#26 — Vanek! with a Jurco

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This is the twenty-sixth post of Deke Dangle RPF Anon, a community for all your ice hockey anon meme needs.

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Comments

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

I was thinking that he hasn't devoted himself to a life of study/doesn't talk about intelligence as his most-valued trait, but he is witty/intelligent/original, etc., so I suppose someone could sell me on Ravenclaw.

So I suppose I am willing to accept any house but Slytherin, lol.

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

Da He's got a doctorate.

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

I'm aware of that (or at least of that interview, where his mom said that he was going to get the Russian equivalent of one soon-ish).

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

na

It's actually more like somewhere between a doctorate and a masters (in the American system at least). It's the equivalent of a PhD in a system where a PhD isn't the highest level graduate degree.

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

I know that too. I just didn't get into it. :)

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Threadfail, I meant it as a reply to ayrt!

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

I knew that, too.

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

Do you know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

Well, you literally said differently, there's no way that anyone could tell that by "doctorate" you meant "not a doctorate."

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

I don't really have strong feelings on Hogwarts sortings, but he did go to graduate school and write a thesis, didn't he? Managing that while also being a professional hockey player shows a certain dedication to learning. And I don't think he would say intelligence is his most-valued trait even if it is - loyalty sounds less conceited. So I could be sold on Ravenclaw easily as well.

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

My strong Hogwarts feelings are usually about how x character would be exempt from the whole system, either because they're not from the U.K. or they're a mystical creature that would lurk in the Forbidden Forest instead, but I do feel that Slytherin is wrong for Ovi.

I didn't dismiss Ravenclaw because I don't think he's willing to learn or because I don't think he's smart, or because I don't know about his degree, etc., but because I was thinking of Ravenclaw as valuing book-learning and intelligence more than other things. I think Hogwarts sorting is supposed to be about what people value most, and the thing that comes across over and over again (at least for me) is that Ovi is pretty big on family and loyalty, etc. (I think "devotion" may have been the word he used in the interview I'm thinking of.)

Like I said, I've talked myself into being able to accept Ravenclaw for Ovi. I'm now at any house but Slytherin. If he has to go to Hogwarts at all..

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

I think its silly to invent an entirely new school with entirely different houses for the purposes of writing a HP AU.

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

NA

Aww, I think it'd be fun (and you wouldn't even have to invent a school, Durmstrang is supposed to be the Slavic school (in Scandinavia???) ... I'd rather invent one tho lol)

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

Durmstrang's whole situation is weird, but I think it would be a better fit for a hockey HP AU. It's actually in a region that a lot of hockey players come from, and we know it also accepts students from as far as Bulgaria, so it would make sense for Russian students to attend. (I can't remember if there were any non-Brits at Hogwarts at all, but that could be my memory.)

But since we know very little about Durmstrang, using it as a setting wouldn't be too different from inventing a school from whole cloth anyway.

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

NA

Yeah, I think inventing a school or playing with Durmstrang and/or Salem would be a lot of fun, but I also think worldbuilding is one of the best parts of fic. To the point that I tend to make pages upon pages of worldbuilding notes and then never write the actual fic, because I finished the fun part.

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Sure, it would be fun, but it would be a wizarding boarding school AU, not a HP AU, you know? Also, I think we know so little about Durmstrang, most of which is sort of uncomfortably stereotypical, that you'd be essentially just borrowing the name, but still inventing a school.

That said, you know there's that narrative of the Western Conference being hard-hitting possesion monsters and the Eastern Conference being speedy offensive dynamos and you it'd be interesting to break the divisions down into four houses and have a hockey wizard boarding school.

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

You'd still have the same system of magic, though. Owls, wands, potions, magical creatures, all that fun stuff from the HP verse. I wouldn't say Fantastic Beasts is a generic urban fantasy because it's not set at Hogwarts, for example.

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

If you have all of that stuff the same, than again, I think you're just changing the names, and it's silly.

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

NA I'm curious as to how the current 4 divisions would map onto the HP houses. I have a feeling Gryffindor would be in the West and Slytherin would be in the East. Original 6 seems comparable to pureblood. The problem is no division seems particularly Hufflepuffy to me.

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

It depends what you're doing and how much the 10-17 years matter for your AU. I think in some cases, you could totally have fun with new houses, or just say "This person is from this school in this country. Moving on ..." But I don't think it's wrong not to do that. I usually have these arguments in the context of random Sorting discussions.

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

I haven't read the fic, so maybe those years aren't in play. I was just responding to your comment of "if he has to be in Hogwarts at all," and if the only issue is that Russian-born wizards don't go to Hogwarts, I think that's a case where you should just handwave.

It would be different if you were exploring the HP verse itself, and wanted to really think about how a Russian education system maps onto the narrative. I think there's a Steve Rogers fic that looks at how he'd be if he were Captain USSR instead, for example.

But if you're just writing the average AU, you're most likely going to be duplicating most of what Rowling did anyway with different names, and asking your readers to mentally translate all the time. "Oh, right, that's the one that's like Gryffindor."

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

The fic does cover their Sorting, a little of their Hogwarts years, and then they're working as Aurors. The fact that they're Slytherins is important to both of them within the fic.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, in terms of ease of AU writing? Like I said, most of the time I give these arguments in the context of random Sorting conversations. Castiel a Gryffindor? Nope, Castiel's a monster in the forbidden forest. NEXT. Ovi's in Slytherin? Ovi wouldn't even go to Hogwarts. NEXT.

I do think you could easily write a Hogwarts AU or post-Hogwarts AU without sorting non-U.K. characters into Hogwarts houses, if you really wanted. The Goblet of Fire has students and professors visiting from different wizarding schools. You could have wizards moving to the U.K. and working as Aurors, since I don't recall anything about that being against the rules in the wizarding world. I'm not saying that's what everyone should be doing, since I think people write these things to replicate Hogwarts and the things they liked about Hogwarts, but it is a possibility.

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

I think if you're using "values book-learning the highest" as your criterion for Ravenclaw, it's hard to find fits within pro hockey. By nature of being a professional athlete, they've devoted their lives to something that's easier to finagle a fit for loyalty/bravery/ambition than learning. So I don't disagree with you, but I think that if House balance among hockey players is something I'm going for, my metric might shift to "values book-learning significantly more than the average hockey player seems to".

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

At least a few other high-level Russian hockey players/Russian athletes have degrees (I think from the same school as Ovi, though not advanced ones). Kuznetsov is one for sure. I think it's possible that they value having a degree more than most North American players.

I think you could make a case for Ravenclaw for especially cerebral players -- ones known to spend a lot of time studying other hockey players, for example. Though like most of these things, if you're in the NHL, you probably have the ability to learn/study hockey, ambition, a strong work ethic, and courage (or at least the willingness to take a beating), etc.

Re: Fic Discussion - aparecium by oops_ohdear

[(Anonymous)]

da

Yeah, the particular school Ovi did his degree at has a lot of famous Russian athletes who did degrees there, although I'd think most of them are probably undergrad -- Kovalchuk, Kharlamov, Morozov, Pavel Bure, Irina Slutskaya, Maria Butyrskaya, Gordeeva and Grinkov... I'd imagine it's at least partially a cultural thing.