hockey ruins everything

candace. she/her. red wings. devils. canes. canucks. random hockeys. writer. human disaster. endlessly infuriated.

[rumandwhine]

Welcome to Whatever the Hell This Is!

For anyone who stumbles upon this, it's mostly hockey and randomness. Finally decided screw it and changed the name to match my AO3 handle. So. There's that.

If you want to ask me a question about my fics or shout at me about hockey or point and laugh at how devastatingly sad my teams are; feel free to do so. Banner image available on pexels.

PSA (Please Read!): I hate that I have to do this, but I feel it's necessary. I DO NOT support ANY player accused of sexual assault, no matter the team they play(ed) for.

[raisesomehellfest]

Raise Some Hell Fest 2026

After we got some great fics, webweaves & art (digital AND physical!) last year, we thought we'd give running this fest for another year a go! Last year felt a little tight, so this year fics/art/etc won't be due until the beginning of the regular season in September (& because we all need something to occupy our off season;)!)

As with last year, the work you submit can be absolutely anything, as long as it's Devils centric and original. The idea is for this to be a fun, stress free fest to encourage content and community in our little corner of fandom 🏒 Whether you're an experienced fandom creator or you just want to dip your toe into writing, video editing, art, web weaves etc, this is the fest for you! No theme means you can create whatever you like and there's no minimum/maximum needed for words or time spent creating.

Sign Up Here

😈 Schedule 😈

Sign ups open: 1st June 2026

Sign ups close: 30th June 2026

First Check in: 31st July 2026

Second Check in: 31st August 2026

Submission due: 27th September 2026

Works go live: 28th September 2026

Rules

You must be 18+ to take part

If you want to cross post your own work onto platforms such as X, TikTok etc, that's fine, just please no mention of it being part of this fest! The fourth wall is very important

Your work must be centred around a member of the New Jersey Devils or a New Jersey Devils RPF pairing (e.g. nico/jack, jesper/timo etc)

No 'x reader' or 'x original characters' please

No content for individuals credibly accused or convicted of sexual assault or domestic violence

Your work must be your own. Please do not use generative AI. If we suspect your work has used generative AI, it will be excluded from the fest.

Not so much a rule, but a gentle encouragement to please, please, please engage and comment on people's works when posted! The aim of the fest is to create a lil sense of community and connect with people in our fandom <3

FAQ

Details regarding how to add your work to the collection will be shared and posted closer to the time!

I'm planning to make a little discord group chat again for the people partaking to connect, share previews and generally encourage each other! Make sure to add your discord username to the sign up form so I can add you if you wish to get involved (but this is not mandatory).

If you have any feedback/questions, please don't hesitate to DM me or send me an ask! Always happy for feedback/suggestions! Let's go Devils!

***now with a gorgeous header provided by @1386 !!!

[rumandwhine]

well. the project from hell (work) is finally done and i no longer want to yeet myself into lake huron or commit ritual murder, so. back to writing something that brings me joy instead of soul sucking emails and proposals.

if you've left me a fic comment or message in the last couple weeks, i apologize for not responding - i promise i'm not ignoring you or don't care! i'm hoping to reply to them over the next couple days! <3 <3

[powerful-owl]

pick one

your ship goes canon

your favorite ao3 writer drops 100k of your ship + your favorite trope

Voting ended onJun 10

[rumandwhine]

Steve Yzerman is just - you know, as someone born, raised and living in Michigan who has been a Wings fan her whole stupid existence I am just so fucking done with him. D. O. N. E. And I remember him playing okay? I am old enough to remember him playing but the absolute hatchet job this fucker has done to this organization in the last five years has been so disheartening and frustrating and unnecessary that I want to drive to Detroit and shake him and just start screaming are you happy now you fucking egotistical asshole? there is no one NO ONE to blame for the situation that has gone on in this goddamned team but you and despite being a grown ass man you refuse to take any accountability for it and I. AM. DONE. fuck off and leave us alone.

[mumblesplash]

[staggering to my feet and wiping a single perfect drip of blood from my mouth] i have to get back on my bullshit. no matter the cost

[lilyrizzy]

has anyone suffered more than nico Hischier???

[rumandwhine]

I wish Brenden Dillon would take Nemo’s name out of his fucking mouth.

on top of it being utterly baffling that he opened his mouth at all, it’s the thoughtlessness and carelessness and potential targeted way he’s throwing Nemo under the bus.

it’s the underlying theme of selfishness coming from him that really gets my goat. how is airing this all out unprompted beneficial to the team? even his thoughts on the Quinn to New Jersey thing sound player first versus team first.

my delulu hope is that his talks with Sunny didn’t go too well (because he shouldn’t be part of this team moving forward, frankly) and this his safety valve. but we can’t be that lucky can we?

he got my two most hated birds (spreading misinformation about Nemo and questioning Nico’s leadership) all in one go.

Yes, exactly! All of this!

Every time a player brings this kind of stuff up, especially unprompted, my initial thought is always: ok, what are you getting out of this? Because there is absolutely no reason at all to talk about any of this to the media unless you're actively trying to make yourself look good for some personal reason. So, that alone annoys the hell out of me.

God, hard yes on the Nemo stuff. Like. Okay, Dillon is the kind of player that I've taken to calling a Circle-Jerk Superstar, because he's the sort of guy that I think the boring ass, middle-aged, never had an original thought in their heads, front office types (and certain coaches, of which, unfortunately, I think Keefe is one) adore because he has all their stupid buzzword descriptors attached to him: "toughness" and "grit" and "compete" and "outspoken leadership" and blah-fuck-blah. And you're right, the way he talks about Nemo is just...it leaves a certain kind of sour taste in my mouth. It feels almost like he thinks he's doing Nemo a service when they're paired together, which, yuck. Dude, you aren't fast enough, talented enough or smart enough to play with Nemo, but go off, I guess. : \

I wonder, actually - if there is any grain of truth to the whole "guys complaining about ice time and not getting to play with certain guys" thing is actually sort of an poorly concealed outward attack because he was one of the ones other guys might've been "complaining" about and this is his heavy-handed, faux-honest attempt to get ahead of some narrative. Clearly, as you mentioned, he doesn't have a problem implying that everyone else is the problem.

That all of this will also be seen as a slight on Nico's leadership is just - seriously go fuck yourself, man. Nico does not shovel shit for this organization thanklessly for Brenden fucking Dillon to come out here and just pour gasoline on a grease fire.

I will happily join you in delulu-land about this; we need something to start going right in this hellish post-season because it's not even June and I am exhausted. Sunny, my man, please.

[justabystander]

(28.05.2026)

© swissicehockeymen

[depsidase]

[rumandwhine]

I read your lukenemo vampire fic a couple days ago and I totally forgot to message and tell you how much I loved it. It was soooo so so good like I adored every second of it. I’m so excited for the next chapters and obviously more lukenemo. People are criminally sleeping on them honestly. Not enough fics about my favorite defensemen.

Can’t wait to read more!!

Oh, thank you so much! I'm glad you liked it! Always a lovely thing to hear first thing in the morning. <3 <3

Totally agree that people are sleeping on the lukenemo potential here, and hopefully we can manifest a favorable off-season outcome in the meantime. (I am stressed already, it's not even June, ugh). I just want so badly for them to both be cornerstones here that I can almost taste it.

I'm aiming for early next week for the second chapter - I got about halfway through and realized I'd sort of gone off-script so I've spent some time backtracking, but I'm on course again, so fingers crossed! <3

[rumandwhine]

hard agree on the dillon thing!! it's so baffling to me that he just willingly put that out there, like the podcasters weren't even trying to get him to say something controversial, he just put that out there for no reason under zero pressure......it serves zero purpose, didn't even end it on a note of "oh yeah it's all resolved now and going into next season everyone is in mutual agreement or something like that, it will just become a talking point the entirety of the summer and will be brought up for monthssss, even at the beginning of new season.

Thank you! Glad to know I'm not the only one who found the whole thing off-putting and odd. And if the interviewers weren't even fishing - which I know is their job, so I wouldn't have been surprised if they had - than that makes it even worse. In that case, it almost makes it sound as if he's trying to get out of ahead of something; like he's trying to makes sure we all know that he wasn't the problem or something. It's just so baffling.

Like you said, without some kind of context or assurance that "hey it was just one of those stretches, all's well now" it'll linger. And gods forbid they have a rough start next year because that's all they'll (the media) want to talk about. Just ugh.

[rumandwhine]

please tell me that brenden "boat anchor" dillon isn't actually out here talking shit about guys. please. i am already stressed and it's not even june.

[rumandwhine]

I just. Were there off-ice distractions last year? Absolutely, not debating that. Were there divisions in the locker room? I don't know; and I think just saying something that inflammatory and dipping isn't great. I want explicit reasons why - was it just the strain of a lost season? was it the front office's repeated inability to handle a single thing in a way that made sense? was the line of communications between front office/coaching staff/team so dire that the rumor mill sounded plausible and it soured things? was it the worst case scenario where some guys genuinely don't like each other?

If it was just the frustration of how the season was going, why even bring it up? All that does is feed the trolls and fuel rumors that no one needs. And now it's definitively in the media that there was "locker room issues" which is a self-inflicted "off-ice distraction" from a guy who, if people were complaining about ice time and deployment, was one of the guys who benefited from that terrible deployment. Not to mention the way that these kinds of statements always sound like indictments of the leadership core; specifically the Captain, so thanks for throwing Nico (of all people) under the bus.

Between the continued Jack-will-obviously-leave-to-play-with-Quinn-in-Minny speculation we can't escape, the utterly ridiculous bogus Nemo reports yesterday (two days ago?) and now Dillon's voluntary misstep, my patience is at an all time low for this shit.

[rumandwhine]

please tell me that brenden "boat anchor" dillon isn't actually out here talking shit about guys. please. i am already stressed and it's not even june.

[imperatorrrrr]

Nemo at the Red Bulls game!!!

YES!

SIGN OF LIFE!

HE'S STILL IN NEW JERSEY!

what does it mean?! (it means nothing.) but what if it means something?! (it could mean anything.) my brain is running a mile a minute thinking about so many scenarios. MDW soon and we know the Hugheses like to frequent the shore during this time period what if a round boy Slovak joins in to keep Luke company. what iiiiiiiiiif.

but mostly my brain is like holy shit I'm going to be in New Jersey next weekend, must avoid Nemo at all costs.

[rumandwhine]

just read smwtds and ahhh I am OBSESSED!!!! It's so good, I love how you've portrayed the different clans and why they hate each other, and ahhh the delicious lukenemo of it all!! love all the little flashes of their relationships, made me laugh when nemo was like so what did you break while I was gone ksjsks, and also when jack was like be grateful I only broke his hand not his neck lmao

and more than that, I love love love how you've portrayed the brothers and their bonds to each other, when luke reveals he's sleeping with nemo to take the heat off jack......CINEMA!!! someone think of poor quinn, if they ever have a in-laws dinner nemo and nico would not be prepared for the hell quinn would unleash on them as revenge!!

thank you so much for sharing, this was a wonderful read!! I am so excited for the next chapter

[also it would lowkey be so funny that quinn is going through it™ rn because of his younger brothers and then fast forward an unspecified duration of time and the person quinn manages to fall for is like the final boss of "absolutely do not date", like maybe kirill whos the richest and most powerful *insert his designation* and that all clans fear, respect and despise his clan in equal measures, and then when quinn reveals it, his brothers just give him the look that's like "really?! you gave us so much shit and that's who you decide to go for?!"]×

I'm a little overwhelmed (in a good way!), Anon, thank you so much! The whole concept has been knocking at my brain for a month, so I'm thrilled you enjoyed it. And that you liked the world building stuff; I've honestly never met a concept I couldn't complicate so I'm glad it wasn't too much.

Brother feels for the win! I didn't set out originally to have so much of it, but their relationship/closeness has always been slightly fascinating to me. I'm an only child and my parents aren't close to their siblings, so their dynamic tickles at something sort of nature-documentaryesque in me. I figured it would be even more important in a world where Family and Legacy are such integral parts of every aspect of their lives, so it was fun to explore. Also, it's kind of hilarious to torture Quinn, so there's that, lol.

The LukeNemo of it was - of course - extremely fun to write. I have approximately 10 different lukenemo wips at the moment because it's so fun to explore their dynamic and banter that I've gone a little tunnel-visioned. I feel like I should thank them honestly for being such good inspiration that it's made writing feel easy. (When I have the time, anyway.)

Next chapter is going to be from Simon's POV (a first for me! fingers crossed it goes as smoothly as this one did) and delve into his side of this whole Romeo-Juliet thing they've got going on. (As well as the beginning of the fallout from the Gala and all the ~secrets~ coming to light). Hopefully it lives up to expectations!

As for Quinn - first, I love your idea; it's absolutely hilarious and it would serve Luke and Jack right - my issue with Quinn is that I never know who to actually pair him with. Like. I don't hate 90% of the popular pairings, but at the same time none of them really call to me either, you know? Kirill is the most compelling, honestly, so we'll see.

Wow that was a lot; hopefully I didn't bore you with all that rambling, Anon, lol. Again thank you for reading and dropping in to tell me that you liked it; it genuinely means a lot to me. <3 <3 <3 <3

[rumandwhine]

presenting....

show me where the delicate stops

Luke/Nemo, Nico/Jack (background, but very present & important)

E - 1/3 (11,181w for this part) - Creatures & Monsters AU - Star-crossed lovers - Inter-creature politics being a dangerous buzzkill - Themes of brotherhood and family and forging your own path in a world that really wishes you wouldn't. (Standard warnings of vampire stuff like blood drinking and whatnot apply)

Overall Summary: The Hughes' are vampires and Luke's in love with the heir to one of the most infamous vampire hunting family's in the world. And just because it isn't the Dark Times anymore doesn't mean that it isn't dangerous for both of them.

This part: The Hughes have disastrous love lives and it all comes to a head at the annual Winter Solstice Gala from Hell.