That night, she starts streaming with the assignment of some of the characters of her game of choice to mercenarial contracts, which she uses to level them up, as well as raise some money so that she can enter in-game events. And materials for gear crafting.
But while her in-game units are away on quests, she leaves the game to run in the background since the daily quests for today are mostly of the “passive” kind. Once she has Kindle open in another window:
“OK, everyone, before I start reading the third book, recommended by Lagado, I’ll do a quick review of the first two books. The first book, recommended by Sampoong…” Caro then proceeds to name the title and author of that book. “The most memorable thing about this book to me was that I couldn’t find any hint of why the male lead wanted to improve his sex! Three quarters of the book showed increasingly elaborate ways to go around doing sex, and showing their chemistry improve in bed! The only consistent thing about them outside of sex was, well, the male lead’s spending habits!”
Sampoong then gets into the voice chat on her Discord server. “That’s a little… one-dimensional way to put it, Caro. It shows that you’re not a very experienced book reviewer, even by amateur standards!”
“I had to start somewhere, Sampoong!” Caro retorts to her viewer, while Capitolium enters the voice chat.
“Caro, you probably have a better idea of why hockey romance made me bitter by now!” Capitolium rants to her.
“Yet I’m not any closer to determining why you feel like I could write a better book in just thirty days! One book does not a genre make!” Caro feels her blood boil. “There was a reason I asked for recs from various authors, and tonight I will get to the third one! But I didn’t have a chance to talk about Glitter’s book on air last night, other than with Glitter of course…” She sighs upon seeing Glitter enter the VC room.
“Caro, I really wonder in what context, if any, you read about characters that have actual depth. Last night, you were implying that characters who were nothing without their traumas were flat!” Glitter slips a comment about last night’s Discord DM.
“You took some words right out of my mouth, Glitter!” Caro feels her blood pressure go up.
“Something’s not right, Caro: for all your intelligence, I didn’t expect a gamer of your skill level to gain such literary refinement in a matter of days!” Glitter then chuckles.
“Yeah, gamers usually focus on whether a game’s gameplay is engaging, and what makes it so to them, over any narrative qualities the game’s campaign might have!” Capitolium adds.
“The book Glitter recommended to me would work just fine as a horror book, but, if it was a horror book, I would instead want an end to the abuse of some sort! Just not necessarily together”
Lagado: Lol
The other people in the chat burst in laughter in front of their respective screens, upon hearing that Glitter’s rec was a horror book in all but name, as Caro opens the third e-book for all to read.
“I guess, you get horrified a little bit when you see people get abusive towards people as sweet as the lead of…” Sampoong then names the book Glitter recommended to Caro.
“Hang on tight, Lagado, I’ll read your book soon”
The reading of that third book begins. It apparently begins by one of the male leads being traded away, but for some reason there is no trace of what the other team obtained in return for that lead.
“Either that guy was traded for what is called future considerations, or for a conditional draft pick whose condition will be some kind of big reveal later on!” Caro comments on the opening of Lagado’s recommended book. “And this is one of the main things, along with budgeting, where knowing the player’s cap hit matters!”
“Future considerations?” Sampoong gasps and rolls his eyes. “What exactly are future considerations in the context of player trades?”
“Yeah, even though I read a wide variety of hockey romance authors, never once did the words future considerations ever come up in any of these books!” Capitolium comments on his readings of hockey romance.
However, it’s not hard to see what tensions a trade would create in a relationship, Capitolium starts wondering what to expect from Caroline if she accepts. Hockey romance readers clearly have higher expectations out of a hockey romance book’s relationship than they do the hockey aspect; it’s painfully obvious to me now that Caro will focus more on the hockey side.
“Future considerations essentially means that a player is traded away for nothing, or anything they could get back would have a lot of conditions attached” Caro explains what future considerations mean. “Up to this point, I treated the hockey-playing characters’ talent as matching their estimated cap hits. I can’t take that for granted anymore!”
Lagado (on the stream’s textual chat): What do you mean?
“Now I need to consider whether a hockey-playing character is actually playing consistently with their estimated cap hits! It’s easy to imagine that more talented players will return more in a trade, but usually the more overpaid a player is relative to his on-ice talent, the more trade value is lost!”
“Caro, I don’t want to be mean to you, but there’s good reason so many hockey romance books leave out the transactional aspect of the sport, including the book I recommended to you!” Sampoong adds. “But why?”
“Sampoong, I get it, you’re a reader who finds the sports parts a slog in a sports romance, but after I started reading Lagado’s rec, it’s something I can’t unsee!”
There are other mechanisms allowing teams to get rid of players. Waiver wires or buyouts. However, neither applies to this book, but the difference between waiving a player and trading a player away for future considerations is only relevant to the front office, in that the old team controls the player’s destination in a trade, while, by waiving a player, they don’t, Caro refrains herself from going any further in the discussion of the transactional aspect of hockey.
And then she reads the part where the first male lead moves in with one of his teammates, the second male lead. That book’s meet cute since the rest of their first day with the first male lead’s team is about practices and being introduced to the team’s main staff.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Whether this book will prove any better than any of the previous two books will depend on how the games are portrayed, if any” Caro tells her viewers.
Lagado: Just wait a chapter or two down the road for a game
And their first game on the same line comes after the first male lead gets settled in. Sampoong keeps quiet, but both Capitolium and Glitter seem to be more interested in listening.
“To prove himself to the eyes of the new team, the first male lead goes on a breakaway, dekes with the puck, forcing the goalie to move sideways. He shoots very close to the crease. The puck barely clears the five-hole, and slows down past the pads. As the puck crosses the goal line, it comes to a near-complete stop” Caro summarizes that sequence of play.
“Goal! His first goal on the new team!” Capitolium comments on what is being read.
But after the high of the first male lead scoring the game-winning goal in his debut with the new team, assisted by the second male lead, they grow not only their on-ice chemistry, but also their off-ice one. So much so that the first male lead starts worrying about whether their budding bromance could leak to the media, and its resulting backlash.
“I can sense some fake dating coming!” Glitter feels ecstatic about what’s coming next. “I love fake dating outside of hockey romance!”
“Fake dating? I knew that players who have good on-ice chemistry could grow their off-ice one, but players seem to care more about each other on the ice than off it!” Capitolium adds.
“It started out strong, and this book has the potential to be better than the first two, but I have my reservations” Caro comments on what she read up to this point.
“I’m not convinced of who they would fool, if it leads to a fake date. Except maybe someone else on the team” Sampoong is getting into it.
But she decides to stop the reading of the book right there, as she checks on the status of the daily dispatch quests she sent her game characters on. Now that these quests are completed, she can then resume playing these multiplayer games of chess.
She does so against different opponents, and using different combinations of units. While remaining mindful that characters have varying deployment costs: generally, stronger characters tend to cost more to deploy. And, of course, only play as much as her in-game budget will allow her to.
Yet, after she has exhausted her self-imposed in-game budget, the stream ends, and she resumes reading the third book, away from her followers. There are definitely some of my viewers who came for me playing these TRPG games, but I have a couple who remain well beyond the chess. Maybe if I clearly separate the reading and playing portions of my stream, I could then juggle my time on air better.
Here it seems like the first male lead must juggle his perception among the team, his feelings with the second male lead, and keeping them under wraps. And one-third of the way in, what Glitter told her about on a stream finally arrives. A love triangle, with a fake date. A fake girlfriend with whom he plays hard to get to keep the rest of the team from learning about his feelings for the second male lead.
And then the whole thing snowballs. Some miscommunication arises as a result of having played hard to get a little too hard with his fake girlfriend. And causes friction with the second male lead after he feels like the first lead’s off-ice chemistry threatens his on-ice one. Enough romance reading for today. But it seems like Glitter has read this one as well.
Yet at some point of the night, she gets a dream about one of her last hockey games, as a pre-teen girl:
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Colisée de Québec, early 2010s. Pee-Wee Worlds were underway and, for the first time in the history of Pee-Wee Worlds, a girls’ tournament was held, alongside the main four boys’ categories. Two teams from outside North America were announced to play, alongside five teams each from Canada and the United States.
After the national anthems were sung, the Latvian one by one of the players, the opening game for the Québec Valkyries, an U13 all-star team drawing players from all over the Capitale-Nationale region, began against Latvia. Caroline was put in to start the game on defense.
The game began with the Latvian starting center winning the faceoff. The Latvian center passed to a winger, who then shot…
“Latvija! Latvija!” the parents of the Latvian players hollered when the fight for the puck began.
And the goalie blocked the subsequent shot with the blocker. The other Latvian winger took the puck back, leading Caroline to dash for her. Feeling the pressure from the Canadian players, that winger was backed into the rink’s corner.
Caroline fought for the puck along the boards, and won the resulting puck battle. She took the puck away from the Canadian defensive zone, but feeling the Latvian defender hot on her tail, she simply passed the puck to the center, who also starts feeling the pressure. The Latvian left defender, seeking to prevent the Canadian center from breaking away, hooked her with the stick. At center ice. The referee signaled a hooking penalty, which was assessed, and… power play time.
That center, who would normally play on the first PP unit, returned to the bench, and they had to start the power play with the second unit’s center. But this time around, on the ensuing face-off, the Canadian center on the second PP unit won.
A few moments later, with the 2-minute penalty still in effect, Caroline sensed an opportunity to score. Especially when her teammates were screening for her around the crease. And she shot the puck into the top shelf. Upon the puck’s entry into the net:
“Le but des Valkyries, son premier du tournoi, compté par le numéro vingt, Caroline Fauchoux!” (Valkyries goal, scored by number 20, Caroline Fauchoux!) the Colisée de Québec’s home announcer shouted before that portion of the dream ended, and before announcing the assists, power play nature and timestamp.
The second portion of this dream happened in her bedroom, in the present. Then came a ghost of a ten-year-old girl, looking like a distant relative of hers, delivering a warning to her. About this reading binge…
“Stop this reading binge immediately! Your mind can’t take it!” the child ghost warned her.
“Who are you?” Caroline’s oneiric self asked, rolling her eyes at the suggestion.
“Nadine! I’m related to you, like, a cousin once or twice removed or something”
“Why should I stop binge reading hockey romance books?”
“You know about the hockey part, but it’s about unrealistic expectations of life in a relationship! It’s not all roses, and certainly don’t expect to be able to change someone!”
“Nadine, you sound far too mature for a ten-year-old!”
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Caroline is in for a brutal awakening. When she awakens, her thoughts start racing against the clock, and even faster than she’s used to. What’s going on here? Why did I have a dream where I relived my first taste of international hockey, and then have a ten-year-old child tell me in a dream that I should stop reading hockey romance books, at least temporarily? Nadine didn’t sound like even my ten-year-old self!
She DMs Sampoong on Discord the following morning, thinking that it will calm her nerves down.
Caroline: I had a nightmare about a ten-year-old ghost telling me to stop binge reading hockey romance books
Sampoong: What?
Caroline: Yes; that ghost told me about unrealistic expectations in relationships
Sampoong: I had a question on air, but you didn’t answer me: why the transactional aspect of hockey isn’t included in these books?
Caroline: They can’t fit it into the plot
Sampoong: I learned a lot about it through you, thank you
I guess, I can spend a weekend without touching more hockey romance books; the past three days made me question so much about these romans à la glace de rose, as my father put it, and this world that somehow forced me to reconnect with my youth. But I don’t feel too hot about Lagado’s rec right now because the miscommunication arc seems a bit forced. Especially now that we’re entering the love triangle phase, Caroline still had a lot on her mind, even when she still has nine days to decide on whether to accept Capitolium’s challenge. If I don’t read another book, will I be adequately prepared for it? I acknowledged the value of reading from a variety of authors in full since the very start, though.