hedgehockey

Introvert. Outdoor person. Hockey nut.

[hedgehockey]

Intro Post

Hello! A long overdue introduction.

I'm Hedge (they/them). I am fairly terrible at joining in (high anxiety, low energy, ND), but I am resolved to try and change that as I do love talking to people. I'm also away a lot, so I cycle regularly through bursts of activity then nothing.

I like to write. And read (out loud sometimes).

At the moment I mainly write fic/read podfic for:

Hockey RPF

The Sandman

Natasha Pulley's novels (any and all)

Black Sails

I try to tag for fandom and my own stuff so you can filter appropriately:

hedge fic - all the fic from all the fandoms

hedge fic [fandom] - all the fic from a specific fandom

hedge podfic - all the podfic from all the fandoms

hedge podfic [fandom] - all the podfic from a specific fandom

I sometimes get excited about random things, in which case I will tag:

hedge writes

Anything about me will be tagged:

hedge tag

My spoiler tags are non-existent, I'm sorry. This is because I'm usually extremely late to the game in watching or reading anything so I assume everyone else has already seen or read everything I'm writing about. I will always be hopelessly off-trend. I'm also pretty terrible about consistently tagging for other things, beyond pairings, which I try to be consistent about, but often mix up / and x. My tagging game is slightly better over at AO3, so head over there if you are concerned.

Speaking of which, my writings and podfics are all on AO3.

Please feel free to create noncommercial transformative fanworks of my writing. If you @ me when you do, I will be amazed and tell you how much I appreciate it! You don't have to though.

[colemckenzies]

you can make nearly any object into a good insult if you put ‘you absolute’ in front of it

example: you absolute coat hanger

[ggiornojo]

as well u can just add ‘ed’ to any object and it’s sounds like you were really drunk

example: i was absolutely coat hangered last night

[colemckenzies]

#i was gazeboed mate #i was absolutely baubled

[animatedamerican]

Meanwhile, “utter” works for the first (e.g., “you utter floorboard”) but somehow “utterly” doesn’t seem to work as well for the second (“I was utterly floorboarded”).

[nentuaby]

Utterly doesn’t work for drunk because it’s the affix for turning random objects into terms for *shocked*, obviously.

[animatedamerican]

… huh.  I thought that might just be the similarity to “floored”, and yet “I was utterly coat hangered” does seem to convey something similar.

I have to tell you, I am utterly sandwiched at this discovery.

[thepioden]

Completely makes the phrase mean “super tired”.

“God, it’s been a long week, I am completely coat-hangered.”

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Something is

Something is wrong with our language

[rooksandravens]

Is it a glitch or a feature?

[cranberrybogmummy]

Feature

[prigorie]

the entire cast & crew of black sails could do the odyssey but christopher nolan could never do black sails

[erraticprocrastinator]

Not sure about anyone else, but I re-read all my favourite AO3 comments when I’ve had a rough day, so if you’ve ever taken the time to write a deep, funny, or just kind comment, thank-you.

[undeadhousewife]

[eeby-deeby-dark-and-creepy]

Ok now I’m curious… Which do you prefer:

I have lived in and out of the city, I prefer the city

I have only lived in the city, I prefer the city

I have only lived out of the city, I prefer the city

I have lived in and out of the city, I prefer out of the city

I have only lived in the city, I prefer out of the city

I have only lived out of the city, I prefer out of the city

Bald/vanilla extract/I reject dichotomies under all circumstances/I can’t read

Voting ended onJul 26

[strictlyquadrilateral]

i grew up playing hockey in massachusetts, and at some point ended up with a trio of books that, based on a quick search just now, no one has heard of unless they grew up playing hockey in massachusetts. they were written by mark fidler, who i'm having trouble finding records of online because it seems like there are a handful of mark fidlers and none of them are particularly well known. i assume he's the one who played hockey for boston university at some point.

anyway, each of the books is about a kid who plays hockey and is encountering an adverse circumstance. one is about a kid whose family moves out to the middle of nowhere and has to learn how to play hockey on a pond instead of in a rink. one is about a kid who's bullied because his dad is the zamboni driver (as a side note, this one seems unrealistic because everyone loves zambonis? "wow your dad gets paid to drive an extremely cool machine. you're such a loser" ???). both of these were fine. i read each of them once or twice. but i read the third one a lot more times. please bear with me because i do have a copy of this book somewhere but i don't know where and it's been a while since i actually read it. partway through writing this post i found it and have rewritten the rest of this post while rereading it.

two-faced forward, published in 2005, is about a young boy who gets a very bad concussion and is told by his doctor that he has to give up hockey for at least a year--boys' hockey allows checking, and would be extremely dangerous for him. (for those of you who didn't grow up playing hockey, checking is when you ram another player into the boards.) as a kid who loves his sport, as many sports-playing children do, he's devastated. he considers playing in a rec league, but his friend points out that he'd be going from playing with A teams to playing with people who simply aren't that good at hockey. when his friend leaves. he thinks:

Why was it that all the no-check leagues were jokes? If you want to play serious hockey, and you are twelve years old, you have to check. If you're a boy, anyway. Why couldn't I be a girl? Girls aren't allowed to check at any level, even in college or the Olympics. If I were a girl, I could play hockey at the highest level, and not worry about a killer check.

he decides that, since he's small for his age and hasn't yet gone through puberty, he can pass as a girl with a little bit of effort as long as no one he knows sees him. with the help of a friend posing as his father on the phone, he's able to get a spot on the local girls team. The first time he skates with them, one of the girls introduces herself and he notes how good she is as practice goes on.

And then I realized how great it felt to be back on skates. Suddenly, I was no longer a boy disguised as a girl, skating with a bunch of girls. I could tell by the way these girls skated that they were hockey players. I was on the ice with hockey players. I was a hockey player. I was doing what I was born to do. And after three weeks of unspeakable torture, building houses of cards and trying not to think about the game I loved, the world was right again.

obviously, there are problems. he has to find a way to pay for his place on the team and attend practices and games without his parents finding out, and he has to keep his two identities separate. but he's able to play and make friends with the team, and over time he starts to think of himself as one of the girls. and the team is good; they qualify for nationals. but actually attending requires a birth certificate, and while he does make a fake one, he can't bring himself to give it to his coach. his coach drives to the house he gave as his address to try to get it before the deadline, and everything unravels. his closest friend on the team confronts him; he confesses to her and she freaks out at how he's lied to her and the team. his parents respond more calmly, and they take him to apologize to the team.

the team and coaches are upset that they're now disqualified from going to nationals, but they otherwise don't take it too badly aside from his closest friend. the resolution of the scandal is that most people forgot about it by summer; "The big hockey magazines had stories about me, but they talked about my accident, and made people mostly feel sorry for me." in the last chapter, he plays pick-up hockey with the girl who was his closest friend on the team; she says that this is hard for her and she needs some time but they can probably someday be friends again. on the ice, they play together in perfect sync.

i don't have a good way to end this post. but i keep thinking about this book. rereading it now, it's kind of wishy-washy; you can read it as "this kid did something bad because of his circumstances, but he's forgiven because he did it for pure love of hockey" and that's probably the intended reading. but when i was a kid, all i understood was that he loved hockey, and the only way he could play it was to lie; the problem was not that he lied, but that he had no other choice.

i wish, now, having just reread it, that the book had explicitly come to the conclusion that segregating hockey by gender rather than by checking versus non-checking leagues was itself the problem, but even with my bad experiences on boys teams and much better experiences on girls teams, i was still able to reach that conclusion as a child because of this book. i firmly believed that without question someone in this circumstance should be allowed to play on a girls team, and therefore anyone willing to be one of the girls should be allowed to openly play on a girls team. it would still be several years before i learned about transgender people existing. in a way, you could call this book my introduction to the idea, and despite its flaws, i think it did a pretty good job. who cares about someone's gender? their love of hockey should be all that matters.

[likeafieldmouse-deactivated2015]

Luis Camnitzer - The Photograph (1981)

[gastronauticsyd]

The Screenshot (2014)

[fredersen]

The Reblog (2014)

[toratiger-deactivated20211204]

Bahahahaha love this

[processintegrated]

The Unnecessary Comment (2014)

[grumpygreenwitch]

The Revival (2026)

[schattenhonig]

The “The original?!” (2026)

[spacefinch]

@world-heritage-posts @worldheritagepostorganization

@hellsite-hall-of-fame

The “Nomination for World Heritage Post” (2026)

[wovi]

*

simone weil

[wovi]

*

ursula k. leguin

[judgejudyofficial]

stop letting miserable people on the internet convince you that you must have a concrete, well-constructed opinion on everything that has ever existed.

[supreme-leader-stoat]

[judgejudyofficial]

everybody say thank you Marcus Aurelius

[tokkibean]

when youre stressed about your current wip, start a new one! now you can be stressed about two wips instead!

[drizzledrawings]

Sometimes the ship aint your taste but the freaks who create the art for it are so goddamn skilled that you end up liking it by proxy... and thats truly what fandom is about

[hedgehockey]

Latest fanfics: a writer meme

Rules: post the beginning lines of your most recent 10 published fanfics, then attempt to tag 10 people!

Many thanks to @circuitbirb for the tag-in, and the wonderful reminder that I have *so many* WIPs that I would love to get back to. I've not been writing as much recently (life stuff - all amazing, but little time left over) and the enthusiasm is well and truly reawakened!

The Warmth of Heart and Home. (The Kingdoms - Natasha Pulley, Kite/Joe, M, 6.3k Kite returns for Christmas. In the warmth of their little house, fitting into the little rhythms of life with Joe and the children, he realises just how much he has missed.) The floor was scattered with shreds of newspaper and ends of string.

Safe in Snowlight. (The Half Life of Valery K - Natasha Pulley, Valery/Shenkov, M, 3.4k, Valery and Shenkov go visiting on Christmas Eve, but even though they return home with the quiet weight of longing and displacement, it feels like the right place to be.) Shenkov was lying on the couch when Valery got home, watching the television with no sound.

Colours of Mori. (The Watchmaker of Filigree Street - Natasha Pulley, Thaniel/Mori, G, 168 words) Thaniel's whole world with Mori is a kaleidoscope of colour.

Again and Forever. (The Kingdoms - Natasha Pulley, Kite/Jem, G, 341 words) Kite has lost count of the number of times he has fallen in love.

By Any Other Name. (The Kingdoms - Natasha Pulley, Kite/Joe, M, 2.9k, Two men shaped by past lives, shame, and fractured identities, find that love — fragile, patient, and sometimes unspoken — is the only certainty they can trust.) Even though he’d only been there a week, the stateroom of the Victory felt as close to home as he’d ever come.

Words are Spoken, Words are Unspoken. (Black Sails, James Flint/Thomas Hamilton, M, 21.2k, Sometimes, the most effective communication has no words.) He sets his jaw. His cynical laugh thinly disguised as a forceful breath.

Fractured. Which is not the same as broken. (The Sandman TV, The Sandman Comics, Dream/Hob, M, 8.4k, Dream feels the weight of his long existence, and wonders if there is anything he can do about it. WORK IN PROGRESS (definitely not abandoned! Just prevaricating about watching Season 2!) The piazza is starting to come alive in the golden glow of the early evening.

Louder Than Words. (Black Sails, James Flint/Thomas Hamilton, M, 3.1k, Thomas sees James leaving their house late at night, and their silent exchange reveals more than he had expected.) The clock struck eleven, reminding Thomas that they had, once again, lost track of time after dinner.

Dance with Me. (The Kingdoms - Natasha Pulley, Kite/Jem, M 754 words, At the Admiralty New Year Ball, Jem is asked to dance by almost everyone, except the one person he wishes he could dance with.) Kite could have stayed like that forever, the impression of Jem’s lips still tingling through his own, their foreheads resting lightly together as they breathed each other in.

Know No Shame. (The Kingdoms - Natasha Pulley, Kite/Jem, M, 7.7k, A Black Sails-inspired Kingdoms fic - a Thomas/James-coded Kite/Jem being in love. With some Miranda-coded Agatha thrown in (indirectly) for good measure.) They’d been aboard the Dido for nearly six months.

I don't think I can actually tag 10 people who haven't already been tagged, so it's an open invitation from here. Please spread your work!

[circuitbirb]

Latest fanfics: a writer meme

Rules: post the beginning lines of your most recent 10 published fanfics, then attempt to tag 10 people!

thank you @larkthorne for tagging me! :D

my past 10 fics are all for The Half Life of Valery K and then the oldest one is for The Raven Cycle haha

it's in the ions (Valery/Shenkov, modern au pwp, 3.7k) Valery liked airports, but actually flying was a different story.

it's the little things you miss (Valery/Shenkov, hanahaki, 2.9k) Valery barely heard the knock on the apartment door over the sound of his coughs.

brilliant creatures (Valery/Shenkov, post-canon, crack, 1.6k) It was a quiet Sunday morning and Valery and Shenkov were in their usual positions on the couch.

don't go (I know I pushed you to before) (Valery/Shenkov, fluff, 500 words) For the first time in a long time, Shenkov felt like things might be getting better.

sweet tooth (Valery/Shenkov, 5+1, fluff, I will finish the second half eventually I promise) The evening began like so many others: Valery came home from work, they ate dinner, they watched the news while enjoying each other’s company and a bottle of vodka.

rust & chocolate (Valery/Shenkov, canon divergence, 3.4k) Valery watched the taxi drive away, back through the barbed wire gates and into the main part of the strange little town.

The Desk (Valery/Shenkov, post-canon, pwp, 3k) Valery saw the desk one day when he was heading home from work.

you're coming back & it's the end of the world (Valery/Shenkov, missing scene, 1k) They stood like that for a long time, arms draped over each other in the kitchenette of Valery’s tiny flat.

one room over (Valery/Shenkov, missing scene, 1.8k) Shenkov wasn’t sleeping.

long, long nights (Gansey & Ronan but could be slash if u want, 1.5k) Gansey had run out of cardboard.

I'm tagging @annapear @k745 @hedgehockey @thereforealiar and anyone else who wants to join!

[victor-v]

excuse me but the romantic tension between valery and shenkov ?????? what's going on there

[carnelianmeluha]

Medovik from Couscous Cake by canarysingingsweetly and layers of honey by @sushiwriterhere

I'm a little late to wishing Ilya Happy Birthday but these fics and post is perfect for the occasion! Medovik is a Russian cake where eight cookie dough-like layers are baked individually and then filled with layers of honey, sour cream, and heavy cream. It's incredibly time consuming but the taste is so unique--somewhere between a chewy cookie and a cake, and not too sweet. I have come across two Heated Rivalry fanfics that mention medovik.

The first fic is Couscous Cake, where it's Ilya's birthday and Yuna makes medovik for him. I love stories where Ilya bonds with the Hollanders but it takes some time for Yuna to warm up to the newness and sometimes awkwardness of this relationship and the Ilya that she hadn't seen before.

The fic has other recipes too. We actually begin with Ilya baking Shane's macrobiotic couscous birthday cake with the Hollanders. It's so cute with Ilya making a heart on the cashew cream icing and Yuna offering to bake a birthday cake for him next time. Here are a few lines!

~~~~~~~

Yuna pulled out the massive honey cake from her refrigerator, sliding it onto the countertop carefully. It had, indeed, taken her and Shane hours the day before to bake each of its 8 layers to perfection; to frost and crumb and oh-so carefully move it into the refrigerator to set overnight.

“Medovik,” Shane explained excitedly, and Ilya leaned over to kiss him on the temple. “It took us forever. Mom and I just followed a recipe online, but it seemed authentic. We compared a lot of them to one another. I’m hoping we got the honey ratio just right –”

David cut into it as Yuna and Shane sucked in a nervous breath, praying that it wouldn’t fall apart. Thankfully, he pulled the slice out and placed it cleanly on a plate for them to admire. Eight layers – and yes, they weren’t all perfectly the same size, and maybe Shane’s frosting job was a little haphazard at places, but it was clearly made with love, and Ilya was absolutely thrilled at the sight of it.

~~~~~~

Second, we have layers of honey by @sushiwriterhere, where it's Irina's birthday and Shane bakes medovik (after three experiments to get it just right)! Ilya first thinks that Yuna made it but when he realizes it was Shane, he is amazed and floored! The fic also beautifully weaves Ilya's grief, his memories of his mom, her last birthday, the last medovik she baked, and his attempts to find the perfect medovik in bakeries in New York City.

This fic mentions other recipes I want to try some day--Russian Napoleon Cake, Muraveinik or Anthill Cake, and Pavlova from Ilya's memories in Russia, and Chicken Katsu and curry rice that Yuna makes.

~~~~~~~

“You mentioned once this was her favorite cake–I used her recipe, the one in that red book you keep in the office–and how you haven’t had a good one since getting here, I thought you might want to remember her by having one.”

...Shane is sliding him [Ilya] a plate with a slice of the медовик and a spoon. The tears start again when the slice starts to wobble, layers clearly perfectly soaked, because of that odd type of structural integrity that only comes with a cake held together by honey, heavy cream, and sour cream.

“Как будто она сделала.” As if she made it. Ilya says softly, smiling a watery smile at his husband who releases the breath he’d been holding.

~~~~~~~~~

I baked the cake for my cousin who is visiting me; it was his birthday yesterday, and so we celebrated his birthday today too. He said he really loved the medovik!

One of the authors also included a recipe, and I found two more. Ultimately I combined them to make a recipe but I think I'll add more honey next time. It's funny how my experience making the cake was similar to the Hollanders, also making it for the first time, and sometimes it felt that I was reading the lines in my own voice!

I hope you give medovik and these fics a try!

[scatteredaffirmations]

"why does my skin start to burn?"

queer ship edits to music by openly queer artists for pride month!

here is flinthamilton × "fable" by gigi perez!

>> watch on youtube (with lyric subtitles) & tiktok <3 <<

queer people have always existed and that includes pirates and noblemen! happy pride

[midwinterhunt]

Hot Writers Don't Gatekeep

the writers REALLY liked my artist resource post, so I thought i'd give y'all my dragon hoard of things i use for writing

Reverse Dictionary, you type in the meaning of a word, and it gives you a bunch of words that mean that. (MY MOST IMPORTANT OFFERING IN THIS LIST)

Slang Dictionary, what it says on the tin.

Anglish Translator, Anglish is if English evolved without borrowing from other languages and it really itches my brain (Anglish is if english grown without borrowing from other languages and it truly itches my brain)

Incorrect Quotes Generator, Put character names in, and incorrect quotes come out. Really fun way to goof around with your characters' dynamics.

Handspeak, an ASL dictionary

Library of Babel, Odds are, the finished version of your wip is in here somewhere

The best fantasy map maker i have ever used

Glitch Text Generator is one I use A Lot, does ť̷̨̢͓̤͔̤̤̝̺̯̄̔̄̌̄͗͒͋͂͋͝ḩ̵̼̜͍͚͕̏̓͊̈̉̆̄͐́͗͒̈̃̊̚͜i̵̻̐̇̎̏̀̋̌̃̇̿͘̚s̴̮̔̂̇͒͑͝͝ͅ to your text

Totally not bootleg microsoft office

Emotions Thesaurus a guide for writing emotions and their associated body language

Mythcreants, has a whole bunch of stuff you can read to learn more about the technical aspects of writing

A decent article talking about what to think about when creating a language

Trope Talks, particularly good for beginner and younger writers or people who have a hard time reading. Honestly this whole channel is a fantastic format to get information into my adhd rattled brain.

FOR MY AO3 BESTIES! Postimages will host your image forever so you can embed it into your work

Ambient Chaos, sometimes the only thing in the world that can kick your brain into writing mode is nuclear sirens and lofi beats

Radioooooo, play a station from any place and year. Particularly helpful for period pieces.

[midwinterhunt]

Food timeline, when foods were invented