When @mkaybuddy!!! approached me for a painted portrait of Chris Chow and mentioned that they hc him as trans, and would like to see a nod to that, and to him being a Sharks fan in the portrait I was like YES. ABSOLUTELY. 100% ON BOARD. Obviously the logical conclusion was Chowder playing FOR the Sharks and sporting pride tape + the trans flag on his mask >.>
Anyway it was such.a. delight. to draw Chowder living the dream ❤
this is something i find really kind of key to the way i characterise bitty generally speaking, because it relates to some central things that have really shaped who we understand him to be: his attitude towards physicality; his relationship with his own sexuality; and his upbringing. these three things are pretty intertwined, and i think there’s a bit of a tendency to overlook it all in regards to how bitty approaches dating and, specifically, his relationship with jack. i wrote about it in tu ne t’intéresses pas au sexe? but this as an analysis is a lot more detailed and a lot more pretentious.
let’s get started, eh? i hope you’re ready for an essay, because that’s what you’ve got.
chowder better be the one giving the haus tour after bitty leaves otherwise i’m gonna fight because LITERALLY no one else would be as good as he would any
like sure it’ll be a complete trainwreck but he’ll also remember the most random facts (‘oh!! yeah!! bitty told us to throw that couch out over 200 times!’ ‘oh that boiler is from 2009 and broke down 8 times in the past three months, one time when nursey was taking a shower and another time when bitty was running the dishwasher anyway soap got eveywhere but nursey didn’t seem super bothered??’) and it’s just weirdly endearing like all these frogs feel so comfortable around him and start to really feel like part of the team bc they’re hearing all these weird stories but it makes the team seem more real and less like. ‘omg the two-time frozen four winner samwell wow!!’ like pls babes
and he buys all of them sharks merch like they each get a sticker or something and he has stats memorized back to like the 90s and will just casually throw them out there but if a kid asks him about the sharks/is a fan than the entire tour is derailed and it ends up lasting 2 hours longer than it should but it’s worth it and the frogs love it so much!
chowder explains everything in so much detail (like too much detail) but it helps the frogs feel more comfortable because going to college is confusing but the hockey team is a weird loving family and it makes them excited to be on the team
30 minutes are dedicated to the rules and expectations of team breakfast (‘no one has ever fit more eggs in their mouth than holster and honestly we don’t want anyone to try’)
after the haus tour is over chowder drags all the frogs around campus pointing out the best places for them to eat lunch and fastest paths on the quad and basically just gives them a bunch of pointers that orientation doesn’t lol
and chowder is super dedicated to it because he remembers how great bitty was at it and wants to live up to his legacy and also bitty made him feel super welcome and comfortable and he also highkey admires shitty and wants to make him proud too
and anytime he sees caitlyn and the girls team practicing he’ll wave frantically and be like ‘CAITLYN!! HI!!! that’s my girlfriend she’s amazing and pretty and super good at everything she does she’s fantastic wow’ bc he just really loves her a lot!!!
Ok but what if Ransom doesn’t really want to be a doctor. His family and culture put a lot of pressure on their kids to be doctors and get prestigious jobs, and he wanted his parents to be proud of him so he went into pre-med.
What if he was having a post-game panic attack over molecular biology when a scout from the Maple Leafs asked him if he had a minute to talk. And the thought of just not going to med school, of just ending his education in two months and not having to study for a test ever again, made him feel so relieved he found Holster afterwards and cried for five minutes.
“I don’t ever want to stop playing hockey,” he says to Holster, who… honestly, was kind of looking forward to not having morning practice for the first time since he was four.
What if Justin Oluransi made his parents the loudest, proudest cheering section in Toronto, screaming with love for their son the NHL player.
just moving along like everyone else 