#(also i did NOT have that gossip about matthew in calgary and it is fascinating i am incorporating it into my characterization immediately)

[hopetorun]

oh that little sibling take is so intriguing because i feel like matthew DOES come off as a little bit of a tryhard with how he tries to be on good terms with everyone “off the ice” or w/e (ie being a pest on the ice but off the ice he spits out this bs about how it’s just a game etc…). It’s like one of the more … intruding things about him to me because i’m like does he lack that much self awareness. Does he really not know WHY he wasn’t made captain in cgy etc???Although I also think he also may not be as socially inclined as other guys but tries sometimes to not shake the table?? When he was with the flames there was frequent gossip that he wouldn’t accompany the team on nights out to bars or whatever and if he did, he’d leave early lol

i super agree with you about the tryhard please-like-me that matthew gives off but i don't know if i agree that it's due to a lack of self-awareness? at least to me it feels like more of an excess of self-awareness, like he knows exactly why people might not like him (being a pest, not being friendly in the right ways, being the most annoying person on the planet) and is overcompensating in places

but also more broadly one of the things i really enjoy about writing rpf and being in rpf fandoms is poking at things like this, because real people are full of contradictions and things that just make no sense! we're our own worst enemies and we all do things like wishing everyone would like us while not bothering to do the things that would make people like us, and there's a really fun challenge in turning those messes of character traits into something that makes narrative sense for a story