#I keep forgetting Tumblr exists oops

[sketchy-noodles]

When SCU!100Days go brrrrrrrrr

[killerslowpoke]

04/10/24 I was obseeeessed with the song Abuku by King Gnu and wanted to draw something for it for a while, wanted to use imagery from the MV as well 🥺️

[eulaliasims]

💗💗 Love train! Send this to all the blogs you love! Don’t forget to spread the love! 💗💗

Thank you, R! Right back atcha, you're always so nice. <3

[koifsssh]

ITS DILLAN AND I STAND BY IT.

PHONETICALLY THAT'S HOW YOU SAY IT!!!!

oh boy sure hope user koifsssh on tumblr dot com doesn’t see this post that would be a real bummer

that sure would suck if the owner of all four of the D’s and Rainy and also the greaser AU saw this post oh man

(and it’s DILLON. not spelling it like DYLAN OR DILLON is a SIN)

[pumpkincryptid]

hi tumblr user pumpkincryptid it's a shame you don't have anon asks turned on but honestly i like to keep my blog completely empty so nobody will find any embarrassing shit i posted a year ago so i couldn't care less.

this is a mostly useless question because i'm cruvlaapht in a human disguise so i've already looked into the future and predicted that you (and someone else i've seen recently who may or may not be named moss) would already like to hear about what i'm about to tell you but i'm the type of "person" that needs permission before i infodump on random people i notice and take interest in.

So, completely hypothetically, would you happen to want to hear about how i think the ethereal gold island equivalent would become a solid concept. In the brain of a certain someone that ISN'T a colossal because zarroë isn't involved in this one, they're too busy making new islets. parental neglect am i right. and this definitely does not involve this one monster called bemeebeth accidentally spiraling into a tiny bit of insanity and shutting himself into the workshop castle for hours on end to make massive piles of notes and concept art for his sick new island to Unite All. to Make Everyone Happy. and making a plan to rip the fabric of reality's asshole open (with the help of the quads because they're totally going to be on board with that RIGHT??) and also to sacrifice some of his own body to make all those doohickeys that carry all those gizmos that would be unique to the... PLACE? I GUESS????? all because he overheard the normal ethereal monsters singing louder than usual at like 6 am when he Wasn't supposed to know about their existence at all. this is what zarroë gets when they make a monster that's smarter than everyone else and forget to put in some damn ear plugs. the celestial island colossal was a genius this whole time

Guuuhhĥhhh....... weellllll, hypothetically, I would love it if you infodumped more, because even when things are not exactly how I imagine them, I love hearing (or in this case reading) what others have to say!

Also, @bottles-of-moss-2-oops, come look at this!

[gl00mpetals]

I keep forgetting this tumblr acc exists, oops

[galactic-tragedy]

I keep forgetting that tumblr exists- Oops!

But I got commissions open! Currently taking Cashapp only and looking to fill 5 slots! Prices and offers listed below, willing to give a 5 dollar discount for anything $10 and more!

0/5 slots taken!

[moldri]

I wanna be more active on here but I keep forgetting tumblr exists oops 💔💔

[starryeyedjanai]

should i start using scrivener.... i've considered it before but i didn't know anybody who used it and could vouch for it.

i've been using scrivener for almost a year now and i really, really love it! before scrivener, i used one singular google doc that housed literally all of the things i was writing at the time and scrivener has helped me be slightly more organized (though my ideas doc is literally over 30k words of unconnected thoughts, oops)

i keep almost all of my fics in one doc in different folders/texts and it has been very useful to have everything in one place because i have adhd and will literally forget things exist if it's not all right there for me to see

this post showcases some of the features and this tumblr's scrivener tag has a lot of good info

there are a bunch of great features and people make templates that can be useful for organizing your writing and posting fic to ao3. i'm still learning new stuff about it all the time and tweaking how i use it to make things easier for me

if you participate in and win nanowrimo or camp nano in april or july (where you can set your own goal!), you can get 50% off scrivener and i'm pretty sure they have a 30 day free trial if you want to try it out!

it can be a little overwhelming at first because there are a lot of things you can do to customize your experience, but i'd say to do the trial, check out some templates people on tumblr/reddit have made available to others for free, and see if you like it!

[viiixie-xoxoooo]

oops i keep forgetting tumblr exists but i got whatever ppl say i am thats what im not on cd 🤭🤭

[finny-again]

I keep forgetting tumblr exists sometimes,,,oops,,,

[cits-ocs]

oops I completely forgot tumblr and this blog exists. It's 5:24 am as I start writing this, so I'll use this opportunity to ramble about Emil (I updated his personality so he's more asshole-y)

Emil is 14 and experienced the deepest heartbreak he'll ever have so far in his life. he realized the boy he loves was just using him. this is the start of a cycle he knows he won't get out of in a while. the same cycle his mom is in, the same one he despises so much. but what this teaches him is how men ain't shit and if he wants to retain some level and power, then he should learn how to control people to stay below him. in hindsight it's kind of funny how a single break up makes Emil start becoming an evil manipulative teenage boy but, well, It's kind of from a build-up of years of witnessing his mom being weak and wanting a bit of power at least.

he has his exceptions ofc, like his mom and generally just the people he cares about. he finds them safe enough that he doesn't need his guard up all the time.

so how does it manifest, generally? he's completely ignorant of people he looks down upon. he doesn't give a shit. he's forgetful about people's names not because he's bad with names, but because they're so unimportant to him that they just don't register to him at all.

he's a generally sociable person, because yk connections are important and he wants to stay friendly enough to most people's views. he has to make a conscious effort to act like he likes the people he's with. the people at the army base he's stationed at could be spouting homophobic stuff and Emil laughs and nods at their jokes because he needs to get on most people's good side. if he was a girl, he could be described as a pick-me I guess? how I visualize Emil visualizing this, is like a vast social web with color coded lines indicating the relationship status and notes about if they're fine or not. oh, and Emil says enough about himself that seem vulnerable enough, but can make up the rest of the smaller details so nobody else can really figure him out, especially in an environment like the army.

since Emil curates this image of himself to the vast majority of people, there's stuff he keeps very hidden ofc. this one he also hides from the people he holds close to his heart. it's the fact he's an actual complete mess when nobody is watching.

since his mom is hospitalized and he's the only one in the house (when he's not in the army), it's very unkempt because everything reminds him of his mom and how she won't be here long, so it sends him into a spiral and he stays depressed for a while. he doesn't bother taking care of himself either. after a while, he realizes that he's being lazy, so he pushes himself too much because he has to live up to the expectations he himself created.

anyways yeahhhh Emil manipulates people's weakness to stay above them bc he's scared people will find out he's an extremely vulnerable mess of a person (finished writing this at 5:44 am)

[aquarium-sys]

we keep forgetting tumblr exists... oops, my bad guys! we've been drowning in uni finals for the past week and it's almost over but we've shifted to doing biphasic sleep recently so that we can reasonably get all of our endless work submitted without having to succumb as badly to the fatigue that's been creeping in pretty severely on us. peak productivity happens at 3am after a 4.5 hour period of good sleep and is then followed by another 3-5 hour period of good sleep. i can't wait to present our final project for a curriculum class tomorrow oh my god im tearing my hair out over this stupid presentation seriously free me from this torturous place idk

[n4bp]

FAQ

This gets quite long, you can read more under the keep reading. More to come.

WHY TUMBLR? I am looking for alternatives that don't expose my real life identity, so Google Docs is out of the question. I'll swap over once I find an alternative that allows content for adults.

What names do you prefer being called? Nod is fine. The long version of BP is probably fine. Can't say the B part of it because tumblr's weird. My real name doesn't matter and I don't particularly identify with it. You might hear guildmates call me Aly or Syl, but neither of these are my names. They're actually names of characters I role-play on WoW. (Short for Alysithra and Sylindia) - It's a fairly common practice for WoW players to refer to each other with names or nicknames derived from RP characters. If you don't know me from this, please just call me Nod. Thank you.

How old are you? Late 20s, I'll be 30 in a couple of years. I've been playing WoW since 2010 and DBD for a few years. Took a break for a few years on WoW.

What are your pronouns? Gender? They/them, I'm agender. I have no gender.

I am not open to "debates" on my existence and you will be blocked if you decide to be transphobic.

Where do you come from? England. I was born and raised in the North East, specifically Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

I had two moms, one also a Geordie, and one from Ireland.

I am aware my accent floats all around the UK oops. I grew up with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), which back then was known as Specific Language Disorder. Or Specific Language Impairment (SLI). I still often pronounce things like how they are read, and struggle, in general, with learning language.

Are you disabled? Yes. I'm pretty open about talking about this for the most part since I grew up with most of these things. I mostly mention this because people occasionally come into my chat seeking support on some of these topics, or just someone to talk to.

I'm autistic. Diagnosed twice officially because they didn't tell my bio-mam the first time (thanks, NHS...), so I didn't get a lot of the support I needed until late... if at all. This is why I'm technically both 'self diagnosed' and officially diagnosed, despite the fact I had an official diagnosis from 4 and got it again at 16.

I'm also dyspraxic (diagnosed at 6 due to an awesome teacher I had), I don't play DBD with any assistive equipment as most of this would be against the rules. I only play with settings and filters that have been confirmed to be OK by BHVR. I mostly survive by luck, by killer mercy, and pure muscle memory/guessing.

I also have Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS), which I've had all my life since it's a genetic thing, but I was only diagnosed with as an adult. (But to be fair, doctors blamed a lot of the symptoms on the Dyspraxia.)

Finally, there's a few I'm not comfy talking about that I haven't listed. All professionally diagnosed.

Do you play with any accessability settings?

I play with the heart setting in DBD due to sensory processing issues that come with the autism/dyspraxia comorbity. Sometimes sound doesn't make sense and it's all just a blur that blends in together.

The heart setting is available through settings and accessability. I think it's the first setting. Having a visual indicator helps.

This is also why I use filters so I can easier see. Some people use nvidia filters for their filters. I use reshade or gshade, I forget which. I think reshade. Unfortunately, I don't remember where I got my pre-set from, I'm sorry.

Might've been ever Kyto or Momoseventh.

Do you always Solo Queue? It's my default as I don't have a dedicated duo any more. I'm happy to play with people who ask politely, though please bear in mind our MMRs may mismatch as I'm not very good, lol. As my audience grows my time might be more split depending on how things go. I'll likely implement a queue system in the event this happens.

What happened to your Kate/Yun-Jin duo? Gone.

She has been blocked and banned from the stream, so you won't run into her again. I'd rather just forget her entirely.

Why am I banned? You broke a rule so severe I don't want you in my stream any more. Or you were just such a jerk I didn't want you around.

Of course, this isn't a first resort. Most rule breaks will just result in the removal of your message or a timeout. Some rule breaks, extreme cases, result in an instant ban.

You can appeal in a week if you're respectful. If this is denied, I would appreciate it if you just gave me my space and leave me alone. If you're doing it for the last word, remember I can respond to get the True Last Word. I tend to treat people how they treat me.

I also have a bot that autobans spammers and certain slurs. (Well, they issue timeouts for the latter, but usually I'll also ban the user.) Depending on context (eg saying a different word that happens to just contain the slur, quoting someones username) I will likely unban when noticed, or simply not ban at all. Usernames containing these slurs will be reported on twitch as well, as they break TOS.

One of these slurs appears in an addon in DBD. If you're in good faith just referring to this addon, I'll unban. If you're just trying to get around the filter, you'll stay banned.

Why am I banned? I've never been to your stream! If you're genuinely curious and not just trying to be a jerk, here are a few different reasons for this.

The first, rulebreaks.

Either you broke a rule in my stream or you were directly witnessed (by me) to be breaking some pretty major rules in streams I often watch. Usually bigotry, sometimes self-promo or general respect stuff. I have a list of streamers I'll crossban people for if directly witnessed.

Occasionally other survivors or killers I've played with will be prebanned if I can link profiles as a result of the above as well, but this is usually in extreme cases. We're talking straight up breaking game or stream rules. I have some known hackers prebanned as I don't want to be easy content for them, and they make me nervous.

Otherwise, if you're prebanned, you either have slurs/chuddy behaviour in your profile I noted before the game, or you did something nasty and failed the vibe check in the game. Vibe check bans of this nature are usually done to prevent future harrassment from you, either to myself, viewers, or even the people I've been playing with/against.

Just being a victim of these things won't result in a pre-ban. It's only if you're the one doing this stuff.

I'm allowed to curate my personal space how I see fit, I hope you understand.

Why did you get banned from Steam Forums? Figured I'd just add this here, since I can't exactly talk for myself on forums.

I got banned for saying I don't like Dull Merchant (well, I just called her skull merchant at the time) the first time on a thread specifically asking for opinions about Skull Merchant (full month ban, btw), and then they turned it into a permanent ban when I said "no its not" twice in a completely different forum thread a while after being unbanned, which is somehow spamming. (It isn't spamming, and the situation was very much over as I'd already stopped talking in the thread after my last comment to go back to gaming. By the time I checked my messages again, I was permanently banned from the Steam Forums.. hours later, after the situation was long over.)

Anyway this cemented my eternal, undying hate for dull merchant.

I genuinely think they were just looking for reasons to get away with bigotry and ableism or one hell of a power trip, rather than fair moderation. People have repeatedly spammed more without any issue. Repeating a couple letters, or in this case 3 short words /once/ isn't spamming. Saying "no its not" twice isn't grounds for a warning, never mind a ban, and isn't spamming. And the skull merchant one doesn't make sense at all considering it was on topic and constructive. (It was for a month, too. Very silly.)

Steam forums will ban quickly and often unfairly, but won't do anything about the ableism and transphobia often witnessed there. BHVR if you're reading this, I'd appreciate the unban and I'll gladly volunteer some time to moderate your forums for free, since I'll do a better job. I guess.

And I don't see this as hypocrisy to the above question as the situations are different + the DBD steam forums are a public place.

Would you consider becoming a Fog Whisperer? No. I don't think I'd be listened to as a result of the Steam Mods on the forums, and I've heard as much that the Fog Whisperers aren't really listened to anyway. (Also, I don't think I'll be eligible for a long time. My community is too small. I love you, fam, just we're not quite there yet.)

Will you ever get a twitch tshirt? I want them, but I don't know if I'm eligible because my schedule is sporadic. BHVR please consider removing the schedule part of the eligibility criteria to become more disability accessible. Thank you.

If you could add any cosmetic to the game, what would you go for? There's so many answers I could give to this and they'll probably change depending on whims.

At the top of my list are more long hairs for Nea that I can combine with multiple outfits. I love her, but they keep giving her awful unmatchable hairstyles which limits me to about 3-4 depending on outfit.

I also would love scooby doo related survivors/killers and cosmetics.

I also would have LOVED them adding the Strawberry Cowgirl Kate, and I'm sad they didn't.

If BHVR added cosmetics from you specifically, what would you choose? Depends on what sort of freedoms I had and stuff. Maybe a legendary skin for Nea (or Sable tbh, Nea's my main but Sable maybe fits more) that looks like Revenant. She could play with her powers on the loading screen but they're disabled ingame, of course. Or maybe the cosmetics show up on a pallet stun/flash stun.

More specific bits that might work more:

Maybe a black and white bloodpoint themed shirt with my name on the back. Or maybe grey and black. Maybe black and grey with bits of dark red.

This probably won't happen but I'd be open to it.

Do you write Fanfiction? Yes. I'll advertise it on this blog if I get around to making DBD stuff. I'm a slacker. :(

[televinita]

La Brea thoughts, 2x01-05

Twenty months after I binged season 1 -- so long ago that I had to watch the entire "previously on" recap just to remember half of what happened, because my general impression of this show is that visually it's great and the ideas are cool, but its cast is lackluster and its dialogue often cringe, so it doesn't stay with me -- after five episodes in a week I have had basically four pressing thoughts:

(you get zero context for this because I don't think I have written about this show before even to myself, let alone Tumblr. oops.)

1. I keep forgetting the 1988 story exists so every time we switch over, I feel like I've been smacked in the face by how beautiful and vibrant Riley is (with really great hair). Veronica St. Clair is one of the few true standouts in this cast.

2. Speaking of, Scowling Head of the Mine/Guard Dude is the first character EVER to make me sit straight up and go "hell-o" on sight. Extremely excellent Dark and Brooding face, and also great hair.

3. With the simple addition of slightly growing out his already good hair, I have gone from being meh about Gavin (which always frustrated me because objectively? good looking man. i just felt no screen presence), to being full steam ahead OTP: MARRIED PARENTS; I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL; EVE FORGIVE HIM AND STOP BREAKING IZZY'S HEART ABOUT HER BROKEN HOME OR SO HELP ME... Just full swoon up in this joint now. Man loves his wife, has gone to extreme lengths to reunite, is willing to forgive a whole lot without judgment if she'll do the same; end of story!

3.5. This is a carry-over from me hating Levi's face since it first appeared as THE WORST DUDE in Off the Map. In 2011. This man still has not earned out his badwill from that character, even as the most upstanding military hero character one could imagine. No hope for him!

4. BUT. Here is the thing -- I actually think this is the most interesting love triangle/adultery story I have ever seen on television, because I get it. I understand how it is actually a difficult choice for Eve, because for all my shipping I don't actually know who is the better choice for her right now. I understand how and why the cheating happened and I don't even judge it, which I have literally never felt in the history of ever, ESPECIALLY when a cheater has kids. I understand how you could love both of these men at the same time, and why both of them have valid claims to her heart.

All of this is beautifully complicated by Gavin and Levi being close friends, and my FAVORITE part of it all is Izzy standing in for me and being my sounding board and saying everything I would say and feel in this situation regardless of my age.

I am going to need it to resolve with Levi dying, because this is fully a "I am not sorry you lost them but I'm sorry you're hurt" type of comfort situation in the making, but I think I could actually handle up to an entire season of UST and/or Eve officially choosing wrong for a while, if i could retain some hope.

I will abso-LUTELY riot in an Eve/Levi endgame situation, though. You know how I am about marriage.

Update, BONUS/LEFTOVER THOUGHTS:

Lucas's interactions with Veronica lately: *Dean Pelton voice* what is this? what is this creepy business?

(no seriously why does this feel like UST even though she definitely looks like a teenage child and he is definitely a grown-ass adult. i have never been so viscerally reviled by age difference in my life)

Para has been one of my favorites almost since her introduction and that love has only gotten stronger

Still want the pothead dope to bite it

Less Sam is always better too

MOAR CGI CREATURES. I loved the rhinos, in particular, so g.d. much.

One more thought about the Harrises: despite Gavin and Izzy having spent a whole season sequestered together already, this is really the first time I have gone feral about the father/daughter bond -- I assume this is related to the former becoming Gavin With The Good Hair -- so when the love triangle breaks my heart too much, at least I have this. Honestly, it's really nice seeing her back with her mom too, and any scenes that involve the parents working together to protect/comfort her? Special favorites.

(the son they're all risking life and limb to reunite with? still relegated to Season 1 Gavin status; change my mind)

[coffee-at-annies]

(Edit:I was writing this last night and it seems like I fell asleep and idk if tumblr ate any of it outside the tags. Oops. I’ve added more thoughts which may or may not be a coherent conclusion.)

First off, thanks. Second off, yes break it. Poke holes. Tell me where I’m wrong. The goal is to be helpful and engaging, not perfect. I’m doing big concepts and tons of generalizations that are required because to get specific sometimes you have to start big otherwise the details make no sense. I was definitely asking myself where are there holes and how can I break this apart at the seams so that I know I’m not missing things. I think the place it falls apart for me is events because like, isn’t everything an event? Truly the broadest and the worst category cause everything fits in there. The beginning is an event. The end is an event. The timeline category exists cause I naturally started sorting events into time periods and went, well if I’m already talking about SidGeno I may as well drop what I remember of the broad strokes. I’ve probably missed some broad strokes cause I’m doing it off of memory rather than research.

When I break it down, the main argument is now, before, the beginning, what’s next, and the end - and in those places I’m highlighting the equivalent of major plot points that if this was dr who I’d call fixed points and if this was spiderverse I’d call it canon events. When I step back to look at it, that’s basic story structure baby. What I think is interesting and why I was trying so hard to quantify things is because there’s the transition from now into before, and also those events that are such a lightening rod that as readers and writers we keep coming back to them.

Thank you for bringing up Bec’s SidGeno before/after post cause that was rotating in my head as I was writing this. I’ve been synthesizing a bunch of rpf posts recently and just thinking about how it’s been several years since I was reading everything on ao3 and with the start of the season I’ve been more aware of when and how and why things have changed. Not in a bad way, however the two main vibes I keep coming back to are “it’s really interesting how things have changed” and “some people have no idea how things have changed and think it’s always been like this.” I’ve been doing it a bunch with our core because I see the version of Sid and Geno people post about and I recognize them as realistic authentic versions of who the players are right now, but there’s that little bit of cognitive dissonance in the back of my head because they aren’t the Sid and Geno (and Tanger) I was reading fic about in 2018.

They’re the same people, but they’re also different because that’s how time works. Geno is a dad now. He’s a very good one. There have been fics about him being a father since way before he was even married and I bet it would be interesting to compare those fics to what we know of his actual parenting. Heck Jake’s a dad now which is a thing I forget about cause he’s Sid’s baby boy, his son, his precious rookie. I have a specific perspective being a quote unquote fandom old. Some pens fans have never not known Geno as a dad, or Kris with the A, or seen Flower play in a pens jersey and that’s wild to me. It is my own bias showing and I acknowledge that. Sports fandom is weird. It’s not like you can go rewatch s1. You can rewatch old games but it’s not the same experience.

Back to the my point, it’s so easy for people to look at current characterization and then approach old events with that version of the character in their head even if the defining events that caused that growth hasn’t happened yet. It’s like looking at a cardboard cutout of your blorbo and moving it up and down the timeline as you see fit. I’m not judging that. You can do some really interesting foreshadowing with it. The when of a fic getting written matters tho. You can have old fics with new readers who wonder why the author didn’t include an essential detail about the final boss and the answer is because when the fic was written fandom didn’t even know that character existed. That detail may not have existed until a flashback in s7 that was set between episodes in s2. Sometimes we simply don’t know, but that doesn’t make the fic less good.

@paintingtheice so I totally meant to post this yesterday and then fell asleep editing/adding on to this. This is not the essay on gendering Sidney Crosby we’ve talked about in dms it’s instead a different fandom essay that I started writing in my head half as a convo and then said fuck it essay time. @podcasts-8-my-heart this is also dedicated to you saying you’re proud of me for writing 2.5k+. I’m proud of you.

So I was thinking on my bus ride into work this morning (yesterday - yes it’s been a day this got long don’t look at me like that) about hrpf and SidGeno and some of the shifts I’ve seen fandom go through in my time following hockey. There are a million and one little reasons why things have changed and many of them can simply be chalked up to the passing of time; new information gets revealed, new events happen, roster turnover, and fandom/writer turnover. One thing that I think about a lot is when fic is set in relation to “canon.” The relationship with canon in hrpf is both deeper and more divorced than other fandom, but stay with me I’m gonna pull a bunch of words out my ass and hope it makes a lick of sense.

The first talking point/part of this thesis is recency bias. People are way more inclined to favor recent events over the past. You see this in the actual fandom with people reacting to losses or saying “we never win against [team]” when we have in fact won against that team as recent as last year. It’s this sort of bias that causes us as readers/writers to read something current and assume it’s always been this way and then experience cognitive dissonance with other depictions of the characters that are older or simply different. “He would not fucking say that.” Well once upon a time maybe he did. Maybe it’s out of character now, but back then it was the defining character study for how fandom understood him and you need to sit down and actually look at what people were saying. Maybe it was never in character but the author committed to being ooc and you can see how our understanding has drifted closer or farther away in the years since.

The second talking point is that when fandom isn’t reacting to current canon it has a tendency to latch on to specific parts of canon and not let go. I’m quantifying that as “events”. Fandom hates filler but it loves a plot point. In hprf in general and sidgeno specifically you see this in a lot of different ways. How many stories have been written about [insert team]’s cup run? The Olympics? I’ve read so many fics about 2015 Worlds despite never reading hrpf before 2016. We love an event. Do we actually care about every game of the season or tournament tho? Not really unless something specific to progress the plot or characterization happens. Geno visiting Sid at when they’re supposed to be enemies is more important than whoever Canada beat in the round robin.

Anyway this is all introductory backtracking because the original thrust of this essay was defining to myself the “when” that people write about. My brainstorming had it separated into the nebulous now, right fucking now when I (the author) wrote this, events events events, the vague future, the past aka when they were Youths™️, the generalized timeline (y’know, canon?) - usually characterized in hrpf by events, milestones, and team personnel, and timeline what timeline.

Are you saying to yourself, gee she just listed a bunch of stuff I hope she defines it. Well good for you, that’s literally the rest of this monster. Buckle up I’m about to say way more words. I do not think I’m 100% accurate perfect no notes. I’m sure parts of it are bullshit. But hey I’m gonna close my eyes and post it anyway.

1. [Nebulous Now] - Hey remember that paragraph on recency bias? Welcome to recency bias the fic setting. In my head, the nebulous now is +/- the last two or three years. It’s set around present day* or going back only as far as the author was engaged in fandom. You’ll probably know when it’s set based on team makeup, season highlights, major events, but it’s basically meant to be set now. It may care about schedules and specific details but reserves the right to throw it out the window if it feels like it. The problem with being set now is when you run across a fic that is 5, 10, 15 years old and is supposed to still be set in whatever the current year is.

*when the fic first started being written

2. [Right Fucking Now] There is nothing nebulous about when this fic was written or what it was written about. These are usually smaller fics** where inspiring event happened anywhere from the day the writer started writing to at most a month or two ago. Usually precipitated by X did Y in Z game against team A and got celebratory gangbanged in the locker room about it. (Y being goals, hat tricks, fights, ect.). You can’t get more specific than this baby. Fics set before/during/after a specific game fit here. All Star Game fics written around the All Star Break are here. Milestone events are here, for example Tanger and Geno’s 1K games. Fics written immediately in reaction to stuff like Contract-gate go here. Most playoff fic that references specific events or was written during the playoffs falls under here. The main clarifying point is it wasn’t written very long after the fact. Anything written now about last years All Star Game, Contract-Gate, Sid slutting it up at worlds and the Olympics, all fall under a different category. Which is a great segue to my next one.

** I said usually smaller but sometimes an author decides to write a big fic about the narrative arc of the season and we love them for it.

3. [Events Events Events] - This is probably the one that is the biggest broadest category and the one I have the hardest time narrowing down despite having more examples than I can shake a stick at. Simply put, this category is for fics that are concerned with a specific event, usually big, but sometimes small. This can be any event that stands out in a reader/author’s head. Generally the fic was written after the event happened from a place of knowing how everything shakes out in canon. These fics can feel different because the we walk in already knowing the start and stop and major events of the fic. From the reader’s perspective the event is over but the characters experiencing the event don’t know it.

SidGeno/Pens Examples include: World Juniors. The Olympics/the golden goal/Sochi. The cup runs are a subcategory unto themselves but the playoffs/finals are a big event. Major injuries like Geno’s knee surgery and Sid’s concussion. Duper’s retirement tends to be a foot note in cup run stories but it’s a small event. Trades def count since there are absolutely stories about the before/after of a trade. Vegas & Seattle Expansion Drafts. The lockouts (05 & 2012). I’m ignoring that the pandemic-stoppage is also under this cause I don’t like reading about it. Contract-gate is a recent example. Basically if you’re asking “hey does this event count as an event” the answer is probably yes because you’ve remembered it. If you can point to something specific on the timeline and zoom in on it then it counts.

***this one I keep tweaking it’s definition and I’m still not 100% happy. I just keep thinking about all the fic I’ve read in other fandoms that feel beholden to canon in ways that I end up bemoaning the lack of creativity. Nobody says it has to happen this exact way every time but authors who claim to hate that installment still faithfully recreate it every time.

So we’ve had now, and we’ve had the events that everyone (or just you) remember, what’s next is literally what’s next.

4. [Vague Future] - Quite literally 1, 5, 10, 20 years in the future. Next season fics. Retirement and post-retirement fics. Their kids getting drafted fic is this. Anything that makes you think further ahead than the end of the current season is probably in this category. It’s vague because who the heck knows if it ends up true or not. There is of course overlap with the Nebulous Now because its nebulous. Since everything is set vaguely now-ish, it’s hard to tell when now starts becoming the future. The season just started and all through the preseason I saw people talking about who they think is going win the cup this year. There’s so much hockey to be played still. The future is vague but it will eventually become now.

Also remember it’s all about perspective. There’s tons of movies set in the far distant future of the late 2010s and they don’t match up to our lived reality. Going back to the comment about cognitive dissonance, sometimes you aren’t writing about an event from a place of knowing; sometimes it’s just your best guess or heartfelt wish. It’s so easy to say “oh that’s an au” when maybe it wasn’t an au when it was written, maybe it was intended to be accurate to the author’s best guess. Sometimes fics from the past were set in the future but that time has been passed by life and going back to read them is weird but cool. It’s interesting to see where people thought the boys were going vs where they are. Who could have guessed the core would have careers this long or decorated but they have.

Speaking of writing from a place of knowing; this next one is sort of a subcategory of events, but was a specific enough setting of fic I wanted to call it out.

5. [Youth™️] - This is anything where they are children. It may be well research but for the most part it’s probably non-accurate outside of the broad stokes. It’s the prologue and chapter 1. Pre-canon and the first 20 minutes. Kid!fic. It’s all about the kids in this one. This is the start of the story and the time before that.

Hrpf examples include anything about juniors, Sid’s time at shattuck, and World Juniors. For SidGeno I’d probably include the 03 to 05 drafts. Can include Sid’s first year in the NHL and Geno’s flight from Russia and his first full year in the NHL (that’s the hard cutoff for me personally). You could potentially argue up to and including the 08 & 09 cup runs as like the climax of them being young NHL stars, and yeah sure I’m not a cop write whatever you want if it makes sense to you then it makes sense. I don’t think Sid getting drafted is a bad place to start a fic, especially if you’re doing an AU. There’s always a good argument to start at the beginning of the canon story.

I’m highlighting this because holy crud the number of fics I’ve seen from other fandoms that don’t even like the early material but start at movie 1 scene 1/book 1 chapter 1 anyway. It’s fanfic we don’t have to start at the beginning. You can, but its not necessary. I personally struggle with fics that don’t change anything in early canon but require you to read their version of it anyway, but I’m just one person. You do you.

This next one doesn’t have a snazzy name because look sometimes there’s a timeline and you wanna write something that encompasses it. If it’s granular I’d say you’re talking about Eventsx3 or Right Fucking Now. Overlaps with Youth™️ because you have to start somewhere and Nebulous Now because now is on the timeline. If there are expected events on the timeline like retirement from professional sports, that’s the vague future.

6. [Timeline] Sometimes authors want to care about the timeline or the fic is set over weeks, months, years. Most canons have a specific set timeline and hrpf is no different. However ours is actual literal years rather than something someone created and is thus easy to navigate. For my examples I’m generalizing over the span of months and years and then grouping by big events rather than calling out any one specific event.

[the early years] Anything from Sid’s first year to the 09 cup. Let’s be real here, most authors either write incredibly detailed fic about the whole timeline, or they’ll only write about Sid or Geno’s first full NHL years or the 08-09 cup runs. Everything else is usually glossed over. The babies era. Youth™️

Events include: Sid and Geno’s drafts. The 05 lockout. Geno fleeing Russia. Losing streaks. Mario’s return and retirement. Flower and Tanger getting called up. Sid living at Mario’s. Geno living with Gonch and learning English. Sid being named Captain. Hard cutoff is after the 07-08 and 08-09 cup runs.****

****You can argue that the 08 & 09 cup runs are their own subcategory but this is already long enough imo.

[post cup - international success and dead years] - the middle years. You’re probably only going to read event fic set during this time unless it was written in the nebulous now of those years.

Events include: the golden goal/2010 olympics. Sid’s concussion. Geno’s knee surgery. The 2012 lockout. Geno playing at home in Russia during the lockout. I think Geno & Ovi had a memorable All Star Game in here. Socchi Olympics. Worlds 2015.***** Tanger’s stroke. Olli’s cancer. Geno getting married. Trades include I wanna say Jordy, Talbo, Lazy. Gonch is in Dallas but I don’t remember if he was traded. This is also the spacetoaster era. Sid spending several years building a house only to move back in with Mario due to post-concussion syndrome.

*****Sid winning at worlds is I think the end of this era cause Worlds kicked off Sid’s “winning everything that he could possibly win” era.

[the sully era] The 15-16 & 16-17 cup wins against San Jose and Nashville. The threepeat attempt in 2018 with its second round loss to the capitals. The vegas draft followed several years later by the seattle draft. Geno had a kid. Once you get past the cup runs this really blends into the nebulous now. Maybe it’s cause I stopped reading fic religiously sometime between 2019 and 2021 but aside from the covid pandemic which I very much do not like reading about, there’s not much here to highlight other than player milestones and trades, but don’t worry Sid and Geno have had a bunch of milestones.

[modern pensblr] - The covid stoppage, pandemic-hockey, and now. Anything from 2020 to the current 2023-24 season. Very much the nebulous now but there’s tons of milestones for our two headed monster/core trio to celebrate.

Okay I know I just spent a while being very “general with specific” but this next category is for the people who just don’t care about anything I’ve talked about.

7. [Timeline what timeline] - This is the one where authors simply don’t care about the “when” of their setting. It’s an outgrowth of the nebulous now but it’s less tied to canon. It may reference a season but it doesn’t have to and will often ignore actual team makeup because “this is my fanfic and if I want to ignore that trade I can.” Non-hockey aus (one or both s/g) will often fall under this since you need to answer who is playing center for the Penguins if Sid drives the zamboni. Straight up aus are kinda here but I don’t think fics that are fully an au setting like a college frat or space au really counts for this conversation since the au comes with its own time period that is wholly divorced from canon outside of the cast of characters. This is also where fics that go “I’m going to write my own canon” belong (ie Geno is a flyer, what if Pens drafted Ovi instead of Geno, what if X player got traded to Y team and hooked up with Z player). Timeline can matter for some of those fics, but most of them only care as much as it makes sense to make the fic make sense. The important timeline information is that hockey is happening (or it’s the off season and hockey isn’t happening). These are the fics where the Pens are always conveniently playing Washington when Geno needs advice from Ovi or Vegas when Sid needs similar from Flower. As long as the fic is internally consistent what does it matter if you’ve forgotten this or that timeline detail such as setting a timeline in the first place. Hockey itself is so intertwined with the specific routines of a season that you can divorce that routine from reality and just have hockey. Fall becomes winter becomes spring becomes the playoffs, what more can an author ask for?

Done? Idk I’m out of words. Okay I love you for reading this far. Bye bye. Feel free to chime in in the notes if you’ve got your own ideas. I certainly don’t have a monopoly on thoughts and I’m not convinced I’m right either, just doing a deep think.