patrick and just like, their lives? I wish this fic would spawn a whole bunch of supplementary material because I really, really think it deserves it.
Ugh just tell me about the 2014 Olympics forever *___*
But yeah in general what an extraordinarily good piece of writing! Such great criticism even within fandom tropes; the kind of story that is really the pinnacle of fandom-as-transformative, fandom-as-questioning. UGH LOVE FOREVER.
Chelsea, Chelsea, I Believe. [Patrick Kane, OCs. Kane/Toews, but it's not the point.] WIP
[Spoilery]
This is the kidfic to end all kidfic O M G. I have read this fic an embarrassing amount of times over the past few days, because it's brilliant. I am entirely enamoured of this Kane, in all his fuckups and his self-awareness. Every supporting character makes me SO HAPPY. Like, for fuck's sake, SHARPIE. I'm obsessed with the Sharps. Also Liz and Julie and Chelsea! OC women are hard to get right and I thiiink Liz is a little on the wish-fulfillment side of things, sometimes, but I love her so much it's hard to deal. Julie fascinates me and I would actually read her POV for days or a story about her in Stockholm/whereever she is now. It wouldn't even need a lot of Kaner.
I'm just really into the Kaner, though, holy crap. Toews is almost irrelevant for me (though his interactions with Julie and with Chelsea make my liiife) and idk, the prequel didn't really work for me (though obvs not to Patrick), so I'm falling into my woobie trap of just wanting Kane to never ever forgive Jonny and wallow in how great he's being. (Yeah, I'm irrational sometimes.) Literally every supporting character is fascinating, like they all have their own lives (SHELL!!!!) and I adooore that, it's like actually reading about a real world.
Chelsea is the best wee girl character ever and I'm really excited to find out what happens with her! And also if someone will ever punch Jonny because lbr he has it coming a little bit. I really didn't see Liz' death coming, initially, and I was defs on the verge of hoping that she and Pat would work it out a little, get to know each other on real-person terms (I really liked that neither party was innocent, that both of them were projecting something onto the other person but that was okay, not malicious, just something borne of lack of familiarity). When he was going through her stuff it was really painful. I'm really impressed by the way she stays in the story - a lot of kidfic where the moms aren't main characters doesn't manage to keep them as central to the kids' lives, or woven in inherently, but Liz is always on Patrick's mind and on Chelsea's and I like that a lot.
I'm basically a sucker for all the found-family stuff. I've been doing a bunch of PKane research lately (l o l) and I totally buy this characterization of him - with a lot of fic about Kaner, especially when it engages with what a fuck up he's been, historically, it tends to strip away his agency (often giving it to Jonny, which, the worst), but this is 100% about Kaner and his issues and his baby girl and I love it. (I will remain suspicious of Jonny until the end of tiiiime. But in a good way.) I really like how she's characterized Kaner and his issues - the ones about not being able to open up and trust people, as opposed to being fundamentally inadequate. That definitely resonates with me.
I really hope Carts shows up in part 3, though I'll understand if he doesn't. (SHARPIE AND CARTS FOREVER.)
Hockey At The End Of The World.[Carter/Richards, John Stevens, everyone else.]
Man I was a little unsure about this one at the start - the worldbuilding seemed weird/iffy and I'm not really versed in the Kings or the Carts/Richie saga beyond how ridiculous it is - but pretty quickly I got sucked in and burned through the whole thing in a couple of hours. (During which, I might add, I don't think my heartrate was normal or healthy. JESUS FUCK THIS FIC.)
Not only is it a really chilling dystopia, which, my primary fandom was The Hunger Games for like three years, but it's also a really cool way to use hockey - significantly more ice-time than I've seen anywhere else. I really loved the games, they were super visceral and smartly-written and absorbing.
[SPOILERY] I've never really cared about Carts/Richie but after I was done with this I dragged myself through the rest of the archive because holy shit, things I need to never be done with, ways I needed to soothe my soul. Good god, my feelings about every character - everyone is well-rounded and alive and I really appreciated that the author never pulled any punches. They're all fucked up and sometimes they do good things but that doesn't alleviate the bad things; my KINGDOM for a history of Julia/Maggie, except that it would break my heart.
The ending I don't think 1000% worked for me - it didn't feel like an ending, which I think is a common theme with dystopias because if you don't actually wanna write a revolutionary war you kinda have to bow out early. But I mean, given the amount of emotional investment I had in the supporting characters I was a little bitter to end with just Carts and Richie (and I'm still upset about Stevens' death, in a not-entirely-"this served the story well" sort of way) and even more to end with them just being ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS, god. Given that the theme of the story that I'd taken was that you connect with other people, you make networks even when things are shitty, I was really bummed out to see them alone at the end.
That's not to say that I didn't really love the reading experience, though. The knowledge of the hockey and the players - all those little informational asides, things I knew were Easter Eggs even if I didn't exactly know what they were referring to - that was fantastic and really made the story for me. I'm now really into Sharp + Jeff/Mike because that shit is ADORABLE (every time I think about them getting a phone to Sharp I sob into my mouth because OH MY GOD) but like, overwhelmingly I want more of the universe. TELL ME ABOUT THE REDS PLEASE GOD TELL ME ABOUT THE REDS.
Also like, Sidney Crosby had a paragraph or two and I can't even articulate how much I want to know what happened to him (though part of me really doesn't want to know, part of me just wants to grab him away and wrap him up in a blanket and keep him safe forever). WHY DID YOU GO ALL ROBOTIC SIDNEY :'( PLEASE DON'T DIE.
In conclusion, I basically was enamoured but I really felt like the ending was too abrupt, not just because I'd love more of the world (but if someone doesn't write the story of the Reds I might cry for a year, just saying).
Also, I made a hockey rpf primer of sorts for laniaaa . It's hanging out on my tumblr: how i stopped respecting myself and learned to love the mullet: a cautionary tale. It's really just me having a lot of Kaner feels.
nb: i am pretty explicitly into hockey fic for the fanon characterisations; i watch hockey, too, but i can pretty well separate the two (i also am a hockey BABY so i rely heavily on other people to translate games for me). so basically i don't care if toews/anyone is ooc because i have negative five hundred interest in reading about actual real human jonathan toews boning anyone (real human jonathan toews would probably make me stab him, lbr; fanon tazer is adorable and hilarious). also i will maintain till i die that hockey is a black hole of unattractive dudes, with like two marked exceptions (lundqvist + sharpie, you know what's up). fanon patrick kane basically owns me and will own me for the next long while.
a light-handed approach to regulation. [Kane/Toews.]
I don't talk about it much (as far as I'm aware - maybe I do and have just blocked it out!) but I really love kink-based alternate universes (alternate universes in general but um power dynamics are so great). This is SO GOOD because it's so political, keenly political - Alpha/Beta/Omega universes played straight don't really do a lot for me, but I love the way that hazel built the norms and the laws, the way a lot of it's unspoken so it comes out in a reread (I have reread it SO MANY TIMES). The use of scent is fucking killer and the character dynamics get me where I live (sometimes I'm pretty into played-straight power dynamics but mostly I love it when they're playful, esp ~in bed~). I was really into the way that both main characters maintained their agency. Also, it was pretty hot.
The one thing that really niggled at me though was what happened to the abused sub :( She made me really sad! I wanted to give her all the hugs. I guess that was the point of her? I don't know, the rest of the story was light enough, I guess, that it felt out of place. Again, probably the point.
I'd really like to read more about this Kaner and Tazer - particularly as they start to get more political. I hope they get more political. I hope they interact more with other alphas and omegas; I'd like to watch Kaner learn more about his world, about himself. (Not that the journey he takes in the fic itself isn't incredibly satisfying, and subtle, and well-handled.) I didn't necessarily want to read about other characters in that universe (though I would be interested in Sharpy's take on everything, given his position with a traditional sister and then super reform Jonathan and Patrick) but I did really want more of Jonathan and Patrick and just like, their lives? I wish this fic would spawn a whole bunch of supplementary material because I really, really think it deserves it.
Ugh just tell me about the 2014 Olympics forever *___*
But yeah in general what an extraordinarily good piece of writing! Such great criticism even within fandom tropes; the kind of story that is really the pinnacle of fandom-as-transformative, fandom-as-questioning. UGH LOVE FOREVER.
Chelsea, Chelsea, I Believe. [Patrick Kane, OCs. Kane/Toews, but it's not the point.] WIP
[Spoilery]
This is the kidfic to end all kidfic O M G. I have read this fic an embarrassing amount of times over the past few days, because it's brilliant. I am entirely enamoured of this Kane, in all his fuckups and his self-awareness. Every supporting character makes me SO HAPPY. Like, for fuck's sake, SHARPIE. I'm obsessed with the Sharps. Also Liz and Julie and Chelsea! OC women are hard to get right and I thiiink Liz is a little on the wish-fulfillment side of things, sometimes, but I love her so much it's hard to deal. Julie fascinates me and I would actually read her POV for days or a story about her in Stockholm/whereever she is now. It wouldn't even need a lot of Kaner.
I'm just really into the Kaner, though, holy crap. Toews is almost irrelevant for me (though his interactions with Julie and with Chelsea make my liiife) and idk, the prequel didn't really work for me (though obvs not to Patrick), so I'm falling into my woobie trap of just wanting Kane to never ever forgive Jonny and wallow in how great he's being. (Yeah, I'm irrational sometimes.) Literally every supporting character is fascinating, like they all have their own lives (SHELL!!!!) and I adooore that, it's like actually reading about a real world.
Chelsea is the best wee girl character ever and I'm really excited to find out what happens with her! And also if someone will ever punch Jonny because lbr he has it coming a little bit. I really didn't see Liz' death coming, initially, and I was defs on the verge of hoping that she and Pat would work it out a little, get to know each other on real-person terms (I really liked that neither party was innocent, that both of them were projecting something onto the other person but that was okay, not malicious, just something borne of lack of familiarity). When he was going through her stuff it was really painful. I'm really impressed by the way she stays in the story - a lot of kidfic where the moms aren't main characters doesn't manage to keep them as central to the kids' lives, or woven in inherently, but Liz is always on Patrick's mind and on Chelsea's and I like that a lot.
I'm basically a sucker for all the found-family stuff. I've been doing a bunch of PKane research lately (l o l) and I totally buy this characterization of him - with a lot of fic about Kaner, especially when it engages with what a fuck up he's been, historically, it tends to strip away his agency (often giving it to Jonny, which, the worst), but this is 100% about Kaner and his issues and his baby girl and I love it. (I will remain suspicious of Jonny until the end of tiiiime. But in a good way.) I really like how she's characterized Kaner and his issues - the ones about not being able to open up and trust people, as opposed to being fundamentally inadequate. That definitely resonates with me.
I really hope Carts shows up in part 3, though I'll understand if he doesn't. (SHARPIE AND CARTS FOREVER.)
Hockey At The End Of The World.[Carter/Richards, John Stevens, everyone else.]
Man I was a little unsure about this one at the start - the worldbuilding seemed weird/iffy and I'm not really versed in the Kings or the Carts/Richie saga beyond how ridiculous it is - but pretty quickly I got sucked in and burned through the whole thing in a couple of hours. (During which, I might add, I don't think my heartrate was normal or healthy. JESUS FUCK THIS FIC.)
Not only is it a really chilling dystopia, which, my primary fandom was The Hunger Games for like three years, but it's also a really cool way to use hockey - significantly more ice-time than I've seen anywhere else. I really loved the games, they were super visceral and smartly-written and absorbing.
[SPOILERY] I've never really cared about Carts/Richie but after I was done with this I dragged myself through the rest of the archive because holy shit, things I need to never be done with, ways I needed to soothe my soul. Good god, my feelings about every character - everyone is well-rounded and alive and I really appreciated that the author never pulled any punches. They're all fucked up and sometimes they do good things but that doesn't alleviate the bad things; my KINGDOM for a history of Julia/Maggie, except that it would break my heart.
The ending I don't think 1000% worked for me - it didn't feel like an ending, which I think is a common theme with dystopias because if you don't actually wanna write a revolutionary war you kinda have to bow out early. But I mean, given the amount of emotional investment I had in the supporting characters I was a little bitter to end with just Carts and Richie (and I'm still upset about Stevens' death, in a not-entirely-"this served the story well" sort of way) and even more to end with them just being ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS, god. Given that the theme of the story that I'd taken was that you connect with other people, you make networks even when things are shitty, I was really bummed out to see them alone at the end.
That's not to say that I didn't really love the reading experience, though. The knowledge of the hockey and the players - all those little informational asides, things I knew were Easter Eggs even if I didn't exactly know what they were referring to - that was fantastic and really made the story for me. I'm now really into Sharp + Jeff/Mike because that shit is ADORABLE (every time I think about them getting a phone to Sharp I sob into my mouth because OH MY GOD) but like, overwhelmingly I want more of the universe. TELL ME ABOUT THE REDS PLEASE GOD TELL ME ABOUT THE REDS.
Also like, Sidney Crosby had a paragraph or two and I can't even articulate how much I want to know what happened to him (though part of me really doesn't want to know, part of me just wants to grab him away and wrap him up in a blanket and keep him safe forever). WHY DID YOU GO ALL ROBOTIC SIDNEY :'( PLEASE DON'T DIE.
In conclusion, I basically was enamoured but I really felt like the ending was too abrupt, not just because I'd love more of the world (but if someone doesn't write the story of the Reds I might cry for a year, just saying).
Also, I made a hockey rpf primer of sorts for laniaaa . It's hanging out on my tumblr: how i stopped respecting myself and learned to love the mullet: a cautionary tale. It's really just me having a lot of Kaner feels.