#omgcheckplease
Check, Please!: A Primer1. The Comic.
2. The Extras.
3. The Twitter.
4. The Fanfic.I hope this primer gives you a quick way to explain to friends, family, and confused coworkers that thing you’ve been reading lately.
Tag: check please
shitty is protective of his friends and has a very strongly developed sense of right and wrong. he also has a tendency to be overbearing, and doesn’t always know where to stop.
I’m picturing shitty in the dean of students office approximately 35249875x a week.
ransom’s anxiety is hitting never-before-seen levels, and it might be helpful to have a quiz moved? shitty’s on it.
holster’s econ prof didn’t include religious observance in her list of excused absences, and yom kippur falls on a wednesday this year? shitty’s out the door before holster’s finished his sentence.
dex’s lab ta keeps misgendering him, even though he got his name changed in the samwell system? you guessed it. shitty’s waiting outside the dean of students office first thing the next morning, wildly lecturing the unsuspecting passersby on the importance of administrators being available to deal with students’ concerns.
wicks, on crutches after deciding to figure skate, despite being in hockey skates and lacking any physical grace, mentions that he had a hard time with the stairs outside one of the academic buildings? SHITTY IT’S FINE. NO IT’s nooooootttttt…shitty yells, volume quickly decreasing as he sprints toward lake quad.
I love this, but also:
The year after Shitty’s graduation, the dean of students feels guiltily relieved because that dude with the moustache won’t be hassling her on behalf of the men’s hockey team any more.
Then she walks out of her office to be faced with the wide, toothsome smile of Chris “Chowder” Chow, wearing a suspiciously familiar floral snapback with a Sharks badge pinned to it.
“Hello, Dean Winters, I need to talk to you about street harassment and the lacrosse team.”
I was thinking of AUs for CP and I can’t stop laughing at the “first things you say to each other are tattooed on their body” soulmates au. Jack would have “Hey y’all” or something else super southern on him. (When he was born, Bad Bod was like “It’s English…I think.”) And Bitty! He’d have something like “Stay focused, Bittle.” OR GOD FORBID “Bittle, eat more protein.” Like can u imagine growing up with that on your body. “Your soulmate sounds like a real charmer Eric.” I’m actually crying, imagining this.
But what if the first thing Jack says is something in French under his breath and its like “holy shit he’s gorgeous” or if you want something more funny “Fuck me in the ass” because just imagine that written in French on bitty
Now all I can picture is Bitty poor mama looking up what her little boy’s soulmate says to him and looking absolutely scandalized.
“Dicky honey did you ever look up what your French soul mate mark meant ?”
“No mamma I want them to tell me when I meet them , I bet it’s romantic since it is French”
“Bless your heart Dicky”
Bob and Alicia pick Jack up at the airport at the begining of Christmas break. Jack had told them that’d he met his soul mate and they couldn’t wait to hear all about it
“So Jack was she a southern bell”
Jack looks down at the words scrawled across his arm “you have no idea”
Jack has known that Bittle was his soul mate ever since he met him on that first day of pre-season.
Bittle on the other hand has denied himself the fantasy of his soul mate being Jack. “Remember he is straight” He mutters to himself. Jack has always talked about his cousin Andre and how he had just broken up with his boyfriend. “It’s probably Andre I’ll meet him at some party after Jack wins the cup and we’ll fall in love”
One afternoon on a particularly hot day Bittle decides to go for a run and invites Jack to go with him. Since its so hot he’s decided to wear his new tank top.
He walks down stairs and Jack notices black lettering peeking out from under Bitty’s shirt. “Is that your mark Bittle?” He questions. Jack has never gotten a good look at it since its considered rude to read others and Bittle never sits still long enough in the locker room anyways.
“Oh this yeah, Oh! Jack do you think you would be able to translate it for me?” Bitty asks him. He removes his shirt and Jack reads the text. fourre moi dans le cul. Jack blushes remembering that first day. “It…it uh…it says your gorgeous” He stammers out..
“Thanks Jack now come on lets go” Bittle responds cheerfully.
______________________________________________________________
“Bits come on” Lardo shouts as she barges into Bitty’s room. “Wait, what the fuck” She eyes Bitty’s Mark on his back.
“What?!” He turns around worried; eyes wide.
She starts laughing. “Why does it say fourre moi ans le cul on your back?”
“Its my mark” he explains. “Jack says it means “your gorgeous””
“I get that its your mark” She starts “ But thats not what it means. Bits it means fuck me in the ass”
Bitty’s jaw drops in horror and doesn’t realize he’s moving till he’s in Jack’s room and Jack looks a little more than frightened. “Jack Laurent Zimmermann, what the fuck is wrong with you, why did you tell me the french on my back meant “your gorgeous” when you know darn well what it means” He demands
Jack Sighs and kicks off his shoe and shows Bittle his sole marked distinctly with the words Hey Y’all
@sidcrosbys here’s the rest
I just got emotional about the idea of Shitty being all “you don’t understand prejudice because you’re white and a man” toward Holster one day, and my boy Adam Bitkholtz ripping him a new one about the intersectionalities of biphobia, queerphobia, and antisemitism, and just Shitty being completely shook.
Like Shitty was studying something at the library for one of his women’s studies classes and he starts talking about it at the table, and Holster tries to offer some of his own opinions when Shitty shuts him down with that whole ‘you don’t know prejudice" bs and Holster straight up lectures Shitty.
Like a complete 20 min long rant in the middle of the library. And when someone tells them to be quiet, Adam “Too Much” Birkholtz calls him a waspy, straight bitch before storming out of the room in a fury.
Holster makes Shitty read up on Scott Fried as an apology and Shitty sends him a 2,000 word essay MLA format about the duality of being queer and Jewish in America.
Idk about you but I’m still crying at the thought.
Ok but this has me thinking:
Shitty learns the most about social justice and oppression from his friends.
The Gender and Women’s Study program is supposed to be “the tits” according to Shitty, but from the perspective of a privileged White Boy, that doesn’t really say much to me.
Having taken courses at my own university in feminism and women’s studies, they are mostly taught by white cishet men who don’t have any real life experience in the things they teach.
So like he starts waxing poetic about the textbook versions of feminism and intersectionality and all that jazz
And the boys just lay into him.
Like Bitty starts reclaiming some slurs that used to be used against him, and Shitty tells him “you can’t say that” or something like that and bitty just raises an eyebrow at him.
And shit like this just keeps on happening.
He says something ignorant about race to Ransom.
He talks about how great a movie where a white actor plays an Asian character looks and Lardo and Chowder give him a side eye.
Like give me problematique Shitty who learns by making mistakes and having his friends smack that shit outta him.
He has written dozens of apology essays just for his friends.
They keep them in a scrapbook.
Shitty graduates, but the scrapbook stays. One day a taddie says something ignorant, gets one hell of a smackdown, and writes an essay.
It happens enough times that eventually it’s just a known consequence. Pet names in public? Sin Bin donation time. Fuck up your social justice? Submit your essay to the Shitty Knight Essay Scrapbook.
THE CROSSOVER NOBODY ASKED FOR: WTNV + OMGCP
It is possible you will see hockey players at the ice rink. Do not approach them. Do not approach the ice rink.
Would you rather have a faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home? Or 1000 roaches?
Bitty: “Kent Parson. You don’t do anything except bring unacceptably dry scones to NHL meetings and take grammatically disastrous minutes on your shifts as meeting secretary. GET IT TOGETHER, KENT!”
Annie’s Coffee: Devour your own empty heart.
Ransom: “Angels are not real, and we are not allowed to know about their existence or hierarchical structure.”
Bitty, upon meeting Jack: “A new man came into the haus today. Who is he? What does he want from us? Why his perfect and beautiful cheekbones? Why his perfect and beautiful ass?”
“… And now, the weather.” *BEYONCE BLASTING THROUGH THE HAUS SPEAKERS*
(inspired partly by this post by @cardamoms but mostly by the insanity that is hiatus)
“i cant read any of his tweets but he’s beautiful”
au where bitty thirst follows jack on twitter but can’t understand any of his tweets from sight alone because they’re in french
Jack is just this gorgeous French Canadian hockey god who apparently has a twitter because his sponsors, god bless ‘em quite sincerely, require that he puts in some brand representation on social media. His sponsors are Under Armor, a fitness machine company, and some protein powder company, which means most of the photos on Jack’s twitter are of him wearing tight clothes, working out, or standing in a kitchen. Failing those, he’s on the ice.
Bitty has ascended.
Of course, these are occasionally interspersed with the most amazing softbro aesthetic shots that this guy apparently just…takes…around town? While traveling? Bitty can occasionally recognize city names, but Google Translate is useless for most of this stuff, and he is not sure he even cares. This boy…this boy!
girl scouts knocking on the haus door to sell cookies and shitty answering the door (thankfully clothed) and torn between saying
- “heck yeah ill give you my entire tuition to get me some samoas”
- “your organization is so amazing and superior to boy scouts i hope you lil dudes know that. like. pro lgbt and supporting young girls its great”
- “i want to buy your cookies but i dont want bitty to think i dont appreciate his baked goods im sorry”
- “jesus what are you doing on a street thats entirely frathouses filled with gross jocks and stoners, that is both a spectacular business plan and a deep-set flaw in whoever is supposed to be watching over and protecting you kids. where’s your scout leader. i have some firm words for them”
…and that’s how Shitty accidentally became a den mother/scout leader
The other local girl scout leaders don’t quite know what to do with him, but hey, his girl scout group always gets the district a medal for how many cookies they sell (hockey boys + girl scout cookies = a terrific business plan) even if their badges all seem to be for things like “learning about the gender binary” and “marching in a protest” and “smashing the patriarchy”
(Nursey guest-teaches a unit on PoC poetry. Bitty does one on cooking. Lardo does one on mixed media. Dex does one on cars/basic auto repair. Ransom does one on spreadsheets. And at each of the team’s home games, there is a small but fierce collection of girls scouts with homemade signs cheering them on)
#**caramel delites #this addition is absolutely essential #can u imagine the systematic reign of terror these girls with excel proficiency & microecon lessons from holster & the ncaa market cornered#honestly between their army of hockey dads and lardo they just. would roll over the competition?
#and if jack zimmermann knows anything it’s how to lead a team to the win #and then jack in the nhl is a HUGE girl scouts of america advocate #and everyone’s like um????? #and jack is demurely proud to support them and points to his good friend b. knight #and shitty (‘mr. crappy’) keeps up his duties while he’s at harvard law #and he’s just like ‘look at my troop look at these girls any one of them could take over the world. i’m just bankrolling the revolution.’
#i think i should have spelled it ‘troupe’ but whatever #(because obviously he verses his scouts in current events and legal issues. he firmly believes at least three of them will be in congress) #(he thinks jessie is gunning for supreme court justice tbh) #(he’s so fucking proud) (via sadquebecois)
So we all know our favorite chatterbox Eric Bittle has ADHD right? A common symptom of this (and one I’m currently struggling a lot with) is memory problems! Bitty’s friends used to tease him a little for always telling the same stories (Junior, we *know* that Beyonce had a baby) over and over again. But Jack!! Jack loves it!
Jack finds it so calming and reassuring to hear Bitty retelling old family stories (I swear to you, Jack, that poor cashier girl couldn’t have been older than 19 and she was quaking like a baby bird the way that creep was looking at her. Good thing my MooMaw stepped in when she did. I witnessed a murder that day, a metaphorical one, mind, but still) or recounting memories, including the ones he was there for (and then, sweetheart, remember what Shitty said? I near died of laughter and embarrassment).
And sometimes Bitty will stop in the middle of a tale, “Shit, Jack, you’ve heard this before, why didn’t you stop me? I know it’s annoying as hell.” But Jack just smiles, “I love hearing you talk Bits, go on, tell me what happened next. The Jam story is one of my favorites you know.”
i love this! i always feel so horrible like i’m losing my mind everytime i forget that i’ve told somebody something so many times but i love this so much!
I feel like this is because jack is autistic and finds comfort in the repetition and the consistency
After a great game, Jack goes out to celebrate with the Falconers, and for the first time in years he gets properly drunk. So drunk, in fact, that he lets the big secret spill – he’s gay, he has a boyfriend. All the guys are fine with it, and say they’d support publicly if/when he wanted to come out- “No, no, I can’t. I can’t be the first one, fuck, it’d be. god. no it’d be too much” and at this point he’s starting to get properly anxious, so they back down and say they’ll support him whatever, and that they’re proud to be his team-mates.
And then there’s Guy, who was sitting off to one side during all of this, not saying much. He doesn’t generally get involved in group conversations, especially big ones like this. But he does listen.
He goes home that night, and has a quiet talk. It doesn’t last long – they both agree. It feels like the right reason to do it.
Within the week, the Falconers media accounts post pictures of Guy and his husband. Guy is smiling. This is almost more newsworthy than the husband.
The next day, before practice, Jack comes up to Guy and tries to say something, anything, but after a few awkward Canadian seconds Guy just grabs him in a big bear hug, and they both pretend Jack isn’t crying into his shoulder.
They pull apart, and Guy looks Jack in the eyes and says “We’ve got your back.”
Excerpt from one of the several Check, Please! fics I am working on.
This one’s an AU, one of the “Jack went into the NHL at 18 and Bitty has some unrelated career” variety, of which there are many.
—
Shitty Knight (that was going to take some getting used to) was waiting outside the locker room when Jack emerged. With him was a shorter man, slender and blond, wearing a blue t-shirt and the shortest red shorts Jack had ever seen on an adult. He had sunglasses perched on his head and was deep in conversation with Knight. Must be an intern.
As Jack drew nearer, they both turned toward him. Jack almost stopped walking. The blond man was armed; he had a hip holster clipped to the waistband of his miniscule red shorts.
“Um – hello,” Jack said. He was trying not to stare at this tiny, armed – okay, the word his brain kept suggesting was ‘twink,’ but that seemed uncharitable so he resisted it. This tiny armed person. He focused on Knight, who would surely explain.
“Jack. Good skate?”
“Awful.”
“Yeah, I coulda predicted that. Jack, this is Eric Bittle. He’ll be heading up your security detail.”
Jack could not keep the look of incredulity off his face. Bittle seemed totally unsurprised by his gobsmacked expression. “Go ahead, get it out of your system,” he said, his voice a smooth, Southern-accented tenor.
“I’m sorry, but – really?”
Knight also looked like he’d had this conversation more than once before. “To paraphrase Shakespeare, though he be but little, he is fierce.”
“Midsummer Nights’ Dream,” Jack said.
“Mr. Bittle is my best agent, Jack. He may not look like a bodyguard, but he is quick and he’s a crack shot.”
“If you say so, Knight, but…” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Okay, I’m not usually this much of an asshole, but this is my life we’re talking about, and you – I’m sure you’re good at your job, but you look like I could tip you over with two fingers.”
Bittle calmly took the sunglasses off his head and handed them to Knight. “Try it.”
Jack spluttered a little. “Look, I’m not going to…”
“Bless your heart, this isn’t my first time at the bake-off, Mr. Zimmermann. I know how this goes. Nobody buys it until I show them, so go ahead. Try it. And don’t hold back.”
what i do is not up to you 