well all right then.

In between... lots of other things, and due entirely to the horrible influence of riverlight, I am finally reading further into the Aubrey/Maturin series than Master and Commander, which I read... probably five years ago. I finished Post Captain (...is this the slashiest one? or the lantern-hanging-est? because I don't remember M&C being quite so ... wow) last night (while trying to avoid watching the hockey game, oh, Caps, better luck next year, boys) and immediately picked up HMS Surprise. The effect on my sentence structure has been even more deleterious than this post might lead you to believe; if I don't want to drive iulia entirely to drink I should probably not read too many of them in a row, or else swear off attempting to write modern fandoms while under the influence.

Anyway, today I finally cracked--I had managed to put it off, idk, maybe thirty-six, maybe forty-eight hours--and went and reread (for the very-many-th time) my favorites of astolat's M&C fic, Duende and The World Turned Upside Down. There was maybe also some random googling of Stephen Maturin and browsing of the odd wiki or timeline relating to him.

All of which to say: I am sitting at work happily contemplating the idea of Stephen Maturin as a transman, having assumed his name and gender after the death of his parents and being indulged in it by his godfather and having passed ever since, through assorted ingenious means. Basically rendering our dear secret agent a secret-er one, for his own kingdom.

The brain does run somewhat aground when contemplating Jack's reaction to somehow finding out, though.

Things hockey does to me, part many lots.

a) YAY THE RED WINGS ARE ADVANCING TO THE WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS YAY YAY.

And while I wait in hope for more adorable goalies-in-the-handshake-line photos to surface, there is this going on in my head:

Pretty regularly, I hear a song and, songs being how they are, there is a line or two that perfectly evokes some complicated and intense emotion, and I think I want to write a story that does that. Even though, working with text instead of instruments and a voice, it would take ages and ages of setup and probably never achieve that perfect, crystalline moment, still: I want to write a story that does that.

Hockey comes in here: I would now really, really like to write a story that evokes the way it feels to watch a winning team at the end of a hockey game, when they all pour onto the ice, crowd around their goalie, and, one by one, pat him on the top of his head or more often touch (helmeted) foreheads, or some combination of such touches. One by one, each man goes to the goalie and then skates away off the ice, with a few who hang back to escort him off. I would really like to write a story that does that. Somehow.

b) I had three-quarters of a beer while watching the game and now am mostly horizontal, head propped on own shoulder, as I type. I swear I am not this much of a lightweight, except when I am.