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I don't. I can't. What.
You guys, look, I cannot even explain in words how much I hate Sean Avery, and have hated him, for years. He's been an embarrassment to hockey pretty much continuously since 2005. The high/lowlights are in the Wikipedia article. You may note he was a Red Wing until 2003, and that is the shortest section in his Wikipedia article because he never did anything awful while he was a Red Wing. In 2005, I still loved him for being a former Red Wing, and my first reaction to the string of accusations against him was more or less "Not our Sean Avery!" and then "Sean Avery what happened to you in LA?" and then "JESUS CHRIST NOT AVERY AGAIN" and downhill from there with everyone else.
To sum up, he's spent the last six years going above and beyond "on-ice instigator" to make a career of being a full-time asshole--in the press, during warmups, after games, whatever. When he was in Dallas his own team refused to reinstate him after a league-mandated suspension because even they couldn't stand him. The NHL had to make a special rule to stop him from being an unsportsmanlike ass on the ice. Just for him! I'm not even kidding, it's called the Sean Avery rule.
For years I have been wondering why any NHL team pays him money. I have often thought about him, "die in a fire" and then hastily amended it to "go away somewhere where I never have to hear you associated with the sport I love ever again, but don't die in a fire because that's awful." (No, seriously, the inside of my brain is like that. Only partly because of reading too many books about people dying in fires.) Just today in the car![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iulia and I were discussing him and how obnoxious and awful he is and I floated the charitable hypothesis that maybe he has chronic traumatic encephalopathy and that's why he became a raging cockbite after leaving the Red Wings, because he seemed really nice and normal, back in the day. (Then we came back to the less-charitable hypothesis that neither Steve Yzerman nor Scotty Bowman would ever have stood for that bullshit coming out of their locker room--so, in conclusion, I think the problem with Sean Avery is possibly either that he has been hit on the head too many times or that he has not been beaten enough.)
To sum up: you guys, up until half an hour ago I really, really thought that there was nothing that would ever make me think Sean Avery was anything but an utter, miserable disgrace to the sport of hockey.
And then he went and did this.
I actually lost the ability to form sentences after watching it. Sean Avery. Of all people. What.
(If you don't understand why it's a big deal for a hockey player to make that PSA, here is the story of the only person directly involved with the NHL who is even publicly known to have a gay family member. The really depressing conclusion I came to, after I regained the ability to form sentences, is that Sean Avery, despised as he is, is quite possibly the only player in the entire league who could support gay rights and not particularly care about what the inevitable suspicion that he himself is gay is going to mean for his career or his personal safety.)
To sum up, he's spent the last six years going above and beyond "on-ice instigator" to make a career of being a full-time asshole--in the press, during warmups, after games, whatever. When he was in Dallas his own team refused to reinstate him after a league-mandated suspension because even they couldn't stand him. The NHL had to make a special rule to stop him from being an unsportsmanlike ass on the ice. Just for him! I'm not even kidding, it's called the Sean Avery rule.
For years I have been wondering why any NHL team pays him money. I have often thought about him, "die in a fire" and then hastily amended it to "go away somewhere where I never have to hear you associated with the sport I love ever again, but don't die in a fire because that's awful." (No, seriously, the inside of my brain is like that. Only partly because of reading too many books about people dying in fires.) Just today in the car
iulia and I were discussing him and how obnoxious and awful he is and I floated the charitable hypothesis that maybe he has chronic traumatic encephalopathy and that's why he became a raging cockbite after leaving the Red Wings, because he seemed really nice and normal, back in the day. (Then we came back to the less-charitable hypothesis that neither Steve Yzerman nor Scotty Bowman would ever have stood for that bullshit coming out of their locker room--so, in conclusion, I think the problem with Sean Avery is possibly either that he has been hit on the head too many times or that he has not been beaten enough.)To sum up: you guys, up until half an hour ago I really, really thought that there was nothing that would ever make me think Sean Avery was anything but an utter, miserable disgrace to the sport of hockey.
And then he went and did this.
I actually lost the ability to form sentences after watching it. Sean Avery. Of all people. What.
(If you don't understand why it's a big deal for a hockey player to make that PSA, here is the story of the only person directly involved with the NHL who is even publicly known to have a gay family member. The really depressing conclusion I came to, after I regained the ability to form sentences, is that Sean Avery, despised as he is, is quite possibly the only player in the entire league who could support gay rights and not particularly care about what the inevitable suspicion that he himself is gay is going to mean for his career or his personal safety.)
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So about five or six months after he saw his LT die for no reason on a random stretch of road in Iraq, Brad gets a middle-of-the-night phone call from Nate, who sounds kind of drunk, and wants to talk to him, but not about anything, really, just wants to talk. So Brad tells him about how the guys are doing--Nate is particularly concerned for everyone who was in his humvee, but Brad tells him truthfully that they're all doing fine these days--and after a while Nate says, "Is it... sorry, this is weird, isn't it, me calling you now." And Brad says, "...Yeah, kinda. But I don't mind."
So Nate keeps calling, and Brad keeps not saying anything to break the illusion--not to Nate, he says a few things to the anonymous military mental health hotline, but they don't actually seem as worried as he is, so he figures he's safe enough to trust himself around weapons and be responsible for his men--and something something something phone sex something Nate comes to San Diego for a visit, and that's when Brad finally cracks, because no one in the airport walks through Nate, and other people seem to see him, and Brad can touch him, but Nate doesn't particularly think it's weird that Brad has come on his bike to pick Nate up at the airport, only has a backpack with him anyway.
And this somehow leads to Brad yelling at him that he's dead, he's dead so why is he here and Nate saying, "You asked me to come visit," and Brad is still stuck on you're dead and Nate says, "Yeah, I figured--some of the stuff you said. You'd never have said it if you thought I was real. But I am. I think. For you, at least. And you for me."
And something something something IDEK. Somehow this leads to me trying to logically deduce what kind of job Nate has in DC rather than the metaphysics of this situation or how the hell that story can possibly come to a conclusion.
ANYWAY, YAY WOLVES! I need to reread that one sooooooon so that I can decide which bits of How Things Work I actually want to use, and which are We Don't Do That In The Modern Military. But &ISOLFR;
Also, the sequel comes out in August! And it is about Isolfr and his husbands working things out! Also a war of some kind but ISOLFR AND HIS HUSBANDS, OKAY. !!! I totally had that reaction of "Oh my God, I am the actual target audience for this book" when I read it, it was kind of bewildering but awesome.
(Nate's tender introduction to mansex totally happened with medium-drunk fellow college student(s) during his last year of college between OCS and induction, y/y? After he had figured out how to keep his girl from frightening them off, since there were probably not a hell of a lot of other wolfbrothers at Dartmouth...)
Also also, there is no stopping the SG-1 Big Bang--my beta is making me add a sub-plot or possibly a side-plot (I keep calling it a mini-quest) but it already has a beginning, a middle, and an end (I am just waiting to see whether it ends up being over or under 65,000 words. It's at 58 now.) so, yes. It's OT4, though, because, um, why stop at Jack/Daniel? :D
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Ahhhhhh, I have the shivers! This is such a brilliant, creepy, sad concept, I love it. NATE WILLING HIMSELF BACK INTO EXISTENCE. He would, he's got such an over-developed sense of responsibility, and he's got a stubborn streak a mile wide (although whether or not he's as stubborn as Brad is debatable-- did you know Brad once climbed a fucking mountain with a broken ankle, carrying more than his own body weight in equipment?).
Ohhhh, man, poor yearning cracking-up Brad, holding it together on the outside but secretly thinking he's gone mad already and why is his subconscious having phone sex with his dead CO. And despite that, despite all of it, he still goes to the airport when Nate asks!
NATE IS HOLDING DOWN A JOB IN WASHINGTON WHILE DEAD. That is-- too cool. Although I imagine being dead would do something strange to his security clearances. Does he look like himself to other people-- is it sort of a Dead Like Me situation? Interacting with the real world, but cut off forever from your past life? Although it sounds like this is just something Nate is/has done independently-- rather than some elaborate afterlife scenario with rules and stuff, like in DLM.
Er, although you're going to resolve to the audience's satisfaction that it's not all in Brad's head, right? Because that lingering doubt would drive me nuts. (SO CRUEL.) I guess if you have some Nate POV sections-- like the beginning-- that resolves the audience's doubt. Oh god, I so want to read the bit where it gradually dawns on Nate that he's dead. His repeating dream of dying! SHIVERS, I HAS THEM.
Oh god, I think I want this story even more than the wolves story. I'm such a sucker for angst in this fandom. Ohhhh Brad, I just want to cuddle him.
Re wolves sequel: I KNOW, I nearly wrote you an irate comment saying: OMG WHERE THE HELL IS THE REST OF THE STORY WHERE ISOLFR LEARNS TO LOVE HIS HUSBANDS AND THEY HAVE AWESOME THREESOME SEX, WTF. And then I googled it and there's a sequel! But it's too far away! *yearns!*
Also, have been trying on and off all day to figure out MOPP suits for wolves.
Ahahaha, I'm totally imagining wolves in those little bubble helmets they put on astronaut dogs:
But then how would they fight with their teeth!!
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But he drops everything to go to San Diego when Brad invites him.
Brad, meanwhile, I think gets Ray to look at the calls received on his cell phone, thus confirming that he talked to someone in DC the night before--and then, yeah, I think there would have to be at least pieces of Nate POV framing the story, to establish that Brad is not crazy, because that would be much sadder and more awful. Nate being a ghost and yet still not conveniently at the beck and call of his boyfriend is more bearable. *g* I just have to figure out some kind of ending.
(What the ending is not, is Nate having the dream one last time and just closing his eyes at the end of it, instead of opening them and thinking it was a dream again, it was a dream this time. I mean, that might eventually be How It Ends, but not on page, dammit.)
I am now debating, in the wolf-verse version of the first episode, what ridiculous detail of wolf-grooming Sixta is harassing people about. Possibly it is the wolves all being dusty (because rolling in the dust = instant desert camouflage for the wolves, and also they are wolves they roll on the ground) but then I got distracted thinking about whether they have to, like, shear the wolves for desert duty and, my brain. TOO MANY THINGS.
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Brrrgh, that is SO creepy. I really like the concept-- ghosts sort of continuing to live out some kind of parallel life, but it's not really clear to them if it's in the real world or in some imagined ghost-world version of the real world, or if it's all in their minds. How does Nate eventually realise that he did die, though-- and that the life he's living is not quite real? I mean, he gets a sense of uneasiness from the repeated dreams, and he feels adrift and kind of wrong... but I imagine he could attribute it to the readjustment-to-stateside-life process, or PTSD. The real seeds of realisation must come from his conversations with Brad? Does Brad describe to Nate having seen Nate die, and Nate is all like-- that's my dream, down to the exact detail? HOW DID YOU KNOW. But I guess he doesn't tell Brad that it's familiar to him-- he just freaks out and has his realisation privately, and they don't hash out the 'being dead' thing until they meet in person?
URGH, I'm freaking myself out with the creepiness of it all. It's GREAT, I can't wait to see what you do with this *g*.
(What the ending is not, is Nate having the dream one last time and just closing his eyes at the end of it, instead of opening them and thinking it was a dream again, it was a dream this time. I mean, that might eventually be How It Ends, but not on page, dammit.)
.........
Oh god. Call me sick, but that would be a beautiful knife-in-the-heart ending. I mean, they still get their happily ever after, however that happens! But at the VERY end, like in a paragraph-long epilogue, Nate dreams the dream one last time and THAT'S THE END. GOD. I would love that-- it'd be so crazily intense, people would read it and be just like: !!!!! (How awesome to frame the whole story with the dream: the beginning and the end. l;asdfi;asdfjkhagh I WOULD LOVE IT.)
I am now debating, in the wolf-verse version of the first episode, what ridiculous detail of wolf-grooming Sixta is harassing people about.
Ahahahaha remember the moustache-growing competition the division sponsors (and then they tell them all to shave) to ensure there are NO IRAQI INFILTRATORS in their units?! They need something to ensure there are no Iraqi desert wolf infiltrators (leggy, short-haired, sand-coloured? whereas US wolves are shaggier and heavier-set and darker coloured?) in their ranks of US fighting wolves!! Ahahaha, imagine the outrage if they're told to clip their wolves in a certain way or dye them light-coloured or something.
OH GOD WHAT IS RAY'S WOLF LIKE. I'm afraid to know.
If you want to email rather than create a millionteen-comment thread of GK inside your hockey post, you can always email me if you like *g*. inekemeyer at gmail
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But after he and Nate start talking on the phone, Brad starts dreaming in Nate's world--he starts remembering things that happened after their uneventful trip south from Baghdad, Nate being around in Kuwait, Nate being at Pendleton, celebrating their promotions together, all of that.
(I feel like the logical extension of that is that other people start to remember Nate, too, and at some point enough people really do belive in
fairiesNate and he becomes a real boy. To entirely mix my fairy tales. But that seems like cheating, for a ghost story, so maybe it's just that he and Brad both can move back and forth between Nate's world and the world of the living. Possibly at some point Brad writes a book about Nate that gives a mildly improbably thorough account of Nate's view of his life as a Marine officer...)no subject
Oh, poor Brad-- his reality is slipping so much! God, imagine his doubts about whether or not he's crazy... he would start to think he was living in some kind of fugue state, like he's just dreaming the phonecalls even though they feel like they happen when he's awake. Although there'd be the physical evidence of the call log in his phone. Which would make him wonder if his WHOLE life is just him being asleep-- what if he's dreaming that he's looking at the evidence on his phone! Brrrrrr!
Sigh, there's such a sad core to this story. What kind of happy ending do you envision? I like the idea of them being a little two-person unit, slipping back and forth to each other's realities... but at the same time it's so insular, so sad, it's a relationship they can't really share with anyone else. Which I guess is some metaphor about being gay in the military or something! SAD.
Maybe sometimes Ray also dreams about Nate being alive, and casually mentions it to Brad (Brad is like: maybe I'm not entirely crazy after all. WAIT-- what if I'm just dreaming that I'm having this conversation with Ray!!)... but I kind of feel like if you bring everyone else into it TOO much, it dilutes the intenseness of the just-the-two-of-them bond!