#badgeramble

[thehomelybadger]

me in 2022: if I have an hour to myself I can probably crank out 10k of writing

me now in 2026: it's been three hours and all I have is "she wants to fuck me with my uniform on" and "basketball 🏀"

why did I choose this hobby. why couldn't I be a whittler or something.

[thehomelybadger]

time for a rebrand to capitalize on the hype

[thehomelybadger]

Obviously, you wrote Run at the Cup before Season 2 aired. As such, you didn't have any opportunity to use any of the characters we met in Season 2 (Isha, Loris, Maddie, Gert, Rictus). If you had, how would you have used them?

Oooh man, such a good question.

Gert and Loris would've absolutely been other players in the league that we like and respect - Gert I could 100% see being someone who was traded to the Lone Stars during the deadline and being an absolute Landsman hater. Loris strikes me as someone on Garen's team - probably another named skater would've made those sections better because the way I wrote them looking back makes it seem like Garen's the only player on the team.

Lest would've immediately been written into the Sumprats org somewhere, probably as an equipment manager or something so I could have her banter. Rictus probably straight up replaces the Lone Stars coach - I've always kinda regretted that you can't just google the guy.

Isha would be Powder's adopted daughter with Lux - and I'd probably add 30k just trying to write cute scenes of them. Shit, they might've taken over the fic entirely.

Maddie's a Landsman groupie, another voice in the greek chorus who tried to fuck with Caitlyn. Probably a known cheap shot artist who floats around the league and maybe another fight scene for Vi.

[thehomelybadger]

Not really a question but now that everyone won't stop yapping about Heated Rivalry I immediately start yelling about Run at the Cup

I love this energy so much. I'm hoping to get some motion on filing the serial numbers off if only to let folks point to an actual book instead of something they have to read on ao3.gov but for now the amount of folks who have no idea what an arcane is but are still willing to give hockey Yuri a shot is incredibly flattering.

[thehomelybadger]

I'm reading RATC and enjoying it immensely!

Just here to ask - why is the team doctor named after Angela Lansbury?

Angela Lansbury was a gay icon who died during the writing of RATC and the only way to truly honor a celebrity you admire from afar is to put them in truly incomprehensible running bits in your fanfiction of unrelated media

[thehomelybadger]

I love the way you write hockey, so visual and exciting! It’s legit it’s what got me to start watching the pwhl. The one thing my non-hockey brain couldn’t visualize was Caitlyn’s trick shot with the mouth guard and her last cup winning shot during the final game. Were there actual players/shots you were basing those off of? Or is there a play I can watch that’s similar?

Thanks! the mouth guard trick shot is just me pulling express from my ass - it's inspired by the idea that goalies put their water bottles on the top of the net and they go flying when a puck is shot hard enough at the goal. I just kinda riffed on that.

Caitlyn's final goal is called a Michigan - it kinda looks like this except she knocked it down with her stick before scooping it:

I've always thought it looked really cool to just decide that we're actually playing lacrosse now and daring people to stop you.

thanks for the ask!

[thehomelybadger]

i was rereading ratc (it seems to have become a pattern where when i have a big essay due, i feel the inexplicable urge to reread ratc; i have succumbed to it both times recently) and i was just wondering with the “shoot as in film” bit and general vibes(?), is cait written to be neurodivergent in it? i love reading (and rereading) your fics so much, so thank you for writing that beast of a fic and the many other fics you do!

i absolutely HC Caitlyn as autistic, and when I was developing RATC's storyline I described her arc as 'autistic-coded othering' a whole bunch. I'm always hesitant to 100% confirm or deny anything because I think what you take away from media is just as important as what the author intent was, but i definitely write her as neurodivergent and put a lot of my ND traits into her - especially wrt special interests and social cues

[thehomelybadger]

so a few people have taken note of the new lack of light cannon tags on run at the cup and I just wanna take a sec to address that bc there's a Reddit thread about it.

I didn't get harassed by timebombers and I didn't rewrite the fic - I just thought about how I'd feel if I saw a fic tagged with a ship I love that's one of the most read fics in the fandom and it turns out to have like, four scenes of them in its 338k read time. I'd be pretty bummed out.

so I got rid of them to make the experience feel a little more tightly tagged. Melvika is still tagged because they're the b couple and there's actually a good amount of content there, but leodia and light cannon didn't make the cut. no drama, no huge gotcha, just some good old fashioned fandom maintenance.

hope that clears the air!