schneefink

I met with my bachelor thesis advisor today. For the first time in over a year! She's still willing to work with me, she likes my new structure, and I have a detailed plan that should help me finish in April :)

For the December meme, a question by

fearsome_turtle: Has playing hockey given you new insight into how the game is written? What does fandom get right and what does it get wrong? That kind of thing.

Hm, that's hard. I waited to answer this until after Wednesday morning, but I didn't feel well yesterday and couldn't go to hockey practice. Keep in mind that I only started playing a few weeks ago, it's a class for beginners, and only last week we started playing with the offside rule.

Many hockey rpf not-AU fics actually don't have that much hockey, so while I learned a lot about what playing hockey feels like (as a beginner! I'm sure it's very different as a pro), not a lot of it shows up in fic. Many stories very deliberately focus on the non-hockey parts of the players' lives, and that's fine. I'm just disappointed when some seemingly almost forget that they play hockey. It doesn't even have to be much, just a general awareness that their days are structured around hockey, that their moods and health are influenced by hockey, etc.

Some of my pet peeves:
- There are no handshakes after regular season games in the NHL. Not even after playoff games except the last in a series.
- Playing hockey is exhausting. No player is going to go home after a game, have vigorous sex, and fall asleep without having eaten, they'd fall over.
- There's not only the coach and their teammates in the lockerroom, there are other coaches and equipment staff and PR staff etc. too.

Other things:
- You spend a lot of time sitting on the bench with your teammates during a game. There are breaks during faceoffs, TV timeouts etc. You can talk to people! I almost never see conversations on the bench in fic.
- Relatedly, you watch your teammates, and you notice if someone isn't having a good game, a good few games, can't seem to concentrate and so on. They're professionals, they know people can have an off day. But there's no way there's not at least some envy when someone you think plays worse than you gets way more minutes, or annoyance when you feel like the coach isn't using you right. I'd especially love to see that in goalie fic. Write me fic about a goalie feeling let down by their team and the other way around. (Where is all the Oilers fic this year?)
- Hockey equipment after a game or practice is mostly disgusting. Clean hockey equipment before a game? Can be hot. (Or I guess smelly equipment too, if you're into that.) Your stick and your skates are very important that you feel well, and from what I've seen the players take good care of them, especially their sticks. Just give me more equipment porn, please. Psychometry fic!
- I don't understand why there's so much emphasis on players finding other players attractive in the shower, but not out on the ice. Someone playing hockey really well is very attractive imo. And if you're writing someone with a crush on Sid or Geno, how can they not have a crush on their hockey? Have you seen what they can do on the ice? Or Kane, no way that a version of Toews that has a crush on Kane doesn't find his hockey hot.

I originally wanted to rec a few fics here where I liked the hockey content, but I told myself I'll finish season 8 of Doctor Who this evening and it's really good so far.