My Fandom Obsessions @disposablestar - Tumblr Blog

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Me: she/her, 30s, queer, brown, U.K., fairly new Pens fan, lurker in various fandoms forever. 18+ followers only please. Always looking for mutuals!

Fandoms:

Hockey RPF - Sid/Geno, Sid/almost NHL player as long as everyone understands he is a precious who needs protecting.

Numb3rs - Charlie/Colby, Charlie/Ian

NCIS - Tony/Gibbs

White Collar - Neal/Peter/El

Suits - Harvey/Mike

ticklefightgeno

jes, i need you to know your impact... i followed you early in the heated rivalry craze and then became increasingly fascinated by sidgeno bc of your blogging. fell into a deep dive of men's hockey rpf and now god help me... i care about the sport... after a childhood spent around evil hockey players, no less! i'd foresworn the whole thing! what's worse is that i have essays forming in my head about hockey, rpf, disability in professional sport, etc, and i fear i might need to start writing down my thoughts.

what have you done to me!! i cannot articulate how Not Into Sport i was prior to this! anyway if you have any books u can recommend about hockey so i can read them for my Essays, please do... i guess...

I’m so delighted for you!! and cannot wait to read any and all essays you might write!! most of my hockey book reading has been limited to books about how toxic juniors culture is (for research reasons) but I bet there is lots of interesting work out there. I think(?) @talahui made a rec list a while back and might have book recs to share, and others should feel free to chime in.

talahui

hi anon -- I also have a preoccupation with disability in sport -- particularly tied to TBIs and CTE -- so feel free to shoot me a message if you ever get stuck on something because I might have random articles tucked away depending on what you're looking for.

More broadly, here are some posts that have collected hockey books that might be of interest:

@starrynet 's rec list of fiction/non-fiction + more recs in the replies/reblogs my rec list for an earlier jes anon requesting hockey writing @sequestering 's rec list for the same anon

you can also dig around my cte tag and find links to articles that would likely tie into your interest on disability, but a few articles as a jumping off point:

Eric Lindros is worried about everyone's concussions but his own | Michael Rosenberg Enforcers: Soul on Ice | Kent Russell [this essay rewired my brain] ‘What hurts now?’ For retired NHL goalies, the answer is often: everything | Scott Cruickshank [non-paywalled link] John Branch wrote a brilliant book called Boy on Ice, but this interview on NPR talks about some of the disabling aspects of hockey, specifically for athletes in an enforcer role

& while this is not hockey, I pulled a few sections (+1) from Michael Bennett's memoir that align a lot with your interest around disability and sport.

asterwild

PENGUINS. all of them!

(not precisely to scale, but close)

pghpenguins

sidgeno moments that actually happened but feel like a figment of rpf:

i saw you in latvia and knew how lucky i was that i was going to be your teammate

geno escaping his hometown team to play for the pens

me three years superleague

“two-headed monster”

it’s me and geno

always for pittsburgh, always with sid

russia with geno

sid comforting geno post-olympics

2022 geno contract negotiations stalemate

not my wife, not my family, but he…

i hope nikita thinks of him as family. i do

this is nothing new but it’s just genuinely astonishing. really putting the “real” in “real person fiction”

#sidgeno thoughts

rimouskis

maybe this is a grand-scheme-of-things reawakening for me that real hockey contains only disappointments, whereas hockey fanfiction contains gay sex and occasional joy

crow-talks-hockey

alright everyone. last day of the regular season so say it with me now:

watermelonrindsandstickyfingers

https://www.tumblr.com/watermelonrindsandstickyfingers/813541112885231616/incoming-hockey-rant-mack-vs-sid-similar-play?source=share

Can you elaborate on the 'tiny mack spins'??? when does he do this? why?

Thank you for all the time and effort going into your posts 😚

why do players spin??

mostly to protect the puck and create space!!

when they turn or spin, they put their body between the defender and/ or puck + which makes it harder to steal.

it’s actually pretty hard to do though and takes some fancy footwork. most players can turn, but tight little ' ballerina' spins under pressure aren’t super common (the best at this ive seen is sid and patrick kane)

kinds of spins;

a) one spin

sometimes they spin once, getting out of a postion or to keep possession of the puck and protect it with your back

this is one of my favorite sid moves, he does it so often its called the 'crosby turn' :

example of mack doing the same one sid does;

b) two spins;

the second spin however resets the play or changes direction again & can be very confusing for defenders

a half double spin (going halfway on each);

a complete double spin;

when you see someone spin twice in tight space, it’s usually a sign they’re really comfortable with the puck and good at working in small areas.

mack doing his famous 'complete double spins';

here he goes backwards, *receive* large spin;

i also think its this skill that makes mack so good at outrageously sharp turns without loosing speed;

wlcrobin

Numb3rs is so much more fun when you realize that literally every government agency in the universe needs to go to Charles Eppes' office, politely ask for his help, and probably pay him by the hour. Then there's Don who just wakes him up from the bed and takes him to the fbi office in pyjamas.

fahatesyou

Geno with Ovi!

jeynearrynofthevale

bonus: even the dogs are besties!

jeynearrynofthevale

Important Wedding/Honeymoon Updates Below:

sportsthoughts

the fact that sid answers every survey question with a simple pre-planned answer and NEVER doubts himself and NEVER reveals anything much but when it comes to him admitting his emergency contact is kris he explains himself, then explains that he doubts his answer, but really he does want it to be kris because if he could just get hold of him he knows he'd help and then tries to save face giving two more half answers in case kris doesn't pick up the phone.

and then kris all but gets down on one knee and vows to always pick up the phone.

#The brat and the cat

ehghtyseven

a decade later... [x][x]

ticklefighthockey

hi! love your heated rivalry posts, you look at the show from a very interesting angle. but i actually have a question about hockey. from what i understand, you've read the books, so you know that eventually shane ends up on the same team as ilya. how does it work though, tactics/strategy-wise, when there are two star centers in one team? i don't know much about hockey so forgive me if i sound ignorant but i'm very curious. wouldn't it be kind of a downgrade for either of them to switch to playing on the second line? like, wouldn't that hurt the ego of whoever ends up moving there? and if i understand correctly one doesn't really switch between lines? i know ilya played winger with shane as the center in the 2017 all star game and they liked it but i assume he wouldn't switch to that completely. like all power to the centaurs it'd be funny to win the cup through the sheer force of gay love but how does that actually work

oh my god i just spiritually ascended while reading this ask because it means i get to tell you that THIS HAS LITERALLY HAPPENED IN REAL LIFE and it's called EVGENI MALKIN + SIDNEY CROSBY of the pittsburgh penguins and the result was THREE STANLEY CUPS INCLUDING A BACK-TO-BACK. no but actually. two superstar generational talents drafted a year apart by the same team, one of them widely considered to be one of the greatest players of all time. SURELY the second superstar would get tired of playing in the bigger superstar's shadow and move on to a team where he could be the unquestioned 1C! HOW could it possibly work? and the answer is that the bigger superstar literally just was like i am going to make this man my best friend. my absolute ride-or-die. i'm going to tell him and everyone that i've never met a better player or a better guy. i'm going to go to the mat for him when people make noise about moving him somewhere else. and we are going to renew our vows regularly by releasing some kind of INSANE public statement or interview quote about how much we love and admire and respect each other virtually ever year. AND IT WORKED.

#sidgeno thoughts

timbitshockey

For a while, I kind of thought that McDavid's whole deal had to be mostly nurture with overbearing parents or something. But he really is just like that and he has been forever, which is even crazier. As a scholar of both Sid and Connor, do you have thoughts on their deals and how they're different?

oh man you could NOT have asked me a better question. i do think the main thing that separates them is a sort of air of meloncholy that surrounds connor, whether that’s fairly earned or not.

sid is intense and dedicated and extremely competitive, just like connor, but he’s also affable and endearing. connor is not. i don’t mean this to say that connor isn’t friendly or happy or likeable, because he definitely IS, but i think connor struggles with public social interactions in a way sid never really has. connor’s certainly gotten better as he’s gotten more used to it, but i think he comes off as someone trying to be those things and often falling a little bit short. i think connor’s very serious in how he presents himself where sid can be dorky or goofier (and part of that is i think that sid has achieved success in his career via stanley cups/olympic golds/etc that connor has not and this means he can relax a little bit and chill out). all those stories about connor being very intense about winning and the pressure of greatness from a very young age seem to line up with this for me. i think connor loves hockey and he enjoys his life but i think he’s just an internally serious and quiet person in a way i don’t think sid is and this can come off as melancholy or socially awkward, especially given the pressure on connor to succeed and the struggles his team has faced during his career so far. basically i think sid would’ve been an average high school student popularity-wise if he hadn’t been exceptional at hockey but i think if connor hadn’t been exceptional at hockey he would’ve been bullied pretty severely. does that make sense.

also this doesn’t quiet tie into this but i do think it’s so interesting that early years sid didn’t really have a direct comparison — like sure he was “the next one” but gretzky had been retired for six years by the time sid got drafted and lemieux was at the very end of his career so he got to stand on his own a little bit and not be in direct competition with all his idols. meanwhile early years connor idolized SID and joined the league right at the peak of sid’s career. it’s one thing to chase a ghost and another to be told to run over your hero. idk! very interesting to me. spinning them around in a centrifuge in my mind

timbitshockey

@rimouskis ooh self-aware is the perfect word for it! i don’t think baby sid at his most awkward ever seemed like bothered by his awkwardness but i DO get that vibe from connor. i think the way connor is in a lot of his interactions with biz is a great example of it — he chirps biz like everyone does but it just comes off more sharp or more serious just because he seems to be visibly Trying. he tries really hard! i’m sure sid tries too but it’s not quite as obvious as connor. i think it all just comes to sid a little bit more naturally.

ultravioletlightwaves

I live laugh love character analysis like this.

I think one of the things that shields Sid is his deep abiding love for Being One of the Guys. Even at his most awkward, what he wanted most of all (after winning) was to be loved and accepted by his teammates. He wanted to hang out with them (ideally if they also would practice insane hours with him) so so so badly. And he was good enough at hockey that they would put up with his dorkyness.

We know that it wasn't smooth sailing, the early Pens teams were not universally nice to him, especially the older guys, to the point where Mario had to kind of mediate, and when Mario was out apparently it would get kinda toxic. I think about that sometimes-- like poor Sid, he's trying to live up to the hype and he's not just getting shit on by Flyers fans, the call is sometimes coming from inside the house. But he did have multiple friends on those teams among the younger guys, and those guys trained him pretty early on to associate teasing with affection. So even while he was getting tormented by opposing teams and fans, and maybe even by his own team a little bit, I think he had some social armor and confidence that came from achieving his true heart's desire (being a beloved part of a team).

Obviously Connor likes his team and all that, but I do think that deep down he's not a Make Me One of the Guys person like Sid is. Connor imprinted on one sarcastic German almost immediately and said to himself, basically, 'as long as this surly fridge on stilts lets me sit next to him at the lunch table I do not have to care about anyone else in this building. Oh no they made me the captain I have to care. Oh no oh dear oh no. Woe and such.'

Like who is Sid's best friend? It's Geno. Well but it's also Tanger. It's Flower. It's Army. It's Nate. It's Kathy. It's his precious child Bryan Rust or more specifically Bryan Rust's mustache. It's his trainer Andy. It's not Mitch Marner but Marns would like to get up in there. It's Mario but in like a weird dad way. Etc.

Who's Connor's best friend? Leon. Don't we mean Lauren? No. It's Leon.

There are some people who, even if they have best friends, really thrive best in big friend groups. And there are some people who really just need and want one bestie. I think this plays a lot into the ways Sid and Connor are perceived by the public and the press, and the different demeanors they project. And I find this fascinating!!

#sidthoughts