#at least i changed it up from dumb skate bro to dumb hockey bro this time

[arincalz]

⌠ ETHAN CUTKOSKY, 20, CIS MALE, HE/HIM ⌡ welcome back to gallagher academy, ARIN CALLISTER! according to their records, they’re a THIRD year, specializing in ADVANCED ENCRYPTION; and they DID NOT go to a spy prep high school. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of shaggy unkempt hair, the glow of LED case lights in bi pride colors, late night thunderstorms and the first skate on fresh ice. when it’s the (scorpio)’s birthday on 11/03/1999, they always request their CHICKEN STRIPS from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re well on their way to graduation.  / @gallagherintro​

will i ever write a coherent bio for a character instead of just copy/pasting my brain dump notes ? maybe. someday. probably not but if u think these are bad u should see my indie :))))

        he wishes he had a cooler story for why he started hacking and coding, and often when he's asked he'll make something up on the spot. but if you press enough, he'll admit to wanting more coins in club penguin when he was eight and than wondering how those exploits worked.         pretty quickly he discovered whole communities online for hacking other games and even whole websites and he became fascinated. it would be a few years before he'd actually be able to participate in these communities (mom said no), but even as a kid he would lurk the forums for tips and new scripts to test out and tinker with. it was basic script kiddie stuff, but it was a start.         that summer when it was time to pick a day camp he'd ask his mom to find a coding camp for him to try. his mom had to pull some strings to get him in, and he was a few years younger than the rest of the class, but that wouldn't keep arin from constantly showing them up. he'd keep going to coding camp every summer for the next few years - and in the meantime, the forums and his own tinkering kept him sharp and learning new things.         in middle school he discovered bug bounties, where companies pay hackers to report on security flaws in their systems. this gave him something to do besides hack and mod video games - which was still fun, but wasn't going to make him any money - and something to actively work towards. he started small, looking for vulnerabilities in his school's system and informing them by leaving little notes for the administrators telling them how he did it and how he thought it could be fixed. he didn't get anything out of that, but it taught him what he needed to slowly work his way up to bigger and better things. and after about a year or so he was supplementing his allowance of his little side hustle.

        the bounties got more substantial in high school as he worked his way into bigger and tougher systems. by now he was active in the online communities, and took a certain amount of pride in being "the kid" in a few of them. in hindsight, that's probably how he got the attention of blackthorne academy in the first place.         the move to gallagher after a year at blackthorne was a more than welcome one. he didn't do great in that sort of environment, though his fighting skills from years of playing hockey helped him keep his head above water. still hated the place, though.

and now for some fun bonus personality stuff:

he and devon go way back to when they were smol babies at their separate day camps that happened to cross paths enough for them to make friends. just how often he participated in [gregg from nitw voice] crimes is tbd but let it be known he has used his powers for evil

likes solving his problems with his fists, but he went the whole last semester without punching anyone, and you know what we call that ? growth. (the summer doesn't count, shhh, that asshole at the bar in berlin had it coming and his nose looks better crooked anyway, shhhhhhhhh)

this boy has uniform violations for days and like, some of it is because he thinks the rules are stupid but some of it he just genuinely forgets. even though this is his second year at gallagher just he has not learned the dress code. 

computer smart, but otherwise ?? no thoughts, head empty

dyslexic, cannot read, will cry if you ask him to try and read something smaller than like 14px or in a font that isn't a basic mono or serif

has snails named snurcules, spork, escargobi-wan kenobi and p sherman 42 wallaby way sydney (sherman for short) because none of my characters can have normal pets. ( look how cute tho )

i mentioned it in passing in the bio but he used to play hockey as a kid and in high school and he's pretty good but that’s also where he first learned how to fight

speaking of hockey i don’t actually have a good reason for him to be a capitols fan so as much as it pains me i am reluctantly making him a devils fan which in its own way... is very fitting

he also probably whines a lot about not being able to just ~go skate~ whenever he wants to, please help him find some other hobbies, get him a skateboard maybe

honestly probably runs a gallagher minecraft server and if you piss him off he'll blow up your house, free your chickens and dye all your sheep pink

[workingforitallthetime]

svech: a very serious and responsible primer

ok @totally-necessary​ and @needsmore​, i am gonna write you an andrei svechnikov primer and i am going to do my best to produce a work of responsible well-sourced expository prose instead of an embarrassing thirsty disaster like the rest of my andrei svechnikov blogging.

here is my introductory paragraph:

wait, no, give me another shot. i swear i can actually do this. here is my introductory paragraph:

HOW CAN I NOT LOVE THIS GOOD-NATURED FEARLESS JOYFUL SHOULDER-FRECKLED SEX KITTEN????? HOW CAN I DO ANYTHING BUT CRY ALL THE TIME?????

.......ok. sorry. let me try it again. i’ll do it right this time, i promise. here is my introductory paragraph:

once upon a time in siberia, two-year-old andrei svechnikov put on skates for the first time and cried because he couldn’t follow his big brother evgeny onto the ice. eventually evgeny’s coach let andrei join the team’s workouts, and then coach started giving the older players a hard time when andrei would beat them.

the backstory of the svech bros sounds a lot like every other hockey kid who didn’t grow up privileged: parents who worked multiple jobs and sacrificed and moved cities to make sure the kids got hockey opportunities. in interviews, the svechnikov brothers have referenced not knowing where food or clothes were going to come from, and they emphasize how close it made them. evgeny says:

Having a brother that we eat from one plate--sleep in one bed sometimes--we went through everything. It's just one person by your side always. It's like going hunting alone or with somebody.

they wear the same number. they talk every day. as soon as the season paused in march, evgeny drove to north carolina. lately, they’re hanging out in michigan. basically, if hockey is not being played, they are together. basically, if you are going to write a primer about andrei, the most important thing is evgeny.

(my theory is that evgeny is at least part of the reason andrei does not like it when dougie and foegs joke about him being their kid brother. it’s the only joke i’ve ever seen svech refuse to roll with.)

evgeny got drafted by the red wings in 2015 (round 1, 19th overall). he started out with the AHL affiliate in grand rapids, and in 2016 mama svech packed up andrei and moved from russia to michigan. andrei played a season for the muskegon lumberjacks in the USHL. he led the team in scoring and was named USHL rookie of the year. the next season he was the first selection in the CHL import draft, and played for the barrie colts.

ok, so while we’re knocking out the backstory, i want to note that svech’s full name is Andrei Igorevich Svechnikov. don’t tell me that’s not sexy.

furthermore, the very spelling of andrei is sexy. i had a russian-speaking colleague once who had a son named andrei and she would say his name with a little lift at the end. not like the i added another syllable, just like a little caress. i hear it that way when i type it. it makes me happy to type that i at the end. andrei. andrei.

oh sorry, did i veer off topic?

the carolina hurricanes selected andrei second overall in the 2018 draft. he looked just as dumb as everybody always does in their draft night jersey photos, but here’s his draft day suit:

oh wait, can’t pass up the opportunity for a combine photo

did i say COMBINE? i meant JAWLINE

wait one more photo from the combine, just because he looks especially dead poets society in this one:

upon moving to raleigh, andrei emphatically wanted to live alone, which seems unusual for an 18-year-old entering the NHL and is therefore fertile ground for all sorts of headcanons. he keeps his floors very clean and gets mad when his buddies won’t take their shoes off. i am not making this up. he lives in the same apartment complex as dougie hamilton, warren foegele, joel edmundson (rip), and teuvo teravainen. andrei does not cook and he’s constantly calling them to see who wants to go out to eat.

in that last video i linked you can see foegs stumble and jump off his scooter just before he hits the gate to their parking garage. then the gate rises like magic and svech glides straight through. this is an unsubtle metaphor for andrei svechnikov’s entire athletic existence.

svech purportedly does not play video games, which is wild to me. instead, he practices magic tricks. again, i am not making this up.

wait i’m sorry it’s been at least ten minutes since i looked at a picture of andrei svechnikov holding a bunch of kittens

ok where was i.

svech had a pretty solid rookie season in 2018-19, but you can look up the numbers elsewhere if you want them. he was the first player born this century to score in the NHL but we don’t like to think about his 2000 birthdate. he played on a line with jordan martinook for a lot of that first season, and you can read more about that romantic nonsense in the ship primer i’ll be writing next. more recently the canes have settled into a top line of svech, sebastian aho, and teuvo teravainen, which is a pretty deadly combo.

one incident of note from svech’s rookie season is that he got knocked the fuck out by alex ovechkin. we’ll be talking more about that in the ship primer too, but if you want the video it’s here.

here, have a little celly:

svech’s most touted accomplishment is scoring the NHL’s first-ever Michigan-style lacrosse goal. this article has a very good description of how it worked. the postgame interview from that game is so endearing it makes me want to claw my face off. he’s talking so fast (for him) and he keeps repeating that his brother taught it to him, just absolutely determined to make sure everyone knows this milestone belongs to evgeny too.

also, this season, he scored the first playoff hat trick in franchise history.

the thing about andrei svechnikov is that nobody has a bad word to say about him. everybody thinks he’s an amazing player (”skilled and tenacious yet loose and creative”) and everybody compliments his work ethic (shooting pucks for hours after practice or a game) and journalists call him a “transcendent star.” everybody says he’s a great person. everybody calls him special. jordan martinook says svech never has a bad word to say about anyone.

ok it’s kitten time again!

more svech facts of note:

drives a black mercedes, poorly. “he wants to win on the road, too,” says foegs.

his voice gets very soft when he is uncertain about something but he’s loud when he wins a card game. (”GOOD NIGHT, BROTHER! SEE YOU NEXT GAME!”)

loves french toast for breakfast.

guilty pleasure is milkshakes.

if he was an animal, he’d be a bear (”like a russian bear.”)

does monster summer workouts with ivan provorov

look how fucking cute he is

the invaluable social media team over at hurricanes hq understands the svech content the world needs. i’m gonna tackle some more of this in the ship primer, but here are the best ones:

who’s your daddy? this video features svech confusedly asking “daddy?”, which is literally everything i ever want in fic or in life. once he finally understands he’s expected to choose between two teammates, he chooses the one who’s his buddy. and then after he’s catcalled from offscreen, he slouches down in his chair and changes his answer. “both,” he mutters, looking unbearably smug. “both.”

cookie face. it takes marty a very entertaining 49 seconds to eat the cookie. then svech hacks the game and wins in 7 second flat. “he’s good at everything,” marty marvels from offscreen.

this is a terrible concept for a video but it does feature svech and dougie doing the famous scene from stepbrothers, and svech giving a sweeping bow. i will forgive him for wearing a duke hat but only because he wears a tarheels hat in the three amigos video above.

has it been too long since a kitten photo? it’s definitely been too long since a kitten photo.

in conclusion, andrei svechnikov is a massive life-ruining problem and also he is perfect. i love him.