Ruth Sadelle Alderson

Having a job again means I once again have real three-day weekends. It also means that as I've been adjusting to working, the only writing I've been doing is on very long projects (all three of them are over 40,000 words now), and I could use some creative refreshment. Therefore: three-day weekend prompt snippets!

Leave me a prompt by, say, Saturday evening, and I will write you something by Monday night. Fine print/guidelines: One per person. Lurkers welcome. I will write hockey, but not Patrick Kane. I may write other fandoms; feel free to ask if you want something else. I may veer from your prompt. I will take lyric prompts, but be forewarned that I'm not necessarily good at them. I make no promises about length, but in the past prompt snippets have tended to be 300-3000 words. If there are a lot of prompts, filling them may stretch into next weekend.

I was doing research one day, and ended up in a delightful sinkhole of draft-era Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin articles, and then I distracted myself looking for things about the time Tyler Seguin and Tyler Brown played together, and then I had so many feelings I had to stop and leave the house. This post is so that you, too, can share in that feelings bomb.

Part 1: Articles Worth Reading

From sons to stars
I don't even know how to describe this article. It includes stories about how they got their names, their relationships to their families as measured by hockey, how each set of parents met, and Tyler's dad's advice to him on avoiding distractions. It's amazing all the way around. A few select quotes:

Off the ice, Seguin and Hall are cordial, but not quite close friends. And despite the competitive fire that's been no doubt fueled by playing for two teams that are geographically close – the Plymouth Whalers and Windsor Spitfires – the two teenagers haven't displayed the type of animosity that would help the NHL media mob sell papers, start a battle royale over the blogosphere and pump up television ratings. But the whole "Taylor vs. Tyler" media madness might never have taken root, had their fathers had a little more say in naming their sons after they were first born.

Then, there was the time Kim failed to secure Tyler's hockey pants only to have them fall down by game's end, exposing to a bemused crowd her son's favourite pair of Batman underwear.

"They stayed up the whole game and then just as he was skating off the ice I realized, 'Ahhhhhhh! Oh, my goodness his pants are falling off!' "

In fact, he loved hockey and skating so much that no other toy outside of his favourite mini-hockey stick could hold his attention. Jackie says she tried to tempt him with other toys, but Tyler wouldn't budge.

"I would buy him Tonka trucks so he could play in the sand, but all he wanted was a mini-stick, that's it," says Jackie. "I always used to say, 'This kid's not normal.' That's all he would do all day is shoot with the mini-stick."

By the age of three, Tyler had developed a passion for wearing inline roller skates and was constantly whipping around the house or driveway.

Seguin family humble about NHL dream
This is an article about Tyler's parents basically telling him not to count his chickens before they hatch, and also has some good background on his mom.

Said Tyler: "I got my hands from my mom. My dad was a goon. My mom was a finesse player. . . . They (both) keep me humble."

Jackie Seguin, a playmaking centre for the Brampton Canadettes Girls Hockey Association until she was a teenager, seconded her only son's assessment of his genetic inheritance (the Seguins also have two hockey-playing daughters, Candace, 15, and Cassidy, 11).

Tyler Seguin's game is far different than dad's
The Oilers had the number one pick, so this is an article from their site about how Tyler's style is not the same as his dad's.

But before he was embarrassing junior goalies, he was doing the same thing to Paul and his friends.

"Over Christmas-time we rent the ice and all the boys come out and play," Paul said. "Tyler came out when he was 12 or 13 and he could skate like the wind. Tyler was a lot smaller, he didn't grow until he was 14 or 15, but regardless, he always played up with older kids and could always skate, even when he was that young. The guys' claim to fame was they played NCAA and they were great players, and then this 12-year-old comes out on the ice and he can skate around you."

Perseverence Nets NHL Contract for Tyler Brown
This is an article from the Whalers about Brown signing his contract.

"I had a couple teams looking at me at the start of the season, but I guess they just didn't follow through," noted Brown, hosted by a Canton billet family the past four years. "But during the season I've been playing for the points and stuff and Philly came out of nowhere and the deal I couldn't pass up.

"So I took it and I couldn't be any happier."

The fourth-year Whaler, who just turned 21, smiled when asked what he thought about joining the tradition-rich Flyers.

Part 2: Video Review

First up, a TSN feature on Seguin from when he was still in the OHL. The commentators gush about him as a playmaker, and then one of his teammates talks about telling him that he has to catch up to Taylor Hall:



That sent me looking for Whalers highlights, and there are two sets of them that include tiny Tylers goal celebrations. They're not embeddable, but they're both games against the Saginaw Spirit, one from December 2009 and one from March 2010 Note: there were two Tyler Browns on the Whalers for three years; the one we're interested in is Tyler G. Brown.

There are also a couple of intermission interviews with Tyler Brown on the Whalers site, again not embeddable, one from October 2010 and one from November 2010.

Bonus Photo

While googling Tyler Brown's time with the Whalers, I ended up on a Whalers MySpace (this is about where I decided it was time to stop and leave the house), which brings us this gem from the 2007-2008 season:



You're welcome and/or I'm sorry.

Sidney Crosby and the Russians Who Love Him

Fandom, take note: this man is not a robot:

( Picture )

I have to admit that I can barely handle this picture. Look how absolutely delighted he is to have that child in his arms. You know who else loves kids?

This guy:

( Geno! )

Also, this guy:

( Ovi! )

Where is the nanny AU where Sid has a baby and hires Geno or Alex to be the kid's nanny?


Danny Briere (with bonus Taylor Hall, Tyler Seguin, Scott Hartnell, and Claude Giroux)

Whatever, like I was going to make a hockey post without including him. First, let's watch this:

( Video )

This is the video I tell people about when I'm trying to describe how unintentionally dirty hockey is. Barely legal draft prospects Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin visit the Flyers locker room where Danny tells them how hard or soft he likes his sticks and how many he goes through in a season. And then Tyler Seguin can't keep himself from commenting about how tiny Danny is.

The only bad thing about that video is that it's during playoff season, which means Danny has terrible facial hair. So let's look at him in the adorable hats the Flyers had for the Winter Classic:

( Adorable hat! )

And while we're on the subject of the Winter Classic, I may have watched this video a very large number of times today:

( Video )

It's titled "Flyers See Winter Classic Ice," but is actually just Scott Hartnell and the Briouxs checking it out. Hartsy greets all five of them with, "Hey, Brieres."


Carts+Richie 4-EVER (with bonus Staals!)

This gif floated around tumblr recently:

( Carts and Richie making hearteyes at each other. )

Mostly, it makes me want a college AU, but I can't say why it reads that way to me. Also, it comes from this video:

( Video )

The best thing about this video is that nearly all of the dialogue is just the Staals chirping people. Best Scandinavian trolls.


Tyler Seguin's House of Bros

I really mean it when I say that Segs and his husband and boyfriends are making my whole summer better.

First, his husband was upset that Segs and the dog were napping without him:

( Picture )

Then Segs took his other other boyfriend to see Magic Mike:

( Picture )

And then slept on him in public:

( Picture )

Also, it appears that someone in that house is sleeping in a bed with pink blankets:

( Picture )

Really, how does this kind of thing happen in real life?


Danny Briere's (ex?-)Husband's New Boyfriend

Let's just start with pictures of that time Claude Giroux took Paul Bissonnette as his date to the NHL Awards:

( Claude and Biz on the red carpet )

And lest you think that's fangirl exaggeration, allow me to assure you that every interviewer they met on the red carpet called Biz Claude's date, in those words. And then there's the video that the screencaps above come from. You may need a minute to prepare yourself for this. Keep in mind that it includes this exchange:

Alyonka Larionov: I'm just wondering, how did this relationship start?
Claude: I don't even know. When's the first time we met?
Biz: It's complicated.
Claude: My status on Facebook, "It's complicated."

Yeah, that happens:

( Let's go to the video tape. )

And don't forget the first red carpet interview where they talk about how they were hanging out together in Montreal when they decided Biz should be Claude's date:

( Video )

You have no idea how much I want Claude/Biz fic. And the fact that no one wants to break up Claude and Danny isn't going to stop me from talking about it. Possible plot bunnies:

The one where Danny's straight and Claude is not: Claude's young, but he's not completely stupid. He knows falling in love with an older straight man who already has a family isn't going to end well for him, so he moves out of Danny's house, gets his own place, gets over Danny, and hooks up with Biz.

The other one where Danny's straight and Claude is not: Danny really is just a friend. Claude tends to just hook up with people, and then he starts hooking up with Biz.

The one where they're poly: Claude and Danny have an open relationship. Possibly they're monogamous during the season and free to do whatever (or whomever) they want during the summer. This summer, Claude spends a lot of time hooking up with Biz.

The one where they fall in love: Biz is not into relationships. He just likes sex. And then there's Claude, and he thinks it's just hooking up. (This would be like that Taylor Hall/Ryan Whitney story with the part of Taylor Hall played by Claude and the part of Ryan Whitney played by Biz.)

The one I'm most likely to write: Claude and Biz casually hooking up in varying cities. (If I end up writing it, it's probably just going to be a sex scene that hinges on Claude asking, "Can I fuck you this time?" and Biz finding that he really likes being fucked.)