Additional Tags: wishbaby, Time Travel, Alternate Universe, Character Study, Magical Realism, what to do when your life falls apart and you have to rebuild, 2020 Pandemic, finding yourself somewhere new, 2021 VGK playoffs, Portland Winterhawks WHL Team, chronic illness (migraine disorder), Falcon Lake, Demisexuality, Career Ending Injuries, Grief/Mourning, Depression, 2022 nhl draft, altered timeline, Breaking up and making up
Summary:
Nolan had always known his world could implode in a heartbeat, but he never imagined it would be because of a squalling bundle left on his doorstep, wrapped in a blanket that smelled faintly of lavender and lightning.
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Or, Seth Jarvis is Nolan Patrick and Travis Konecny's time-travelling son from the future. Nolan's fucked up, Travis is out of the loop, Kayden is learning to be human, and Seth is hoping it all works out.
I saw! They were kind enough to tag me back in October. Love Situation was such a fun way to reenter hockey fandom, and I’m still very affectionate over the friendships I got to make because of it. First Time on Earth whalloped me over the head and took over the rest of the year, but Love Situation was the first fic I actually finished in 3-4 years. Grad school and my first few years teaching kicked my ass, and so the fact that I’ve finally gotten back to writing is just. The best. Seeing people enjoy the shit I write for myself is also incredible.
Music is pretty important to first time on earth. So on that note, some character theme songs that are very much the guiding themes of each individual. I’ve spent upwards of 200,000 words in the heads of these three POV characters, so fuck it! Listen to me ramble.
This is probably me yelling into the void, but if you’re interested, read on.
Travis: in general, when I’m writing Travis, I’m listening to Matt Hansen. When you want an undying romantic who has been heartbroken and still loves with every bit of himself, you want Matt Hansen. That said, his theme song is Matt Hansen’s COMPASS, particularly the second verse and the chorus.
The universe got its plan, all of its secrets I will never understand/don’t know why I got the chance but I’m gonna love you as hard as I can/Running thru the streetlights, dancing/lying on the floor just laughing/I won’t let you go
All the seas and all the stars can try to pull us away from each other’s arms/but I will find my way home back home to you/and every angel, every god can will us to places worlds apart/but I will find my way back home to you.
The thing about this song is that it is entirely Travis’s confusion and heartbreak. I write Travis as entirely heart first, completely and totally committed. He is sure than Nolan is the one that got away, and the second that he finds out they have kids together, that they have a future, his entire personal compass reorients. Nolan and the boys are his true north. Once he knows they’re his, nothing will keep him from them ever again.
And someday, he hopes there will be moments where Nolan lets Travis love him—lying on the floor laughing, dancing in the rain, not the grand gestures but eternity together.
Some honorable mentions from Matt Hansen that also define Travis:
FIRST TIME (you’ll always be mine but not quite like the first time)
FOREVER AGAIN (darling, won’t you stay for the night? Won’t you give me a chance? To love you the way that I should have back then?)
SOMEONE TO YOU (how do I move on from all that I knew? All that I wanted was to be someone to you)
Nolan: Nolan is all over the map for me when I’m writing. The songs at the beginning of each chapter are Nolan songs. So he’s going to be a special boy and get two theme songs. When I write Nolan, I am often listening to Raynes’ BLOOM EP. Just consider that whole EP the soundtrack to this fic. First, though, we’ll focus on Nolan’s romantic relationship, and that is a song called Pulling Teeth (I Feel Like She Knows).
There isn’t really any place to hide/the more I try the more it shows/I feel like she knows/she knows
The moon spilled and she was soaked all in silver and what did I say?/I laid my hand on top of hers and said “if I get what I deserve, then I won’t have you”/and then she looked at me and said “how many chances do you need? I can tell you’re losing faith but I’ll be damned if you lose me”
It took a minute til I broke down crying on the side of the road/a lot of birds that never learned to fly cannot survive on their own/she said “maybe you should let me drive/just close your eyes til we get home”/I feel like she knows.
Loving is like pulling teeth for Nolan. It’s hard, and he has to work at it. It’s not effortless, the way it is for Travis. It’s not heartfirst, like Seth. He has to work at it, to let himself be cared for and cared out of his self-destructive streak. Nolan knows he’s fucked up. He knows he’s made a mess of their relationship by lying for literal years. And he doesn’t know what to do with the fact that Travis still wants him, and that he feels like Travis knows.
What does Nolan feel like Travis knows?
That Nolan loves him, of course. And he’s right.
Now onto Nolan’s personal growth, a song that hit me over the head as a Nolan song so hard I listened to it 180 times in two weeks and promptly wrote 20k of personal growth for Nolan.
Trousdale’s Vertigo
Get a taste for a little pain when you’re living with the road day and night/baring your soul takes a little toll but it’s what makes you feel alive/I blink and a life goes by/don’t want to waste any more of mine
So I’m falling forward, straight into the vertigo/it won’t be easy, learning how to let it go/I’m overheating but I’m not burning out/I’m gonna make it out, I’m gonna make it out
This is a song that is about giving so much of yourself to your career and the road, and learning that you can’t put off your life until you’re ready.
Additionally, vertigo is one of the migraine symptoms I explicitly have written Nolan as having. He’s embracing the vertigo, learning how to let go of everything that’s holding him to the disaster of the original timeline, and he’s going to make it out. He won’t burn out. He won’t fall apart. He will live his life and thrive.
Seth: Seth has also grown and evolved a lot over the course of ftoe. His journey is twofold: grieving the family he lost, and discovering his new family.
So of course his song is the titular first time on earth by Alex Warren.
Been walking on a tightrope, juggling high hopes and reality/just trying not to mess up, keep my head up, fighting gravity/can’t outrun growing up, I still feel like a kid/quick to judge the ones we love/sometimes I forget it’s your first time on earth too/and I hope you know that I don’t blame you/it’s just pain that you were passing down/I’m older and I see it now/it’s your first time on earth too
Seth spends a lot of this story lost and angry. Nolan doesn’t see it until a lot later, but Seth spent most of his childhood not understanding why his Dad and Pops were fighting, what fundamentally is wrong with his dad. He feels like a kid who is trying to change the entire course of history—which he is, through no fault of his own. Seth has very complicated feelings about the family he was torn away from and the family he was thrown into. He’s just been able to talk about his complicated feelings with Nolan, and his Travis feelings will come with time.
When you pass through the waters I’ll be with you/just because I’m angry sometimes don’t mean I don’t miss you/you had your issues, I have mine/oh, I’d forgive you if we still had time/I was too young, I couldn’t see the world on your shoulders/you traded your dreams for me, for us, is that just life? Nobody ever gets everything right.
Seth comes to understand that Nolan fundamentally did trade his career, his hopes, his dreams for Kayden and Seth, for Travis’s career, and he had to sit there and watch as his husband played NHL hockey for decades, while his sons played the sport that took everything from him. Travis tried, but Seth was caught in the middle of a life that was two parents who didn’t know how to love each other. They were not the best parents, but Seth grieves and misses them every day. If he could talk to them again, he’d forgive them, like he has the versions of his parents who get to try again.
Some bonus Seth songs:
Dirt by Southcourt (head down, chin high and suck it up/you ain’t the first one who’s got it tough)
Someone Who’s Trying by the Band Camino (swear I’ll start using my words/if I don’t lose, how can I learn?)
Very much enjoy how you're filling out the 3724 ao3 tag. Gravity in your kiss? Chef's kiss
I’m having so much fun with the two of them and I’m shocked there isn’t more fic, tbh. I am, however, having great fun writing the fic I want to see in the world.
Gravity in your kiss is the MOST fun universe and I’m trying to figure out what fic I can sandbox in it without retreading any ground I’ve already covered—any ideas?
-Somehow I’ve found myself back here, because time is a flat circle and my decision to make a Tumblr account in 2009 means fuck it! We ball! in God’s own year 2025.
-Someday I’ll remember how to tag but until that day, Godspeed on navigating this blog.
-I’m gravityinglass on AO3, I write chaotic shit. Like it or don’t, I’m officially fandom old these days.
-No, I’m not sure how I ended up here again either. Let’s make the best of it.
title: stick with what i started (don’t care how it hurts)
Summary: When Marcia Annemieke Staal is born on an early January morning, she’s born breech. She’s always thought that was a metaphor for her life: feet first, ready to hit the ground running. It’s a good thing she sees it like that, because once she starts, she never really stops.
She’s used to being the odd one out in any given room. The only daughter, the only defense player, the only lesbian. When she gets to New York, she gets used to being the only woman on the team, and they get used to being the only team with a defensewoman manning their blueline. It’s a give and take, but mostly she takes: her place, her time, her way.
Marcia Staal didn’t set out to make history, but while she’s here, she’ll kick some ass.
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Or, Marcia Staal falls in love, ups her game, has her heart broken, proves her worth, builds a family, falls apart, pulls it together, receives a gift, plays some damn good hockey, and kicks some ass, not necessarily in that order.
