have been unavoidably detained by the world

Here are two threads in my life! (Weeeell...three?)

1. I love sports AUs. They are the best! I have no clue what is happening in the sports, but they are all about bonding and friendship and emotional support. And a lot of slash in the one bastion of fanfic society left where people have to actually think about and struggle with and hide their sexualities. Not that I think people should have to do that in real life, but you know I'm in fanfic for the angst and slow-burn, right? Feels everywhere.

2. I really know nothing about sports. I mean, I played hockey in high school for three years and I'm still not 100% sure what offsides is. (I was the goalie, in my defense.) My dad is a baseball nut...so I know how many innings there are. I just don't actually care about sports so the rules slide riiiiiight out of my head.

3. I need to learn a sport, on a water-cooler-talk level. I'm entering a really male-dominated, network-heavy profession, I don't drink, I don't go out Friday nights, most of my hobbies revolves around fandom and fandom-adjacent stuff, I need to be able to talk a sport.

After talking with law school friends, I mostly settled on football. Football and baseball are really the American sports, I should pick one, and I mean, I had a professor who liked The Patriots, I can read some football stats and ignore the spousal abuse scandals, right?

...Of course, instead I spent a precious day of vacation reading Check, Please and now I'm reading up on the NCAA and trying to find tickets to a NWHL game and IDK, what. I'm going to end up in Hockey fandom. By accident. IT'S A FANDOM-ADJACENT SPORT, OK. Even I know about the hockey RPF.

And then I'll obviously have to move to Canada, the one country where hockey is actually a good sport to know for networking purposes. YOU HAD ONE JOB, SELF.

#fail