schneefink

I was starting to get interested in the NHL playoffs again, and then the next game Sid had to leave the game because of a hit to the head and I remembered why I stopped watching. Better for my nerves.

I'm currently playing Wandersong because I thought that it made more sense to start a shorter game that I'm less likely to become very invested in before an upcoming exam. Which mostly worked. It took me a while to get into the game but by now I love the story and I can't wait to see how it ends (well I have a good idea of how it will end but there's a large blank space until then with plenty of time for many more interesting twists and turns.) My favorite recent scene was ( Spoiler for the middle of act 5 )

Also, the fact that all the Steam achievements are ( Spoiler ) I haven't seen Steam achievements used like that before and it's brilliant.

starshipfox wanted to know about my biggest fandoms over the years.

The two top are easy, and also easily visible on AO3: between 2009 and 2012 (mostly 2010-2012) I wrote 17 SGA fics, and between 2013 and 2016 I wrote 13 Pittsburgh Penguins Hockey RPF fics.
(I was fannish about things before I found online fandom, but not really "in fandom.")

SGA was my first big online fandom that I actually participated in – I lurked for years before I first commented, then interacted with people, and then actually wrote and posted something. I first watched SGA in early 2007 iirc (a friend of mine showed me the Ronon episodes first.) I think I found the fandom not too long after, definitely by 2008, and I had several great years in it until I lost interest in 2013. I still have a lot of nostalgia for SGA fandom: I met wonderful people, I had a lot of fun, I learned a lot, the fanworks were amazing, and it's still the gold standard for crack fic.

And then I accidentally fell into Hockey RPF fandom, which was a complete surprise. During the 2012-2013 NHL lockdown I stumbled upon a couple of primers that included both fascinating player stories, clips of beautiful hockey plays, and recs for good fics with tropes I enjoyed, and then suddenly I started having opinions on trades and following sports writers and I remained baffled how that had happened. Previously I'd never been a big sports fan before - apart from following alpine skiing closely for a few years as a teenager, but, well, I'm Austrian, that's not a big surprise, and it's not a team sport either. So sports fandom was new, and weird, and the combination of sports and sports RPF fandom was weird, and overall it was probably the most stressful fandom I've been in. And I was very lucky in regards to timing, my team was doing very well (with… some exceptions, that Boston series, ouch, but still, they always made the playoffs) and even won Cups! (Let's just say I'm glad I didn't become an Oilers fan. As a random example.) I had some great times in hockey fandom (stand-out moments for example were watching a Pens playoffs game with other Pens fans in a bar in NYC, the Kessel trade etc.)
In 2014 I started taking beginners' hockey classes, which I did for two years and which was a lot of fun, and I met my best friend and current flatmate there so for that alone I'll never regret my time in hockey fandom.
I started losing interest in 2017, first in the RPF side and more slowly in the sports side too. It was a combination of a natural loss of interest over time and being unhappy with several aspects of the game and hockey culture etc. I joined both Twitter and Reddit originally for hockey news and I every once in a while I'm still amused when something exciting happens, but overall I barely follow it anymore. Though recently I did find myself thinking that when the NHL starts again, it might be fun to watch a game again. Hockey can be very pretty. And it turns out I still have many feelings about all aspects of the fandom.

I didn't have any fandoms I was into to the same extent after that. I was pretty into Nirvana in Fire for a while (which I still enjoy a lot but no longer feel as fannish about), then The Adventure Zone: Balance for even shorter, and I dipped into several different smaller fandoms and wrote fic for some of them. I thought The Magnus Archives might be my next big fandom, but it turned out to be more medium sized and I don't have the same level of fannish engagement I had with SGA or Hockey RPF.
Sometimes I miss that. Every time I find something new that I feel fannish about I wonder if this will be my new most shiny thing, but so far it's always been short-term. I'm pretty sure that it's going to happen one day, and it'll probably be something completely unexpected, and in the meantime I'll enjoy playing around with whatever things currently hold my interest.

Oh man. So. NHL playoffs. That just happened xD

I haven't been following hockey a lot, I started falling out of love with it ~2017 and this season I only occasionally read the headlines or some Pens news (Sid with 100 points and Guentzel with 40 goals on the same goal was great.) I was still invested enough to shake my head at some trade deadline trades (though those seem to have worked out better than expected for the Pens, while Jack fucking Johnson was predictably awful, whyyy is this guy on the team and for so much money.)

Then playoffs started and I thought that maybe I'd at least follow how the series in the East are going. Only to be immediately reminded why I stopped watching. There were, what, three suspensions because of dangerous illegal hits to the head already? And those are just the ones so bad that the DoPS couldn't look away, and it's just a few games for each. It's just no fun to watch a game when I'm worried the whole time that players will get seriously injured, and it's considered a normal part of the game, wtf. And then Ovi fought a 19-year-old rookie and it looked like he got a serious head injury and way too many fans still cheered for that fight and I just don't get it.

And then yesterday Tampa was swept by Columbus xD And the Pens by the Islanders, but at least the Pens just recently won two Cups. Tampa won the President's Trophy with I think a record number of points and got swept in the first round, and not in close games either. I love it when real life reminds me that "too unrealistic" is a stupid complaint about fiction.

I was sick for a week, ugh. DD and Christina went shopping and cooked and made sure I was okay; now I'm doing better, but I infected DD (Christina fled the city before she could catch it too) so now I'm responsible for shopping and cooking etc. I'm so glad I don't live alone.

I've been working on two different WIPs and adding words to both, that almost never happens. For November I told myself to stress less about the quality of my writing and get more words out instead, partially inspired by this Tumblr post about a pottery class. Let's see if it works! I'm also still outlining my Yuletide story but I should really start writing soon.

Today after grapefruits DD and I plotted out an epic LotR slavefic, it took us an hour and a half but we had the entire plot, even titles and stuff. Next time we should maybe record stuff like that... Anyway we decided to at least write down the outline. Living with someone else who's also in fandom is awesome.
I also keep reccing her stuff, more than she can read or listen to, but I can't help it, there are so many great things and I want to share them all :)

In less fun news, politics. I need to find a good "getting involved in national politics with baby steps" guide. I always decided that I would do that when I'm better, and now - well I mostly am, even though it currently doesn't look that way when I look at my desk&room, but I'll just pretend it's all because I was sick and not only partially. Among other things I've been thinking about going to more demonstrations, but last week I was sick (I was especially sorry I missed the Novemberpogrom remembrance, "never again" can't be emphasized enough in the current political climate) and tomorrow I already have other plans with family. (Martinigans!) There'll be more opportunities, unfortunately because it'll be necessary.

I have less and less interest in hockey (great for my stress levels), but Julie Chu and Carolin Ouelette having a baby together makes me happy, such a great love story :)

The Pittsburgh Penguins have won the Stanley Cup! :D

What a great team. Lucky too, that's always part of it, and this team had a good dose of it this playoff run (apart from the fact that Tanger was injured), especially considering how often they were outshot. Last year's team probably played better. But hey, if you have two of the best players in the world and a few other good forwards and very good goalies it matters less that your defense is held together with duct tape. Second consecutive Conn Smythe for Sid. I did not at all expect a Cup win at the start of this season, or at the start of the playoffs, or several times during the playoffs, but I'll take it :D

(Sidenote, staying up to watch the game has more negative side effects when I need to go to work the next day. Worth it though.)

Aaaand soon the expansion draft. Hopefully it will be exciting, and hopefully Flower ends up somewhere good. So happy for him that he could play & win two series this spring. Flower giving the Cup to Murray was a great moment.

The NHL playoffs start tomorrow! Is it acceptable to wear a Geno Malkin shirt to work? Eh, probably. How is it time for playoffs again already. Last year was amazing, especially during the time when I was actually in the US and could watch the games live with a bunch of fans. And then the Cup! So great.

This year I have low expectations ever since we learned that Tanger can't play :( Ugh, injuries. So maybe this could finally be the Caps' year, and as long as the Pens beat CBJ (and Chicago doesn't win) I'll be happy. (I say that now, let's see what it looks like in a week or two.)

I don't know how many games I'll watch live, probably not too many because of work. But thankfully there are weekends. It's hard to recall what early rounds playoff excitement felt like, and it's also different every year depending on investment, but depending on how the games go, the next few weeks could be stressful. Fingers crossed for no injuries, and for all the teams I like to win.

Some more brief Critical Role episode reactions/favorite parts. Once I'm working full-time I won't have as much time to listen/watch anymore, but I'll try for at least two episodes a week so I can eventually catch up, that should be easily doable.

( Episodes 46-56 )


Last D&D session MC might have actually managed to prevent a war instead of starting one! And survived a dragon's wrath, go me.

( Read more... )


The Riveters led 3-1 and lost 3-4 against the Boston Pride -.- And in NHL news Tanger might be seriously injured again, fuck this. Why do I like a sport again? Ah right, there are pretty things like last night's shootout goal by Kucherov.

I'm sick, and it sucks. I especially hate the timing because during my skiing vacation I felt full of energy and I was hoping that it would carry over to when I'm back, instead this. I should be fine in a few days, at least.

To distract myself I'm half watching, half listening to more Critical Role. ( Thoughts on episodes 36-45 )

In hockey news, Sid got his 1000th point and then a beautiful OT goal on a fantastic pass by Geno, these two together are just so great. But Olli is out six weeks and Jeff Schultz may also be injured >.< On top of all the other injuries, joy. The trade deadline is soon and it will be very stressful, fuck. Hopefully before that the Pens win the outdoor game against Philly.

After getting a short intro to HTML and CSS last weekend, this weekend I got a crash course in JavaScript. Coding is fun! …provided in the end things work as intended. At first I thought the most frustrating thing is looking for a mistake for a long time and then finding out it is a stupid typo in the easiest line, but later I learned that even more frustrating is a bug that our teachers couldn't solve or even explain either and that meant I couldn't complete the last two exercises. (Tbf it would probably have been less annoying if the teachers had approached it better.)
Despite that, the teachers told me they think I have a talent for coding. They said that I seem to understand it quickly and also ask the right kind of questions, and they encouraged me to keep doing it. Always nice to get compliments :) Who knows, maybe I really will study it a bit more.

Last D&D session a new player joined us – and next week he might not be able to make it, and then he'll be on vacation for three weeks, so I don't think the timing is very good… Eh. If he keeps playing the party will have another primary spellcaster; we're pretty magic heavy, I hope that won't turn out to be a problem at some point. Well we already know that the extremely powerful Citadel's view of talented magic users is "with us or against us" and the latter don't tend to survive very long, so there will definitely be repercussions.
Other things that happened last session: ( theft and surprise attacks )

For the first time in a while, today I managed to watch a complete Penguins hockey game in real-time :D It is so much fun, especially when like today they're winning. The first line is so great <3 Sid and the kids. Conor Sheary is smoking hot, indeed. Sid is so amazing to watch – that pass on the Rust goal, whoa. On sequences where he doesn't score too, that don't show up on highlight reels so much. Best player in the world.
Geno is also amazing, though he wasn't as outstanding today as he can be (and he took another stupid minor penalty, as he tends to do.) He and Sid seem to take turns with who looks better any given night. The chances that at one point this season the two of them could be #1 and #2 in the scoring race are not bad :)

I have many plans for tomorrow, fingers crossed.