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whipped-for-kpop-fics · 24 days

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Seventeen & matching/couple items

💕Who; seventeen (individually) x gender-neutral reader 💕What; soft thoughts about the couple items they'd have with their significant other 💕Wordcount; around 1.5k altogether 💕Warnings; none! I didn't even swear in this, go me

-2024 Masterlist-

A/N; this wasn't supposed to be a whole thing which is why there's no capitalisation, plus it's almost 2 am so I am not about to go through and change the style now

seungcheol; definitely rings. i imagine something simple and in silver with both of your initials on the inside so it's more subtle but he can still look down at it when he needs the strength you give him but he's also always giving you his hoodies/jackets/hats and will buy another of any you refuse to give back so you wind up matching that way too but only intentionally in private. cheol likes to show you off but only to those he trusts and loves because he only wants you to feel the love you deserve

jeonghan; jackets, like matching bomber-style jackets with cute embroidery and maybe your names embroidered on them somewhere. but he often steals yours so you have to wear his just so that he can see his name on you he'll definitely come up to you one day like "babe, let's get matching tattoos" only to show you a packet of temporary tattoos he got for some change in a machine. the designs are all clearly aimed at children but you both wind up with arms dotted in these cute little matching images

joshua; something sweet and handmade because it means more. yes, im talking about his handmade bracelets, or beaded keychains you made for each other one lazy afternoon full of giggles as you make each other the most atrocious keychains in a competition to make the worst just for the fun of it. yet you both still adore the keychain gifted to you because the other made it and wear it proudly on your favourite/daily bags omg mugs, every morning(if you live together) he gets up earlier than you on purpose just so that he can make sure that he can make you both your morning beverages(regardless of if you drink hot drinks or not) in the matching mugs. he smiles sleepy and content at you every time without fail as he watches you sip at your mug with the sweet phrase on that matches his own

junhui; i don't know why but i suddenly imagined matching plushies and that feels right. maybe you happened to both win the same one during an arcade date in a claw machine but now you both sleep with that same one on your bed even if it's for an anime neither of you has watched i don't imagine jun purposely getting matching items because it wouldn't really occur to him as he's never felt the need to boast, he's happy with you and he hopes you're the same though when you're out together wandering around stores and see little decor you both like, he'll rush to buy you one each so your living spaces matches. (he's really just slyly making your homes similar enough that it won't seem like such a difference when he asks you to move in)

soonyoung; i actually think he'd be quite subtle with it tbh. he'd give you a tiger plushie keychain to attach to your bag and he'd have a matching one of your favourite animal on his own and will always fiddle with it mindlessly and think of you. so it actually wears out quite often and he has to geta new one. though he keeps the damaged ones in a secret box under his bed because it'd feel like throwing a piece of you out, he really does link the cute little plushie to you so much he might also like something like bucket hats/beanies that match but in simple designs/colours so although you two know they're purposely matching, others will just see you both in plain black bucket hats and think nothing of it other than an easy to happen coincidence

wonwoo; wonwoo would definitely want something just for you two that isn't necessarily an obvious couple item. maybe a cute little enamel badge on his favourite jacket and you have the same on your daily bag also matching gaming headphones because how can i not mention that? even if you don't really game, he'll buy a set he's had his eyes on for ages aimed at couples, with the matching stands and keeps both on his desk so he can look over at your one even if you're not there. always makes him smile to himself and perk up even if he's about to rage quit a game

jihoon; another simple subtle kind of guy. i'm imagining something like braided leather-look bracelets with silver beads with a heart etching which he only takes off to shower/swim and will glare at any stylist who tries to convince him to remove it another one with matching headphones but in this case it's more that jihoon bought you a pair specifically for his studio so that you can listen to what he's working on with him without any outside noises disturbing your peace like can happen with the speakers. sometimes he subtley removes his own when he plays songs you already know just to hear you singing along softly while you do work on your laptop without realising he's listening to you utterly enamoured

seokmin; necklaces, probably multiple of them but his favourite is one of those where you shine a light through the gem and it projects a chosen photo onto the wall or something. the amount of times the others have found seokmin tucked up in a dark corner somewhere awkwardly trying to use the light on his phone to shine through the necklace without removing it is unreal. cute boy just wants to see the first photo you two ever took together for comfort <3 but i also imagine that one upon a time you two were in a store and he saw novelty hats and he didn't manage to slyly buy them for you both because he kept giggling so you found out before he made it to pay but you let him buy them because he looked to happy. so now you both have a novelty hat hanging proudly in your homes, you don't wear them but it makes you both smile to look at

mingyu; everything. he'll want every possible matching couple item. hoodies, bags, hats, rings, bracelets(im emotionally attached to the one he gives reader in this fic i wrote), necklaces, phone cases. omg phone cases, that's his favourite and you can bet there's multiple of them and he matches them to his outfit so every morning you get a selfie of his outfit, but not the case because he likes to make a game out of seeing if you'll guess the correct case to put on your phone that day to match (you always do)

minghao; i feel like he'd like matching necklaces or bracelets, something delicate and simple but full of meaning for you both. he'd especially love a necklace long enough that he can hold the pendant over his heart as he thinks of you when you're apart and hopes you're thinking of him too but he'd also like to make something, maybe one of you buys an embroidery kit one day for you two to try something new together and you personalise matching premade little zip bags(coin purse/toiletry bag idk what you'd call them) to gift each other. obviously as it's your first attempt at embroidery, they don't turn out that great but minghao proudly carries him around all the time with whatever little items he may need during the day and doesn't want to lose in his bag

seokmin; i have no idea why but my brain said shoes and now honestly that seems so random but i can't let it go now so you have matching shoes, a variety to match a range of outfits. They may not be exactly the same(though some are) but they're similar enough to work. seungkwan always smiles dopily to himself then plays it off and side eyes you when you tease him for it, though he's realyl fighting hard not to smile because he really loves the unique way to match with you also matching scarf/gloves/hat sets for the cold weather because he loves bundling you up so you're all cosy snug. the matching aspect is just a happy bonus and definitely always leads to loads of selfies with your matching pink cheeks and noses barely in view under the thick scarves

vernon; t-shirts, band tees, graphic tees, plain ones. just t-shirts. it started because you always stole his and he didn't realise it was because they're his so he bought you the same ones and took his back, only for you to swap them out next time. but he knows now and buys two of pretty much every t-shirt he buys though makes sure to wear one a handful of times before giving that one to you because he knows you like things he's worn he's also the type i think to like carrying a photo of you two in his wallet/tucked hidden into his phone case, like a photobooth one and obviously you have the other half of the strip in your own

chan; honestly, i think chan would just be happy to do whatever you want with matching. he thinks it's cute as hell to match with his partner but he won't really be the one to actively bring it up, just hint "oh look, babe, that couple have matching jackets, isn't that cute?" until you get the hint and ask him to get something matching with you, though he still has you lead it just anything at all would be his favourite regardless of if it was just a cheap prize keyring from the arcade or expensive brand new phones just to match, he won't care so long as he gets to show off that you two belong to each other

A/N- if you liked this, don't forget to let me know so that I know to try and do more things like this & also reblog so others can enjoy it too!

And if you have ideas/suggestions for seventeen content, feel free to send me an ask to help inspire me to write! (or just scream at me about the ideas if you want and I'll likely scream back with a continuation with your own thoughts tbh)

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ladyluscinia · 7 months

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Ok, I think I might be exiting the "are you fucking kidding me?" period and ready to make a real argument, so lets talk about Three Act Structure!

Is OFMD S2 just the "Darkest Hour"?

A very common explanation I've been seeing for some of the... controversial... aspects of S2 is that it's meant to be that way. That the middle act is where the protagonists hit their lowest point. Where we get the big failure point. Where everything looks kind of shit.

S2 is supposedly just that point. It's The Empire Strikes Back. People have been making that comparison since before the first episodes even dropped, telling everyone to expect something that could be disappointing or unsatisfying - it's just a matter of needing to wait for S3 to pull it all together.

It's not a baseless framework to consider the show through - I'm pretty sure David Jenkins has mentioned it in interviews (or at least mentioned he planned for three acts / seasons) so it's certainly worth asking how he's doing at the 2/3rd mark.

So - quick summary of Three Act Structure:

Act 1 introduces our characters and world. It includes the inciting incident of the story and the first plot point, where a) the protagonist loses the ability to return to their normal life, and b) the story raises whatever dramatic question will drive the entire plot. Act 2 is rising action and usually most of the story. The protagonist tries to fix things and fucks them up worse, in the process learning new skills and character developing to overcome their flaws. Act 3 is the protagonist taking one more shot, but this time they are ready. We get the climax of the story, the dramatic question gets an answer, and then the story closes.

If you want examples, the Star Wars Original Trilogy is a very popular template. And, hell, he said it was a pirate story... the main Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy also does a solid job with their three acts.

Let's compare. (Spoiler: I'm not impressed 🤨)

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First thing I need to establish... Wait. Two things. First is that Three Act Structure is flexible, so we can't really analyze success or failure by pulling up a list of necessary plot beats that should have been hit in X order. Second is that if you tell me you are writing a romance with a Three Act Structure - where "the relationship is the story" - the first thing I'm going to do is ask you how you are adapting it. Because while there's not necessarily anything preventing you from applying this to a character driven plot, most people are familiar with it as plot structure for externally driven conflict.

Unless there's a reason the status of the main relationship is intrinsically tied up in the current status of the war against the evil empire, a standard Three Act Structure is going to entail either an antagonistic force that absolutely wants your main couple apart being the main relationship obstacle OR the romance aspect being a subplot to the protagonist's narrative adventure. None of those sound like how the show has been described.

So how is OFMD adapting it?

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Act 1

(Can't figure out how well Act 2 is doing if we don't start at setup.)

Right out the gate, OFMD breaks one of the main "rules" for a story where the Acts are delivered in three parts. Namely the one where the first Act is treated as an acceptable standalone story, with it's own satisfying yet open ended conclusion.

In Star Wars, A New Hope ends with the princess rescued, Luke finding the Force, Han finding his loyalty, and the Death Star destroyed. The Empire isn't defeated, the antagonists still live... the story is not over, but this one movie doesn't feel unfinished.

Similarly, Curse of the Black Pearl gives Jack his ship back, Elizabeth and Will get together, and Norrington has the English Navy let them all off the hook and give Jack and the pirates one day's head start.

OFMD's final beat of S1 being Kraken Arc starting is not that, even if Stede returning to sea is still a pretty hopeful note. Now... I don't necessarily think this was a bad call. At least, not if the story is the relationship. It's easy to close on a happy ending and then fuck it up next movie if the conflict is external and coming for them. Not so much if you're driving the story with your protagonists' flaws, in part because it should be really obvious at the end of setup that your main characters need development and can't run off together right now. I actually like that they were risk-takers and let S1 look at the situation clearly vs doing a fragile happy end, because it takes into account the difference between a character-driven and plot-driven narrative.

I think OFMD's Act 1 actually ends at maybe the Act of Grace? Well, there through the kiss on the beach, counting as our "first plot point" before everything goes wrong, basically.

At that point, they have setup the story and characters. We've been introduced to Edward and Stede's current issues. Signing the Act of Grace does make the intertwined arcs between them real - it's no longer a situation that either one of them could just walk away from like it was in 1x07 - and we narrow in on the (alleged) driving question of the show:

It's not about "Will Stede become a great pirate?" or "Will we develop a better kind of piracy for the crew?" - the show is the relationship and the big question is "What is Stede and Edward's happy ending?"

Act 1 ends on their first solution, being together and making each other happy and admitting it's more than just friendship. Act 2 starts, appropriately, by saying both of them are currently too flawed for that to go anywhere but crashing and burning.

Now... looking back, what does Act 1 do well vs poorly?

I think it's really strong on giving us the foundation for BlackBonnet's characters and flaws. We aren't surprised Stede goes home or Edward goes Kraken (or at least... we weren't supposed to be surprised. There are still a lot of holdouts blaming Izzy for interrupting Edward's "healing" despite how at this point in the story it doesn't make sense for Edward to have the skills to heal... but I digress). The relationship question is compelling at the end of S1, the cliffhanger hooks, and the fandom explosion of fics did not come from nowhere - the audience was invested.

I also think Act 1 does a great job of settling us in the universe. We understand the rules it abides by, from how gay pirates are just a fact of life to how there's no important organs on the left side of the body. Stede has a muppety force field. Rowboats have homing devices, and port is always as close as you want it to be. Scurvy is a joke. The overblown violence of pirate life is mostly a joke, but we are going to take the violence of childhood trauma seriously.

Lucius's fake-out death, while technically part of Act 2, works well because Act 1 did a good job of priming everyone to go "obviously this show wouldn't kill a crew member for shock value, and we're 100% supposed to suspend disbelief about how he could have survived getting flung into the sea in the middle of the night." And we do. And we get rewarded for it.

Regarding antagonists - a big focus of any setup - the show is deliberately weak. The one with the most screentime is Izzy, and he's purposefully ineffective at separating our main couple. Every antagonist is keyed to a particular character, and they function mostly to inform us of that character's flaws and development requirements. The Badmintons tell us about Stede's repression and feelings of inadequacy, and Izzy tells us about Edward's directionless discontent and tendency to avoid his problems. Effectively - the show is taking the stance this will be a character driven narrative where Stede and Edward's flaws are the source of problems and development the solution. No person or empire (or social homophobia) is separating them...

...which leads me to something not present - there nothing really about the struggle of piracy against the Empire. Looking at Curse of the Black Pearl... we see piracy is in danger. The Black Pearl itself is described as the last great pirate threat the British Navy needs to conquer. Hangings are omnipresent - Jack is sentenced to die by one almost as soon as he's introduced to the story, when his only act so far had been to wander around and save Elizabeth from drowning. OFMD tries to invoke this kind of struggle in 2x08, but there's no foundation. Our Navy antagonists are Stede's childhood bullies, and so focused on Stede the crew isn't even in danger when they get caught. The Republic of Pirates is getting jokes about being gentrified, not besieged.

Even the capture of Blackbeard by the Navy is treated as a feather in Wellington's cap but not a huge symbolic blow against piracy... because we just do not have that grand struggle woven into Act 1. You only know the "Golden Age of Piracy" is ending if you google it, or have watched a bunch of pirate shows.

Overall, a solid Act 1, well adapted to the kind of story they've said they were looking to tell - a romance in the (silly-fied) age of piracy, instead of a pirate adventure with a romantic subplot.

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Now, Sidebar - Where is the story going?

The thing about the dramatic question - in OFMD's case: "What is Stede and Edward's happy ending?" - is that a) there's normally more than one question bundled up in that one + sideplots, and b) while you aren't supposed to have the answer yet, you can usually guess what needs to happen to give you the answer.

Back to our examples... Luke's driving question is "Will the Empire be defeated?" Simple. Straightforward. Also: "Will Luke become a Jedi?" The eventual climax of our story from there is pretty obvious... the story is over when Luke wins the war for the Rebellion in a Jedi way. That's the goal that they are working toward.

Pirates of the Caribbean is a bit more complicated. We're juggling more characters and have a less defined heroic journey, but there are driving questions like "Is Jack Sparrow a good man?" and "Is Will Turner a pirate / what does that mean?" and even "Will the British Navy defeat piracy?" They get basic answers in Curse of the Black Pearl, and far more defined ones in At World's End. Still, this is another plot-driven narrative. They've laid the foundations for the Pirates vs Empire struggle, and when that final battle turns into the trilogy climax then you know what's happening.

OFMD is not doing a plot-driven narrative. To judge how they are doing at their goals, we have to ask what they think a happy ending entails in a character sense.

Clearly it's not the classic romantic sideplot, where the climax is the first kiss / acknowledgement of feelings. They've teased a wedding in Word of God comments a lot, so that's probably our better endpoint. Specifically, though, a wedding where both of our protagonists aren't ready to flee from the altar (big ask) and where they've both grown enough that their flaws / mutual tendencies to run away from life problems won't tank the relationship.

In Stede's case it's still massive feelings of inadequacy and being too repressed to talk about his problems. Also he ran away from his family to chase a lifelong dream of being a pirate - "Is Stede going to find fulfillment in being a pirate captain, or will the real answer be love?" Edward meanwhile expresses a desire to quit piracy and retire Blackbeard, but we also find out he's struggling with massive self-loathing and guilt from killing his father - "Is retiring what Edward wants to do, or is he just running away?"

If they are going to get to a satisfying wedding beat at the climax of their story, what character beats do we need to hit in advance?

Off the top of my head - both characters need to self-realize their flaws (a pretty necessary demand of anyone who runs away from problems). They are set up to balance each other well, but also to miscommunicate easily. They have to tell each other about or verbally acknowledge that self-realization so it can be resolved. Stede has to decide how much being a pirate means to him. Edward has to decide if he's retiring and what he wants to do. They both need to show something to do with getting past their childhood traumas given all the flashbacks. Through all this, they also need to hit the normal romance beats that convince the audience they are romantically attracted to each other and like... want to get married.

Oh, and this is more of a genre-specific sideplot, but once they demonstrate a behavior that hurts the people who work for them, they need to then demonstrate later how it won't happen again. Proof of growth, which is kind of important in a comedy where a lot of the humor is based in them being massively self-centered assholes. Stede doesn't earn his acceptance in the community until he kicks Calico Jack off the ship, making up for causing the situation with Nigel in the first episode. A workplace comedy can get a lot of material from the boss as the worker's antagonist, but if you want the bosses to stay sympathetic you have got to throw them some opportunities to earn it.

All that sounds like a lot, but like - the relationship is the story, right? If we spend so much time on establishing flaws big enough to drive a story, we also have to spend time on fixing them. Which is where the turning point hits.

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Act 2: How it Starts

This is where the full story reality-checks your protagonist. Glad you saved your boyfriend and embraced new love in Act 1, but his repressed guilt means he's about to completely ghost you, and your own abandonment issues and self-loathing are about to make his dick move into everyone else's problem.

Again, it's a non-conventional choice OFMD has this start at the very end of S1 rather than with a sudden dark turn in the S2 premiere, but it's still pretty clearly that point in the Three Act Structure.

In Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back opens with a timeskip to our Rebellion getting absolutely crushed and hiding on a miserable frozen planet. The Empire finds them as the plot is kicking off and they have to desperately flee. They get separated. Han and Leia try to go to an ally for help and end up in Vader's clutches. It's a sharp turn from the victorious note that A New Hope ended on.

Pirates of the Caribbean's Act 2 starts dark. Dead Man's Chest opens with our happy couple Will and Elizabeth getting arrested on their wedding day for the "happy end" escape of the last movie. Jack has not been having success since reclaiming his ship, and we'll soon find out he's being hunted by dark forces. As for the general state of piracy, we get a horrifying prison where pirates are being eaten alive by crows, and a new Lord Beckett making the dying state of piracy even more textual. "Jack Sparrow is a dying breed... The world is shrinking."

The key here is making a point that our heroes aren't ready. This is the struggles part - things they try? Fail. The odds do not look to be in their favor.

Now, OFMD apparently decided to go all-in on flaw exploration, especially with Edward. The first 3 episodes of S2 are brutally efficient in outlining Edward's backslide. In S1 you could see he had issues with guilt and feeling like a bad person. S2 devolves that into a destructive, suicidal spiral where Edward forces his crew into three months of consecutive raids, repeats his shocking act of cruelty with Izzy's toe offscreen (more than once!), escalates it with his leg, and finally they state directly that Edward hates himself for killing his dad so much that he fears he's fundamentally unlovable and better off dead.

Stede's struggles are subtler, but most definitely still there. He's deliberately turning a blind eye to tales of Edward's rampage, half from simply being too self-centered to care about the harms Edward causes others, and half from being unable to face or fathom that he had the ability to hurt Edward that much. Upon reunion he wants to put the whole thing behind them, not addressing why he left in the first place. Very "love magically fixes everything" of him, except Stede is no golden merman.

Interestingly, here, BlackBonnet's relationship dysfunction has very clearly been having a negative impact on the surrounding characters we care about. Make sense, since it's the driving force of the story, but that also adds a lot more relationships we need to make right. Like... Edward is the villain to his crew. The show focuses on their trauma and poisoned relationships with him. And then draws our attention even more to Stede taking his side to overrule their objections to him.

For a story where the conflict and required resolutions are primarily character based, and the setup had already given the main couple a good amount to work with, dedicating a lot of S2 to adding more ground to cover was... a choice. Potentially very compelling on the character end, certainly challenging on the writing end... but not a complete break with the structure.

Bold, but not damning.

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Act 2: How it Ends

Now it is true that Act 2 tends to end on a loss. Luke is defeated by Vader and loses his hand, and Han has been sent away in carbonite. Jack Sparrow for all his efforts cannot escape his fate, and he and the Pearl are dragged to the locker.

But the loss is not the point. The loss is incidental to the point.

Act 2 is about struggles and failure, but it's also about lessons learned. There's a change that occurs, and our cast - defeated but not broken - enters the final act with the essential skills, motivation, knowledge, etc. that they lacked in the beginning.

Luke Skywalker could not have defeated the Empire in Return of the Jedi until he'd learned the truth about his father and resisted the Dark Side in The Empire Strikes Back. (Ok, confession, I'm using Star Wars as an example because literally everyone is doing so, but frankly it's a better example of formulaic Three Act Structure repeating within each movie because on a trilogy level - relevant to this comparison - it is a super basic hero's journey in a very recognized outfit and as such the Act 2 relevance is also... super basic "the hero tries to fight the antagonist too early" beat where he learns humility. Not really a lot going on. So, for the better example...)

Dead Man's Chest has a downer ending with the closing moment of the survivors regaining hope and a plan against an enemy now on the verge of total victory - a classic Act 2. But in that first loss against Davy Jones we get Will's personal motivation and oath to stab the heart, Jack finally overcoming not knowing what he wanted and returning to save them from the Kraken (being a good man), Elizabeth betraying Jack (being a pirate), Barbossa's return, and Norrington's choice to bargain for his prior life back. The mission to retrieve Jack from the World's End is the final movie's plot, but things are already on track to turn the tables back around as we enter the finale.

Now, relevant sidenote - one major difference between Three Act Structure within a single work vs across three parts is that Act 2 continues into Part 3, and only tips over into Act 3 about midway through. This is because obviously your final movie or season cannot just be the climax. That's why both movie examples start with a rescue mission. They have to still be missing something so they can get the plot of their third part accelerating while they go get whatever that something is.

But if you wait until the 3rd movie / season to get the development going at all - you're fucked.

Jack's decision in the climax of At World's End to make Elizabeth into the Pirate King goes back to the development we saw in the Pearl vs Kraken fight in Dead Man's Chest. So does Elizabeth's leadership arc. Will's whole arc about becoming Captain of the Dutchman gets built upon in the third movie, but it starts in the second. Not just as an idle thought - he's actively pursuing it. Already consciously weighing saving his father vs getting back to Elizabeth as soon as he makes the oath. Everyone is moving forward in Act 2. Their remaining development might stumble for drama, or they might be a bit reluctant, but I know that they know better than to let it stick, because they already faced their true crisis points.

I'm not sure we can say the same about OFMD.

S2 does a good job of adding problems, yeah, but there's not really any movement on fixing them. Our main couple stagnates in some ways, and regresses in others.

Stede opened Act 2 by running away in the middle of the night back to his wife without telling Edward anything. We know he did it because of feeling guilty and his core childhood trauma of his dad calling him a weak and inadequate failure. Now in S1 he actually speedruns a realization of his shitty behavior with Mary, but what about S2? Well...

He continues to not talk to Edward about... pretty much anything. My guy practiced love confessions galore but Edward only finds out about going back to his wife via Anne, and it gets brushed aside with a love confession. He seems to think Edward wants him to be a dashing pirate, or maybe he just thinks he should be a dashing pirate. Idk, it doesn't get examined. Regarding his captaincy, they give him an episode plot about Izzy teaching him to respect the crew's beliefs, but this is sideplot to a larger arc of him completely overruling their traumas and concerns (and shushing their objections) to keep his boyfriend on the ship so. That.

Stede kills a man for reasons related to his issues, shoves that down inside and has sex with Edward instead of acknowledging any bad feelings. At least this time Edward was there and knows it happened? Neither Chauncey's death nor his dad have been mentioned to anyone. He gets a day of piracy fame that goes to his head, gets dumped, and ends on a complete beat down by Zheng where he learns... idk. Being a boor is bad? He's still wildly callous to her in the finale, and spends the whole time seeking validation of his pirate skills. He reunites with Edward, kisses, and quotes Han Solo.

Where S1 ended on a great fuckery, his S2 naval uniform plan after they regroup is ill defined except to call it a suicide mission - and we don't get to see what it would have been because it devolves into a very straightforward fight and flee. And gets Izzy killed. Quick cut funeral (no acknowledgement of his S2 bonding with Izzy), quick cut to wedding (foreshadowing), quick cut to... innkeeper retirement? Unclear when or even if BlackBonnet discussed Stede's whole driving dream to be a pirate and live a life at sea, but I guess that got a big priority downgrade. Despite the fact he was literally looking to Zheng for pirate-based compliments in the post-funeral scene.

I guess he's borderline-delusionally dogged in his pursuit of love now - so unlikely to bolt again - but he's also got at least a decade of experience mentally checking out in a state of repression when he's unhappy. And he's stopped being as supportive and caring toward the crew in that dogged pursuit, while arguably demonstrating a loss in leadership skills, so, um, good thing someone else is in charge?

And if Stede is a mess, Edward's arc is so much worse.

As established, they devote the Kraken to making Edward worse. He literally wants to kill himself and destroy everyone around him in the process because Stede left, and this is fixed by... Stede coming back. That's it. The crew tries to murder him and then exiles him from the ship (and Izzy takes the lead on both, indicating exactly how isolated Edward has become), but it's resolved in half a day by Stede just forcing them to put up with his boyfriend again. Like they think he murdered Buttons and still have to move him back in???

The show consistently depicts Kraken Era as a transgression against the crew, but they also avoid showing Edward acting with genuine contrition. He admits he historically doesn't apologize for anything, and then mostly still doesn't. It's a joke that he's approaching probation as a performance (CEO apology), and then the only person he genuinely talks to is Fang - the one guy cool with him - and the only person who gets a basic "sorry" is Izzy - the guy he really needs to be talking to. Edward's primary trauma is guilt, but apparently he only feels it abstractly after all that? He's only concerned with fixing things with Stede, despite Stede being about the only person around who hurt him instead of the reverse.

Speaking of primary traumas, Edward hating himself doesn't really go anywhere after the beat of self-realization. Apparently Stede still loving him is enough of a bandaid to end the suicide chasing, but he doesn't like. Acknowledge that. Edward is maybe sorta trying to go slow so he doesn't hang all his self-worth on Stede again (you can speculate), but they a) absolutely fail to go slow, and b) he doesn't make any attempt to develop himself or another support structure. Just basically... "let's be friends a bit before hooking back up." And then we get the whiplash that is Blackbeard and/or retirement.

Kraken Era is Blackbeard but way worse, like no one who has known Blackbeard has ever seen him. In the Gravy Basket Edward claims he might like being an innkeeper, before destroying his own fantasy by having the spectre of Hornigold confront him over killing his dad. The BlackBonnet to Anne & Mary parallel says running away to China / retiring makes you want to kill each other - burn it all down and go back to piracy. Stede rightfully points out prior retirement plans were whims. Edward gets sick of the penance sack after a day and puts his leathers back on to go try "poison into positivity". But also claims to be an innkeeper (look - two whole mentions!) when trying not to send children to be pirates after teaching them important knife skills.

Killing Ned Low is a serious, bad thing that prompts ill-advised sex and then going hardcore into retirement mode - leathers overboard, talk about mermaid fantasy, get retirement blessings from Izzy, end up dumping Stede for a fishing job instead of talking about how he's enjoying piracy. The fishing job, however, is also a bad thing and a stupid decision because Edward is a lazy freeloader fantasizing about being a better person. We have an uncomfortable, extended scene of "Pop-Pop" weirdly echoing his abusive dad and then sending Edward to go do what he's good at - disassociate, brutally murder two guys, fish up the leathers, rise as the Kraken from the sea. He continues with comically efficient murder but also he's reading Stede's love letters and seeking to reunite with him so... wait, is this a good thing? Post makeout / mass slaughter he's trading compliments on his kills with Zheng so. Yeah. Looks like it. Murder is fine.

Wait, no, skip ahead and Izzy is dying and Edward suddenly cares a whole lot as Izzy makes his death scene about freeing Edward from Blackbeard. Now being a pirate was "encouraging the darkness" because Izzy - a guy who had little to no influence over Edward's behavior - just couldn't let Blackbeard go. Murder is bad again, and he is freed. Minus the little detail that the murder he explicitly hates himself over was not related to Blackbeard or piracy whatsoever, so presumably haunts "just Ed" still. Anyway he's retiring to run an inn with Stede now, as the "loving family" Izzy comforted him with in his dying moments sails away from the couple that can best be described as the antagonists of their S2 arc. Also Edward implicitly wants to get married. It's been 3 days since making out was "too fast". He's still wearing the leathers.

So most of the way through Act 2 and Edward's barely on speaking terms with anyone but Stede, who he has once again hung his entire life on really fast? Crushing guilt leads to self-hatred leads to mass murder and suicide, but only if he's upset so just avoid that. He's still regularly idealizing Stede as a non-fucked up golden mermaid person (that maybe he personally ruined a bit) because he barely knows the guy. His only progress on his future is "pirate" crossed out / rewritten / crossed out again a few times, "fisherman" crossed out, and "innkeeper ?"

Just.

Where is the forward movement?

It's not just that the inn will undoubtedly fall apart - it's that the inn will fall apart for the near-exact same reasons that China was going to at the beginning of Act 2, and I can't point to anything they've learned in the time since that will help them. I guess Stede realized he loved Edward enough to chase after him, but that was in S1! They should be further than this by now. You can't cram another crisis backslide, all the Act 2 development, and the full Act 3 climax into one season. Certainly not without it feeling like the characters magically fix themselves.

If they just fail and keep blindly stumbling into the same issues because they don't change their behavior, then Act 2 doesn't work. You're just repeating the turning point between Act 1 & Act 2 on a loop.

---

Where Did They Fuck Up?

Actually... lets start on what they did right.

The one consistent aspect of S2 that I praised and still think was done well in a vacuum (despite being mostly left out of the finale) was the crew's union-building arc.

With only 8 episodes and more to do in them than S1, side characters were going to get pinched even if the main plot was absolutely flawless. That was unavoidable. With budget cuts / scheduling issues, we regularly have crew members simply vanish offscreen outside of one scene, meaning cohesive arcs for your faves was not likely. Not to say they couldn't have done better - my benefit of the doubt for the TealOranges breakup and Oluwande x Zheng dried up about when I realized he was literally just her Stede stand-in for the parallel - but something like Jim's revenge plot from S1 was realistically not on the table without, like, turning half the crew into seagulls to afford it.

The union building works around this constraint really well. They turn "the crew" into the side arc, and then weave Izzy's beats in so that they aren't just about Izzy. The breakup boat crew working together to comfort each other and protect him turns them into a unit, and Stede's crew taking it upon themselves to address the trauma vibes while the captains aren't in the way solidifies it across all our side characters. The crew goes to war with Stede's cursed coat and wins, they Calypso their boss to throw a party, and they capitalize on a chance to make bank with an efficiency Stede could only dream of.

We don't get specific arcs, but Frenchie, Jim, and Oluwande are defaulted to as leaders in just about every situation, and Roach is constantly shown sharing his inventions with different characters. Individuals can dip in and out without feeling like the sideplots stutter. Any sense of community in S2 is coming from this arc - even if there are cracks at the points where it joins to other storylines (Stede and Edward, Zheng, etc.)

So why does it work? Well, because it's a workplace comedy, and you can tell they are familiar with working on those. They know where the beats are. They know where to find the humor. They know how to build off of S1 because they made sure the bones were already there - an eclectic group of individuals that start as just coworkers, but bond over time in the face of their struggle against an inept boss who they grow to care for and support while maintaining an increasingly friendly antagonism because, you know, inept boss.

OFMD does its best work in S2 when it's being true to its original concept... and its worst work when it seemingly loses confidence in its own premise.

"The show is the relationship," right? It's a romance set in a workplace comedy. The setup of Act 1 was all about creating a character-driven narrative. So given that... where the hell are we getting the dying of piracy and a war against the English Navy?

That's not a character-driven romcom backdrop, it's an action-adventure plot from Pirates of the Caribbean or Black Sails. It's plot-driven, creating an antagonistic force that results in your characters' problems. Once the story is about the fight against the Empire, the dramatic question becomes the same as those adventure stories - "Will the British Navy defeat piracy, and will our protagonists come out the other side of the battle?"

Forget the wedding. The wedding is no longer the climax of the story, its back to the happy ending flash our romantic subplot gets after winning this fight.

Except, of course, trying to pivot your story to a contradictory dramatic question near the end of Act 2 can be nothing short of a disaster, because either you were writing the wrong story until now, or you've completely lost the plot of the real one. I shouldn't even be trying to figure out if they are doing this, because it should be so obvious that they wouldn't.

And yet.

What do the Zheng and Ricky plots add to the story if not this? Neither of these characters have anything emotionally to contribute to Stede and Edward - they truly are plot elements. It's a hard break from the S1 antagonist model, but it also takes up a lot of valuable screentime. This was considered important, but still Zheng's personality and motivation only gets explored so far as it's an Edward-Stede-Izzy parallel with Oluwande and Auntie, and they only need the parallel for Izzy's genre-jumping death scene. Which follows a thematically out-of-left-field speech about how piracy is about belonging to something good (workable) and how Ricky could never destroy their spirits (um...?). And then David Jenkins is pointing to it and saying things about "the symbolic death of piracy" and speculating S3 might be about the crew getting "payback"??? An idea floated by Zheng right before our temporary retirement, btw.

Fuck, the final episode of S2 didn't have time for our main couple to talk to each other because it was so busy dealing with the mass explosion of Zheng's fleet and Ricky's victory gloat. We get lethal violence associated with traumatic flashbacks until they need to cut down enemy mooks like it's nothing, at which point we get jokes with Zheng. The Republic of Pirates is destroyed outright, and it feels like they only did it because they got insecure about their "pirate story" not having the right kind of stakes. Don't even get me started on killing a major character because "Piracy’s a dangerous occupation, and some characters should die," as if suspending disbelief on this aspect makes the story somehow lesser, instead of just being a fairly standard genre convention in comedy. Nobody complains about Kermit the Frog having an improbably good survival record.

Did someone tell them that the heroes have to lose a battle near the end of Act 2, so they scrambled to give them one?

Just... compare the wholly plot-driven struggle in 2x08 to Stede and Edward's character-focused storylines in 1x10 and tell me how 2x08 is providing anything nearly as valuable to the story. Because I can't fucking find it.

At best they wasted a bunch of time on a poorly integrated adventure plot as, like, Zheng's backstory or something, and just fucked it up horribly by trying to "step up" the kind of plot they did for Jim. In which case the whole thing will be awkwardly dropped but damage is done. Otherwise, they actually thought they could just casually add a subplot like this because they've done something wildly stupid like think "pirate" is a genre on the same level as "workplace comedy" and can just trample in-universe coherency while you draw on other media to shore up their unsupported beats.

Bringing us to the most infuriating bit...

---

"...end the second season in a kinder spot."

If this was the goal, the entire season was written to work actively against it in way that is baffling and incompetent.

The really ironic thing is that the reason that the Act 2 part typically gets a downer ending is because of the evil empire that OFMD did not have to deal with until they pointlessly added it. A plot-driven story has an antagonistic force - a villain - that the heroes need to defeat. Something external working against them. The story ends when they beat the thing, and it's not much of a climax if they do most of the defeating before you get there. Ergo, they have to be outmatched up to the climax. Ergo, the second part cannot end on them feeling pretty comfortable and confident going into the third.

The same rules do not apply in the same way to a character-driven arc.

We already established Edward and Stede declaring their love is not the end of the story. Nor, necessarily, is both of them confidently entering a relationship. Even once they've developed a bunch they will have to show that development by running into the kinds of problems that would have broken them up before and resolving them better.

David Jenkins keeps talking about this idea that S2 is getting a hopeful open ending and S3 will get into potential problems, and like... I don't see any reason why they couldn't have done that successfully. They didn't, but they could've.

If S2 grew them enough as characters and then had them agree to try again in the last minute of the finale, they absolutely could have had a kind and hopeful ending where you were confident they could do it. And then a potential S3 can show that. It's a bit rockier than they were counting on, but they have learned enough lessons to not break up. And then the overall plot can build to proposal (start of Act 3) and wedding (the romantic climax). It doesn't have to be a blow out fight to be emotionally cathartic.

(Hell, the main rockier bit that they overcome in the S3 Act 2 portions could be marriage baggage. I'm sure they both have some. It would work.)

In the same way focusing on our character's long term flaws and character-driven conflict makes an Act 1 "happy ending" more difficult, I suspect it makes an Act 2 "happy ending" easier.

Instead they wrote an Act 2 that failed to convincingly start development and got confused on its direction, and then presented a rushed finale ending in a copy of the predictable disaster from S1 as though it's a good thing. They yanked the story at least temporarily into an awkward place where a romcom is trying to sell me on a bunch of serious drama / adventure beats that it has not put the work into, and inviting comparisons to better versions of those same beats in other, more suited media that make it look worse. The need to portray everyone as reaching happy closure overrules sitting with a major character death and using it for any narrative significance, while still letting it overshadow those happy endings because a romcom just sloppily killed a major character with a wound they've literally looked into the camera and said was harmless.

If I'm being entirely honest, Dead Man's Chest ends effectively at Jack Sparrow's funeral and then cuts to the British Navy obtaining a weapon of mass destruction, and it still feels kinder and more hopeful just because I leave with more faith the characters are actively capable of and working toward solving their problems.

OFMD S2, in contrast, has half-convinced me our main couple would live in a mutually obsessed, miscommunication-ridden horror story until they die.

---

Additional Reading

Normally I link stuff like this in the post, but that requires more excitement than I'm feeling right now. Here's my alternative:

Where I thought they were going with Edward - really outlines the mountain of character development they still have unaddressed

Where I thought they were going with Izzy - touches on a lot of themes that might be dead in the water & also context that's still probably relevant to why Izzy got a lot of focus in S2

My scattershot 2x08 reactions

An ask where I sketched out the bones of this argument, and another where I was mostly venting about the fandom response

This one, this other one, and this last one (read the link in op's post too) about genre shifts and failure to pull them off

The trauma goes in the box but it never opens back up - the whole point of Act 2 is that they needed to start opening shit like that - and also they focus so much on needed character growth and so little on following through

They can't even carry through on character growth that we got last season???

Why Izzy's death feels like Bury Your Gays ran smack into shitty writing

EDIT: Oh and this post is REALLY good for outlining the lack of change in way less words than I did

#our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd meta #three act structure #character arcs #blackbonnet #genre #blackbeard ofmd #stede bonnet ofmd #my meta #ladyluscinia #ofmd critical

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tkwrites · 5 months

Text

Private Lessons - Quinn Hughes x Sarah (ofc)

Photo from Pinterest

Title: Private Lessons

Author: Tory / @tkwrites

Relationship: Quinn Hughes x Sarah (OFC)

Warnings: None? If I should add any, please let me know.

Summary: As requested by @eyesthatroll, Quinn teaches Sarah to skate.

Word Count: 3,300

Comments: After taking a bit of a breather, I’m back with a requested fic. 2 months after you requested it, your wish is my command, Mari. I hope you enjoy it!

This was an interesting exercise for me to write something requested by someone else that wasn’t necessarily my own idea. I wrestled with it and got in my head a lot about it, but ultimately, I like the result I finally came to.

Thanks for your patience and support. Please let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to see in their universe! I can’t guarantee I’ll write it, but I love the inspiration and challenge these requests bring!

eyesthatroll asked: tory!! i absolutely adore your writing 🥹 maybe if it’s in your wheelhouse, you could write quinn teaching sarah to skate (or them going skating together) for the first time. i think that would be very adorable 😭 it’s totally fine if that’s not in the cards for the series though, don’t feel pressured! love ya! 🫶🏽

Private Lessons

A Quinn & Sarah Snapshot

At the end of every season we have a family skate. It's on the 15th. I'd like to bring you if you can come.

Sarah knew this was a bigger deal than his crafted to be casual text was letting on. If it really was casual, he would have mentioned it before he left for the three game road trip.

She also knew dating a hockey player meant she would have to face her fear and past failure eventually. Even if a team event wasn't involved, it was such a big part of Quinns life. She wouldn't be able to avoid it forever.

Does everyone skate?

Usually yeah. Not all of the partners do, but most.

I've never skated before.

Really?

Desert flower, remember? she sent with a picture of a blooming cactus.

He laughed. There are lots of different skill levels there. People bring their kids and stuff.

Meaning what? That I'll be the only adult with training wheels?

No wheels ;)

She sent a gif of someone rolling their eyes. I'd love to go with you, but I really don't want to be the only one who doesn't know what they're doing. Could I persuade you to give me some private lessons?

I guess that depends on what you’re willing to give me. ;)

I mean, there’s not much I wouldn’t give you. What do you want?

A long pause passed in their conversation. When she finally read his response on her way home, her cheeks pinked so much, she had to put her phone in her bag for fear of giving herself away on the train.

That’s how they ended up at a mostly empty training rink the Wednesday night after he got home.

She found him waiting for her in the lobby, surrounded by a swarm of kids all jockeying for his attention. It looked like a whole little league team was getting out of practice or a game right as he arrived. They were so excited, acting as if he came in just to see them.

Sarah waited off to the side, watching him sign autographs and give advice, and talk to each of them. She was tired and hungry, but seeing Quinn in this element gave her a new side of him to admire. He was patient and kind, and invested. She remembered him telling her how he always liked to talk to kids because he remembered how much it meant to him when his favorite players were willing to stop and talk. Seeing that quite literally come full circle was a gift she hadn’t expected to see.

When he finally looked up and met her gaze, he flashed her a grin and mouthed, thank you.

Smiling in return, she nodded to an empty room off to the side before settling in with her laptop to work on her publication.

A big sigh announced his presence a while later, as Quinn slid down the wall to sit next to her on the floor. “Sorry about that,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and pressing a kiss to her temple.

“It’s fine. I always have stuff to work on, and seeing you with the kids is sweet.”

“Winning me some brownie points?” he asked, waggling his eyebrows.

“Like you even need them.”

Sarah closed her laptop and turned her head so they could finally say hello properly.

He pulled her close to deepen the kiss. Even though he'd gotten back in town after midnight the night before, they hadn’t seen each other until now. He'd debated going to the aquarium after practice, but remembered they wouldn't let him back without a pass the last time he’d tried. Besides, he didn’t want to interrupt her work so close to finals.

The urge to climb into his lap was so strong, Sarah had to pull back from the kiss before she made a public spectacle of herself.

“I missed you,” he said, trailing a finger from her cheekbone to her jaw. It felt like the road trip was finally over now that she was back in his arms.

“I missed you, too.”

“I have to confess something,” Sarah blurted, nerves eating her from the inside out as he showed her how to tie her skates.

Quinn looked up from pulling her laces tight.

“I’ve been skating before.”

One of his eyebrows cocked up, “you have, have you?”

“It was terrible. It was on a first date with this guy when I was a freshman, and I’m pretty certain the only reason he suggested it was so he could get his hands on me.”

Quinn wrapped his hand around her calf and joked, “I guess it’s a good thing I’ve already had my hands on you, then.”

“You’re not mad?” she said, surprised.

“About what? That I’m not popping your ice skating cherry?”

Laughter barked out of her mouth before she explained, “no, that I lied. I mean, I didn’t really lie. We went on ice, on skates, but no real skating was involved.”

“Now I feel like you’re lying,” his voice was teasing.

“After half a wobbly, too touchy lap, I fell and broke my wrist.”

The bemused smile dropped off his lips, “oh my god, Sarah, why didn’t you tell me before?”

Her bottom jaw moved as she worried the inside of her lower lip. “I didn't know when it would come up.” she said. “I mean, if anyone can teach me to skate, you can. But that's why I wanted it to be just us first.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ve broken lots of bones skating,” he said, stroking her leg.

She smiled tightly. “I bet none of those were from you falling down.”

“I don’t know, maybe? You’d have to ask my mom, but I fell plenty when I was learning, that’s really normal.”

“It just feels like one of those things that I'll never live down, you know?”

“Well, you and I are the only ones that know now.”

“Yeah and Josh Jackson and all those people at the Reno rec rink.”

“You keep in touch with everyone who was there that night?” he joked, hoping she would see how ridiculous her worry was.

A hand flew up to cover her face as she blushed. “I guess it just lives in my head every time I think about ice skating.”

“I know the feeling, but it was one time seven years ago, right? And you’ve got a better teacher, now.”

She dropped her hands so she could meet his gaze, giving him a hopeful smile.

He changed the subject. “Are these too tight? Can you move your toes?”

“Yeah. I mean, no they're not too tight.”

He smiled, stood and held out a hand, “come on. I can't promise you won't fall, but I'll do my best.”

As they walked through the tunnel to the rink, she said, “This is the weirdest feeling.”

“It can't be worse than wearing heels.”

“Have you ever worn heels?”

“Well, no,” he admitted.

“Then you can't say a damn thing about it. At least in heels, the ball of your foot is on the ground. With this, it's like my feet are suddenly half an inch wide.”

“You're thinking too much.”

“What am I supposed to do, not think?”

“Don't think so much,” he said, stopping at the boards and turning around. “Okay, I'm going to get on and help you on, okay?”

She nodded.

He bit back his smile at the determination on her face. “It's slippery, so be prepared.”

“Gee, thanks, Hughes,” she said, flatly. “I had no idea ice is slippery.”

He laughed. She’d never called him by his last name. Of course it would come out when she was nervous.

“I'll have you the whole time. I won't let you go until you tell me to,” he promised, reaching to help her through.

She stepped on and immediately over corrected, jerking back.

He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her against him to keep them upright. “Calm down,” he said, trying to sound soothing. “I know it's a weird feeling.”

In all actuality, he didn't know. He'd been skating so long it sometimes felt easier than walking.

“Just hold on and let me pull you.”

Skating backwards, he took her on a lap. Her fingers were hooked around his elbows, so he was forced to awkwardly hold the backs of her arms.

“Can you relax? I’ve got you.”

She glanced down and felt her legs wobble. Visions of the ice rushing up to kiss her on the temple made her dizzy.

“Look at me,” he said in a voice that couldn’t be ignored.

Sarah met his eyes. The dim lights over the rink made them a sort of muddy green she’d never seen before.

“If you keep looking down, you’re going to fall,” he said. “You go toward what you look at.”

“I just want to make sure my feet are right.”

“Do you have to watch your feet when you’re walking?”

“Well, no, but this is new.”

“Sure, but once you get over the fact that you’re on the ice and used to your skates, it’ll start to feel more natural.”

“Yeah, I’ll just get over that.”

He shook his head, and moved on. “Okay, start picking your feet up like you’re walking.”

“Like I’m walking?” she repeated. “That seems really counterintuitive.”

“It’s not that different from walking, you're just gliding instead.”

She leveled him with a deadpan, sarcastic look.

She was about to ask him how she was supposed to walk when she couldn’t lift her heel or push off with the ball of her foot, when she realized arguing his syntax wasn't going to get her anywhere. This was a case where she had to swallow her pride and ask for what she needed.

“Can you break it down, like the physics of it, for me?” she asked. “It helps me to see all the steps before I do something.”

As he talked her through the mechanics of skating forward, she held onto his arm. She had so many questions he’d never considered, like how he used his edges to push off.

Skating was so automatic on his part, he didn’t even have to think about it. He’d never had to break down what he was doing like this.

Seeing how his legs worked up close and in slower motion helped her envision doing the same things herself.

“Okay, come back here.”

He moved in front of her again.

“You make that look so easy,” she said, a bit of a whine in her voice.

“Sarah,” he said, swallowing the bite in his tone, “I've been doing this for twenty years. I do this for a living. I'd hope I make It look easy. I couldn't take over writing one of your papers, or come into the aquarium and start taking care of Walter.”

“Yeah,” she said, resigned.

“I know it's frustrating that you can't pick this up right away, but no one can. You can’t read your way into skating well.”

That touched a nerve and she glared at him.

He let go of one of her hands so he could hold his up in surrender. “All I mean is that you just have to physically get used to it. How long did it take you to perfect your golf swing?”

“That’s different.”

“How is that different?”

“I started that as a kid.”

“So? You can learn things now. You learn new things all the time.”

“Yeah. It just feels so daunting. I really don’t want to look like an idiot in front of all your teammates.”

“No one will care. They’re just excited to meet you. We can come back every night I’m in town if you want. Or you can just not skate.”

That caused distress to fly over her face. “No. I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” He glanced behind him out of habit, even though there was no one else on the ice. It was a clean sheet too, freshly zambonied after the pee-wee hockey game that ended right before they arrived. Perfect learning conditions.

Sarah recentered herself by pulling a breath down her spine, “this is such a big part of your life. I want to be able to participate.”

“Yeah?” he asked, a half smile lifting the right side of his mouth.

“Yeah, and like you said, I have a better teacher now.”

“Tell me about your day,” he said.

“Okay,” she answered, dubious of his intentions.

“It’ll help you to stop thinking about what your body’s doing. I think you’ll find it will sort itself out if you let it.”

He could tell she didn’t really believe him, but went ahead anyway, telling him about the little boy at the aquarium that afternoon who had insisted he’d caught an octopus as big as Walter and thrown it back the last time he and his mom had gone fishing.

“I mean, maybe he did,” she said, shrugging. “But his teacher gave me this look like, ‘don’t believe a single word he says’. I felt bad, She just looked so tired of him.”

Quinn laughed and decided not to point out that she was skating perfectly naturally now that she was out of her head about it. “What happened in class?”

“Well, even if I get a C on my comparative physiology final, I’ll still pass the class.”

“That’s huge, Sarah,” he said.

“Yeah, it's such a relief, but then, Paul dropped that he's adding a test on top of our publication. Thankfully it’s not a huge part of my grade, but still, more on the pile. He’s calling it a review, but that just means it’ll cover everything we’ve studied this term.”

“That doesn’t seem fair for him to add that at the last second.”

“Well, he can do what he wants, so,” she shrugged. “He said he thinks we need it. I think he's just being a controlling jackass.”

“Can't you report him or something?”

“For what?”

“For changing the syllabus so late.”

“Well, he's the head of the program, so I can't complain to him, plus if I went to the dean, I'm pretty certain she'd tell me ‘this is graduate school, and you should grow up.’”

Quinn winced.

“Yeah. He's just a dick because he can be. He’s the lord over this little kingdom and he wants us all to know it.”

She shook her head, “I’m sorry, we can be done talking about him.”

“You can keep complaining if you want.”

“No, it's okay. It just makes me more mad, which makes me not want to study, which only shoots me in the foot.”

“Okay,” Quinn said, “I think you’re ready for me to be next to you.”

“What?”

“Yeah, you’ve been skating fine for the last five minutes.”

She looked down as if to confirm, “I have?”

“It’s not like you were standing still.”

“But you’ve been pulling me.”

“I was, but I’ve mostly just been holding your hand, keeping distance. You've been moving yourself forward.”

“Really?” Shaking her head, Sarah laughed a little to herself, “you really are a better teacher.”

He gave her a wink and spun to stand next to her.

“Keep talking,” he encouraged.

“About what?”

She didn’t know what to look at now. There were empty stands, and scratched glass, and the whole smooth sheet of ice, lines etching a curving lacey pattern around the perimeter.

“Whatever you want.”

“I don't -” glancing down, she remembered his advice and jerked up. The sudden movement caused her to promptly fall on her rear with a frustrated grunt.

Her hands fell to her sides in a gesture that said, why is this so hard for me?

“You're doing great.”

“I just fell down.”

“So? I fall all the time. You just need to learn to get back up.”

He did fall, and she was always so impressed with his ability to just pop back up and continue playing as if nothing happened.

He coached her back onto her feet, and they continued around the rink as he told her about the road trip he’d just come home from. Only five days away, but the comeback overtime loss and two wins made it a huge confidence builder.

He admitted that though some of the strain was lessened for the next month with their guaranteed spot in the finals, he still felt so much pressure to perform.

“There was this moment on Friday, though, where we were just gelling, you know, and it felt like ‘we deserve this now.’”

“Of course you deserve it. You work your ass off for that team, Quinn.”

Throwing her a thankful smile, he said, “I mean we all do it together.”

“And you’re a big reason everyone is buying in.”

“Look at you, learning hockey talk.”

“That is something I can read my way into.” she joked. “Plus your mom explained a bunch of the idioms to me.”

He laughed.

She fell twice more, but got up each time. The last time, she even managed to do it without his help.

“You’re doing great,” he praised, moving in front of her again, “you’ll be a natural in no time.”

Pulling herself to him with their clasped hands she winked, “it's because I have the best teacher.”

She was close enough now that he would just have to lean in to kiss her. He did, because he could. They were apart so much, it only made sense to take advantage when they were together.

Whenever people kissed on ice rinks in movies, Sarah was always struck with what a dumb idea it was. It seemed incredibly stupid to not pay attention to what you were doing on such a volatile surface.

In reality, when Quinn kissed her, she melted. It felt so romantic. Cold, but cozy with his warm body pressed against hers, and the confidence in knowing he wouldn’t let her fall. The only sound was the pleasant scrape of their skates on the ice.

Suddenly, everything she’d stopped herself from saying over the past few weeks came bubbling up into her mouth.

Just the night before, she’d felt on the cusp of saying something other than “I miss you,” at the end of their goodnight phone call. She had bit it back, not wanting that first time to happen over the phone. She felt like the moment had to be perfect.

Fuck that, she thought, now. She didn’t want to hold it in anymore. Plus, wasn’t this moment perfect enough?

Pulling away, she waited for him to open his eyes.

After a moment or two, Quinn realized she wasn’t teasing, and met her gaze, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothings wrong.”

Suddenly, it felt too formal. They weren’t in the Elizabethan era where one declared their feelings in some kind of a grand speech, but she couldn’t not say it. It felt too disingenuous to keep holding it in.

“I just…” she brushed her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck as she ran over a few possibilities in her mind rapid fire, dismissing them all for being too much. Honesty, it seemed, was proving to be the best policy. “I just really love you.”

Quinn could feel his eyes crinkling closed as his face melted into a goofy smile, one reserved only for family and people close to him.

It felt like something broke open in his chest, finally set free. “I love you too.”

Sarah giggled and it came out a little watery. She never expected to cry when she told him, but her body always did like to cry over big emotions.

Quinn wiped her tears away with his thumbs before tilting her face up to his.

This kiss was softer, not as hurried. Desire giving way to something deeper – less fickle, and more settled.

As they walked back to the locker room, Quinn realized, suddenly, that he'd left something unsaid. He tugged on her hand, and she turned.

“I’m really proud of you,” he said. “I know you were really nervous.”

She leaned up to kiss him. “Thank you for being a very patient teacher.”

Want more Quinn & Sarah? Check out the Snapshots Masterlist

To read all my fics, check out the Fanfiction Masterlist

#quinn & sarah snapshots #quinn hughes #quinn hughes fic #quinn hughes imagine #quinn hughes x oc #quinn hughes fan fic #nhl fanfiction #nhl imagine #nhl writing #nhl fic #quinn hughes fanfiction #hockey fanfiction #hockey fic

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chibinightowl · 4 months

Text

Today has been a day. Just a lot of hospital stress this week between my mom and my husband's surgeries and this is how it's coming out (they're both fine and are recovering well).

~~~

Dick finds Tim in a waiting room at Gotham General, slumped in a faded blue plastic chair that's seen better days. At some point during the day, his brother had been immaculately dressed for the office. But now, his blue pin-striped suit is wrinkled, his collar is unbuttoned, and his shirtsleeves have been rolled up. There was a tie somewhere as Dick knows Tim never leaves home without one on an office day, but it's anyone's guess as to where it currently is.

"Hey. I got here as fast as I could," he says, taking the open seat beside Tim. He did too, calling Wally as soon as he got the news from Barbara. "How's Jason?"

Tim opens his eyes, giving him a look that is more dead than alive. "Still critical."

Pain lances through Dick at the two words. He'd lost Jason once before and the guilt from being off world when his Little Wing needed him the most still ate at him in the darkest parts of his psyche. And now, here he is sitting with another brother he never thought he'd have, one who's been through so much trauma and loss of his own--and who is on the verge of possibly losing another loved one.

A car-pedestrian accident. The gall of something so normal and mundane having the potential to take out the Red Hood--or any of them for that matter--is enough to make Dick want to punch the taupe wall of this dreary waiting room.

To be honest, he's rather surprised none of the others are here yet. Well, expect Bruce. He's off world with the JL and...

Oh.

"Do you think Bruce knows yet?"

Tim's shrug is so minute Dick might have missed it if he wasn't watching closely. "Can't say I care right now. He and Jay got into another of their big fights before he left. Said if Jay can't clean up his act, then don't bother coming back."

Dick winces and easily reads between the lines of what Tim isn't saying given their semi-public place. Even in Bludhaven, he'd heard about the execution-style murder of a known pedophile--and that it was the Red Hood who'd done it.

"He didn't do it, Dick," Tim whispers, catching his gaze as tears build in his eyes. "I was there. I know he didn't. But Bruce didn't listen to either of us, said I was covering for him because he's in my pants." Those last words are practically spat out. "I think this is the first time I've ever felt like I hate him. He just doesn't listen!"

That's a feeling Dick knows all too well. He also knows now why the others aren't here--that Barbara called him first because Tim doesn't need just comfort.

He needs his big brother.

Dick slides from the chair to kneel on the floor in front of Tim. "Now that is something I know a lot about." He takes Tim's hands and squeezes them firmly. "I'm not going to tell you it'll get better. I'm also not going to say you need to be the bigger person and forgive him. What I am going to tell you is that I believe you and that I believe in Jason."

Tim's breath hitches and he falls into Dick's open arms sobbing. Thank yous fall from his lips and into Dick's jacket. Tears fill his own eyes as he remembers another time where he didn't believe this little bird, his first Robin.

Time hasn't necessarily dulled the guilt, but it has given him perspective. He'd done what he thought best at the time and owned up to it when he'd been proven wrong--a trait not shared by their mentor and father-figure.

"We'll get through this together," Dick soothes, running a hand up and down Tim's back. "You, me, and everyone else. We're all here for you and we're all pulling for Jason."

As he speaks, he glances up and spots Alfred hurrying down the hall with Damian and Duke in tow. Both boys are still dressed in their school uniforms, so Alfred must have pulled them out early. Behind them are Cass and Steph, hands held tightly.

"We're all here," he repeats, nudging Tim's chin to make him look up. "And we're not going anywhere."

#chibinightowl writes #dick grayson #tim drake #background JayTim #there's a lot to unpack here #but it's mostly just brotherly bonding #and me needing to word vomit in some capacity #stress is a bitch #yes I'm fine #just need sleep

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bethsturn · 6 months

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Could you please write or do one of those texting fics where reader is finally done with toxic chris and moves on to someone new that really loves her and he realizes he fucked up and tries to make it up to her?

if my wishes came true

chris sturniolo x fem!oc

texts and writing

warnings: none i can think of:)

part 2 to these specific texts:))

no way she knows how to actually write, a shock to all x

lowercase intended!

also i’m so sorry but writing y/n stuff is sooo much harder for me idk why and i kinda have like ox’s i use for chris and matt? i hope that’s okay:)

anastasia’s pov:

i knew deep down that everything was for the better. i was happy now, me and ryland, my new boyfriend. chris wasn’t in the picture anymore, he hasn’t been for about a 4 months now and for the past 2 i have been with ryland, there was no more toxicity. no more other girls. just us.

ryland knew about chris due to an argument that occurred between nathan and i over the old “romance” of me and chris, but nate didn’t know much. when i explained everything to him he had swore to never act in the same disrespectful manner as chris, and i truly have never appreciated anything more.

i really was starting to love him, i thought about it constantly trying not to rush into anything. i knew i wanted it to work and that i wanted it to last but all in all, he wasn’t chris.

i was alone in the house, nathan was with the triplets, staying overnight which i couldn’t necessarily do anymore, regardless as to how much i missed it, how much i missed us all together, how much i missed staying over, how much i missed nick and matt. how much i missed chris. ryland wasn’t chris.

binge watching a new shitty tv show my phone lit up and i chose to ignore it, assuming it was just nate talking shit as usual, until it lit up again.

it wasn’t nate.

the first time in 4 months. 4 months since the end and he had finally reached out, i wasn’t waiting for it, i was just wondering when it would happen. but i knew i couldn’t reply, or i shouldn’t reply. but ryland wouldn’t mind, he isn’t like that as far as i am aware, but did i even want to speak to him.

tears flooded my eyes and i knew i shouldn’t have responded the second i did.

chris’ pov:

i left the house as quick as i possibly could, i couldn’t stay there with nathan and my brothers, it was like a piece of her. it’s like she’s dead and i’m haunted by any memory as if it wasn’t my fault in the first place.

i knew i had to make it right i just don’t know how, i knew i loved her i just don’t know how to say it so that she knows i really mean it.

i found myself at her door, just like all those times before. i wasn’t sure how i got here but all the roads just led me here. a bouquet of baby breath flowers in one hand, my other anxiously shaking as i built up the courage to knock.

anastasia’s pov:

as i hear a knock at the door i was quick to wipe my eyes and climb out of my bed, i wasn’t expecting anyone and i knew it wouldn’t be for nate as he would’ve told whoever it was that he wasn’t home.

i open the door without a second thought but im hit with almost instant regret. “ana plea-” i shake my head, it’s all i can do, the tears immediately coming back to my eyes. “no chris, i told you i can’t cope with this and i meant it, this isn’t fair anymore” my hands shook and the tears didn’t even try to hold themselves back. his arm extends and i look down at the flowers in his hand, my favourite ones. “chris i can’t take them, please go home” i was pleading with him at this point, he has been here for all of 2 minutes and i already need him to be gone again.

“don’t cry ana please, i needed to come here, i needed to give you these and i needed to tell you everything” he was stuttering and his hands were shaking as he spoke, i said nothing, just stared waiting for him to continue. “i acted the way i did because i was scared stassie, i was scared you would leave and it sounds awful i know i really do but i was terrified that if i had committed to you then you would up and leave, it’s stupid and it seems like an excuse but you made me nervous ana. you still do. i really love you and i have for as long as i can remember. i loved you before i knew you as my best friends sister, i loved you before i knew you as nicks new bestfriend. i just need you to hear me right now ana.” he takes a breath and looks into my eyes with hope.

genuine writing actually scares me and i kinda hate this and might delete it icl. but i hope this is okay🤍 i really do like writing it’s just people expectations:)

#sturniolo triplets #chris sturniolo #chris sturniolo smut #christopher sturniolo #matt sturniolo #matt sturniolo smut #nick sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo #sturniolo edit #sturniolo fanfic #inbox #sturniolo x reader #sturniolo #sturniolo smut #matthew sturniolo #nathan doe smut #nathan doe #nate doe smut #nate doe

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southparktegreity · 1 year

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♡ what they look for in a girl

[stan marsh x reader] ; [kyle brof. x reader]

[kenny mc. x reader] ; [leopold butters stotch x reader]

[tolkien b. x reader] 🟊

gender : female cws : minor nsfw

requested : yes! thank you anon ! relationship : none mentioned

authors note : i wanted to write what they look for in personality traits, instead of appearance, hope that was okay!

NOTICE : as always, these characters are aged up to be in college 19/20+!

stanley marsh :

♡ i feel like he'd really want someone who is comfortable with silence, like being alone together in the same room doing separate things, yet enjoying each others presence. i think quiet time/being able to be around each other while being quiet is important to him, since he has to deal with so much talking in south park in general.

♡ i also think he's want someone who's really stable in his life. like he wouldn't necessarily want a girl who's always mentally stable, but more like he wants to be able to depend on someone especially during harder moments when he's struggling. he’d want to find stability in your relationship.

♡ definitely wants a girl who can take their relationship seriously but also who can kind of be playful at times. since stan is kind of a ticking time bomb, he'll want someone who's kind of also emotionally smart enough to tell when something is off with him because he struggles with expressing those same emotions.

♡ trust. this one is probably the biggest one for stan, he needs stability and trust in a relationship with anyone. he needs to be able to trust you'll be honest with him.

♡ i think all of this combined with support and love for him is what he looks for in a partner :)

kyle broflovski :

♡ as i'm sure everyone knows, he'd want someone very family oriented! even if you aren't close with your own family, as long as you care about having a family in the future, or are close to his own family i think that's good enough for him.

♡ would also really want someone to be on good terms with his mom and ike, since his dad is fairly easy to get along with and his mom is very much the head of the household - he'd want a girl to get along with her - even if that means looking at his baby photos with her.

♡ also would want someone who might be interested in religion, or at the very least doesn't make fun of him for his own.

♡ looks for communication in relationships, especially if he did something wrong? he’d want to know as soon as it happened. he’s probably a bit worried of losing you, or being abandoned by you because of heidi and that whole situation, so someone who can easily communicate their issues are reassure him everything is okay and stable in their relationship is perfect for him.

♡ i get the impression that his standards are kind of on the floor, with his mistreatment from cartman and heidi both, he just wants someone who won't leave him or make fun of him or his insecurities.

kenny mccormick :

♡ definitely wants a girl who will try anything once, if you catch my drift. especially if you'll initiate it as well? or seem invested in trying something new with him :)

♡ i feel like he’d really like someone to crack jokes with. i think he shares eric’s similar sense of humor but doesn’t actually want to full blown do the whole ‘eric’ thing all the time (ie dealing with cartman). sometimes i think he just wants to make a lil bit of fun with you! you know?

♡ he’d probably also want someone who’s a little more on the adventurous side, who’s probably a bit ambitious, again someone who’d be willing to try anything once. he probably really wants someone around who can also have their own wild side!

♡ also probably looks for someone who is kind to karen, especially if it means her crashing your guys dates.

♡ overall i feel like he doesn't have a huuuge preference, but more like he just wants someone he can get along with! definitely someone with a sense of humor similar to him.

leopold butters stotch :

♡ this is just my totally personal opinion but i feel like he'd really like someone also outgoing and also understanding? he might always be worried he's messing up or something while being with you, but would want you to be understanding when he makes a mistake.

♡ a little bit of chaos goes a long way. someone who will be able to create a little chaos with him from time to time would definitely be something he wants in a girl.

♡ playful intimacy, he doesn't wanna feel insecure with those intimate moments he has with you, but i think a little bit of playfulness with each other would totally brighten his day.

♡ i feel like he'd really look for a sense of belonging in a girl, somewhere where he fits in, and feels safe. since he doesn't get a lot of that at home, he'd really want to feel far from his home around a girl.

♡ to be honest i don't think butters thinks too much about what he wants, it just kind of happens for him.

tolkien black :

♡ i feel like tolkien probably looks for someone who's really good at communicating. he'd want to avoid any and all drama, considering he's got enough of it just living in south park normally.

♡ this one is kind of a given, but i feel like he'd want a girl who's more on the mature side, similar to stan but in a different way. he'd want a girl with more of her own interests and things that she enjoys. he really wants someone who's able to talk to him about mature things and not have to be worried too much that you won't take it seriously.

♡ someone self confident i imagine, i think he already has enough going on that he doesn't necessarily want to be worried about you on top of his family and everything else. which isn't to say he won't support you during your down moments, but being confident in yourself is probably a big one for him.

♡ this all ties in with the other ones, but self reliance and being good to yourself is probably big for him, again he doesn't wanna be in charge of you but will definitely take care of you when you need it - you know?

♡ overall, he just wants someone who's a bit normal or at least a bit less hectic or crazy than the rest of south park.

#south park x reader #south park x y/n #south park #kyle x reader #kyle broflovski #tolkien x reader #token x reader #kenny x reader #kenny mccormick x reader #butters stotch x reader #leopold butters stotch x reader #stan x y/n #stan x reader

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deirdra-hearts-nadia · 8 months

Text

I've been thinking about the fandom for The Arcana, and I have come to the conclusion that it's weird as hell. In my 20+ years participating in online fandom spaces, I've never seen a fandom quite like this one. I've seen drama, sure, but the core of most fandoms is a large community of people who love the same media and come together to celebrate it.

The Arcana fandom is not like that. From the very beginning we're more fractured, more factional, more fragile than most. You just have to look around at all the posts lamenting the death of the fandom every 2 weeks to see that something is really wrong here.

And I think a lot of it has to do with the nature of the canon. I am not saying this to criticize The Arcana, the devs, Dorian, or my fellow fans. I have just noticed that, as a piece of media, this game occupies a very unique space that is reflected in the way its fans interact with canon and with each other.

Welcome to the TED talk ain't none of y'all asked for.

Part of what makes this fandom unique is the evolution of fandom as a whole in the face of new types of media. As gaming becomes more mainstream and games themselves become more complex, the way we engage has necessarily changed in response.

Books/ movies/ shows are slightly more static in terms of canon than video games; canon is what it is and how you interact with what is there is largely to do with who you are. Everyone has the same base material to engage with, and that results in a certain amount of constancy. You can't interact with The Princess Bride in a way that changes the movie, only in ways that change your own perception. There isn't a whole lot of room for OCs without rewriting canon, so fans tend to consume OC-based fiction and art with the assumption that it's likely to be self-insert wish fulfillment fantasy time. That isn't always true, but there is a reason the term Mary Sue was coined.

Otome games and other choice-based video games make a very different fan environment, because the way you interact with canon is completely different. You have to build a character in order to interact with the story, and your choices directly impact your experience of canon.

But most western choice-based games are in the context of a larger RPG universe, e.g. Fallout or Dragon Age. There is a lot more to the story than the romance plot and so there's a lot more world to experience, contextualize, and build upon. There's certainly plenty of unhinged ShepxGarrus erotica, but there's also an abundance of fanworks that engage with the plot, the worldbuilding, and the canon characters with relatively little of the player's character needing to be on the page at all.

By contrast, most otome games that make it to English-speaking fandom spaces are Japanese. The romance is the point, but we also start from a place of wariness of our fellow fans. Because there's a huge difference between "harmless weeb" and "orientalist fetishizing creepo," and you know going in that both ends of the spectrum are possible, there is an amount of caution. We curate our space, looking for the creators who align with our expectations and values before we ever begin to interact.

The Arcana falls in a very unique and odd space because it is an otome, but made by Americans, with an attempt at a diverse fantasy cast. It's intended to be for American/ English-speaking audiences and is marketed as such. But making a romance game in America is challenging. Our way of approaching online media, especially smartphone-accessible media, is super fucked up, right? We are constantly trapped between the dichotomies of moral duty (Must Protect The Children) versus appealing to the customer base (Boom Anime Babes with Tig Ol Bitties). Because this is a mobile game, the developers can't make money if the game is removed from the app store, so they want it to be rated teen at the most. But the enticing bit, the thing that captures a potential fan's attention, is the flirtation and sexy implications. So from the jump they're in a weird space purely because they chose to make a mobile game instead of an indie video game released on Steam or similar.

So now you have an inherently split audience: mature adults who know they're getting into a potentially explicit romance game, and young adults/teens who have grown up in a more insulated internet culture where normal words are replaced with Orwellian doublespeak, like "unalive" and "spicy time".

THEN you add in the fact that the developers tried to build a diverse fantasy world, which is a fantastic idea both from an inclusionary standpoint and a broader audience standpoint. But because they didn't employ any actual sensitivity readers (did they think they didn't need them because fantasy can't have racism? Did they justify it as not being in the budget? Would love to know what's going on there) they fell right into a lot of the classic traps. We've been over these time and again, so I won't get into them here. Suffice to say, there has been Discourse. The presence of those issues means that more experienced fans will see those things and call them out, and that criticism causes even more of a split: the zealous apologists versus the critics. And critics can fall into two further categories: those who love the canon and want to see it do better, and the bitches who just love having something to bitch about.

Unfortunately, this combination means that there are inherently factions to this fandom, with staunchly opposed approaches to the media. So even before you enter a fandom space, it's already wildly fractured simply because of the nature of base canon.

THEN add to that the fact that this game is a dating sim. And to engage with a dating sim, you have to build a character and make choices based on that character. Some people will approach this work as storytelling, and some will approach it as an escapist expression of self. Neither of these ways of engaging with canon is wrong. Enjoying a dating sim as Me But Better is fun and completely valid! Engaging with a dating sim as a storyteller collaborating with the developers is fun and completely valid! But the two approaches are opposed in purpose, and that can make it difficult for the two types of fans to engage with one another's work.

Storytellers will well and truly invest in building a character. They may even build out communities, countries, cultures, and languages to make their world all the richer. They are investing hours of blood, sweat, and tears into Their Craft, pouring themselves into an opus of quality fanwork. Unfortunately, this can sometimes lead to big feelings. Fan artists and writers may feel underappreciated if all they get out of their hard work is 2 likes and a gif of a wolf making AWOOGA eyes. They may feel that critique of their work is unwarranted, or that there's no point creating if no one will engage.

The romantics will engage with canon and fanwork from the perspective that "this is my fantasy romance time". Their OC isn't so much Original Character as Optimized Characteristics--that is, their perfect self. They are here for wish fulfillment fun times in the relative privacy and anonymity of the internet, and good for them! But that may mean that criticism of canon or their fan work feels excessively personal--it is very hard to detach the ego from the OC when that OC is a projection of your best self. They may view any critique as a personal attack as opposed to a good-faith attempt at engagement or conversation. This can lead to defensiveness, or to leaving the fandom outright if it feels too hostile.

Unfortunately all of these factions cause rifts in the community. This sometimes turns into fandom vigilantism, where people begin to see any fan who doesn't wholeheartedly agree with them as an enemy. I've seen friends experience bullying and cruelty over their OCs and their art. I've seen predators use the isolated nature of the fandom to further isolate and prey upon already vulnerable individuals. I've seen some really shitty stuff.

But I have also seen beautiful community flourish. I've made friends who feel more like family than my actual relatives. I've seen people work through struggles and overcome deliberate attempts to tear us apart, finding forgiveness and friendship along the way. I've seen myself and others grow because of the community and inspiration we found here. And I saw all of that because I found my people. And I hope, Arcana fandom, that the rest of you can find your people too.

#the arcana #oops i did a ted talk #fandom discourse #the arcana fandom

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bengiyo · 11 months

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Why Do I Tag So Many Creators in My Posts? It’s About Respect

Earlier today I was talking with @sophsloveskpop in the notes of a post, and was asked about all of the interaction between blogs in the posts and essays about the shows. I’ve noticed an uptick in new names interacting with posts (and making great posts of their own!) and wanted to talk about why I do it and why I like fandom on Tumblr.

Fundamentally, I think it’s generally good courtesy to acknowledge when someone else has expressed a similar idea to your, or an idea that intrigues you. I think it’s best to tag that person and link to their post so that others can also experience it. It also opens you up to a dialogue with them and others.

People Like Getting Their Flowers

If someone posts an analysis or even a quirky idea that I felt the need to think about, I will mention them in my posts. None of the great content we get on here is necessarily quick to make. I absolutely love all of the gifmakers who fight against Photoshop, Tumblr, and God Himself to post snippets of shows on here for us. I wouldn’t be able to flesh out some of my posts, illustrates points, or otherwise breakup walls of text without @liyazaki, @wanderlust-in-my-soul, @pharawee, or @gabrielokun. Whenever I can’t find the gif I’m looking for through Tumblr’s terrible gif search, I reach out to one of them for permission to use their gifs directly.

Also, many of us just like being acknowledged that someone we wrote meant something to someone else. Every time I get tagged by someone in an essay I’m like:

It’s a Conversation

I don’t think fandom is about being the smartest person or the most correct person. My basic framework I’m writing from is Black Gay Nerd Who Watches a Lot of Stuff. It’s what I’m most familiar with personally, and I find that people have really responded to that.

I’ve been around for a very long time, and have been seeing folks like @so-much-yet-to-learn around the entire time, who often has more specific information about fandom life during the airing of shows. @absolutebl and @heretherebedork have watched more BL than I have, and I’ve seen at least 250 productions. ABL has some of the most comprehensive posts collecting some of the history.

I made so many friends after diving into @shortpplfedup DMs to talk about sustainable urbanism and bonding over our shared geography. Now we run @the-conversation-pod together. Through them I befriended so many others, like @elnotwoods and @kyr-kun-chan.

I’m not a color theory expert, and so I love reading posts from @respectthepetty and others (I think @sliceduplife writes about color too).

We wouldn't even have my favorite show without @isaksbestpillow.

I know what shows are coming because of @clairificusrex.

I don’t know much about music theory, but @iguessitsjustme write some great stuff about the music in these shows.

I don’t always read the body language of hands as closely as someone like @wen-kexing-apologist might.

I am not Asian, and so I like reading from @waitmyturtles, @telomeke-bbs, and @neuroticbookworm. I know that @recentadultburnout and @airenyah offer useful perspective on Thai language.

Sometimes folks are going to narrow down on specific shows and consistently write about them for years on side blogs like @miscellar.

Some people have studied so much and bring specific academic lenses to the genre that I find compelling, like @emotionallychargedtowel.

In many cases, I just vibe with them really hard, like @ginnymoonbeam.

I actually didn’t always post as much as I do, but I try to keep up my Stray Thoughts project so that people can keep track of what I’m watching. I used to write less meta, but then I befriended @waitmyturtles and @lurkingshan. Any time I say anything remotely thoughtful Shan is like:

Also, though, this is Tumblr! It’s easy to tag each other and link to each other’s posts! This is what makes us different from every

Isn’t It Just More Fun?

I don’t enjoy shows passively. I grew up in a family that watched things together. My mom, dad, sister, and I all have differing tastes from each other, but we watched a lot of different things together. My friends and I discussed the things we watched at school.

I’m a big fan of the water cooler approach to TV show distribution, which basically says you want your show to be the show people are talking about on their breaks at work. I always like Film Crit Hulk’s theory that movies (and our dramas) are the proverbial campfires around which we gather to share ourselves with each other.

This is all supposed to be fun, and I have more fun when we interact. I get tagged daily by @blmpff about updates from sets, or when we all need to rush to IG to make sure Fluke Pongsakorn doesn’t cut his hair. When @bl-bam-beyond makes a new set or post they let me know, and they recently rewatched Noah’s Arc! I made friends with @gillianthecat in the last year or so, and it’s been fun seeing her make her way through fandom. I always get excited with @troubled-mind pings me in a post because I know it’s going to give me something to chew on. I didn’t have a genuine appreciation for kink culture until I watched along with @lutawolf. If something funny is happening in fandom I know @benkaaoi is going to tag me. I still get excited when @heukheuk pops up in my mentions.

I know I’ve probably forgotten so many people alone the way here, and I’m sorry if I didn’t mention you.

Tag Because It’s the Right Thing to Do

So seriously, tag people and link to their posts. Try to use the giffmakers specific tags when you’re using the search feature. Fandom is better when we all interact respectfully and enthusiastically with each other. Tumblr is special because it lets us create goofy little essays like this and tag dozens of people just to get their attention.

If you have a cool thought about a show I’m watching, tag me. If you see something funny, tag me in the comments. If you wanna hash out an idea before posting it, DM me. This is Tumblr. Don’t be shy with your thoughts. It’s okay to be wrong on the internet. It’s actually fun to be wrong on the internet about show predictions!

Thank you as always for coming to my post.

#Ben writes #fandom life #tumblr life

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giddyfenix · 5 months

Text

Forever and always

“Joel, what does this mean for us? Are we together forever?” Etho had asked.

“Forever and always,” Joel had replied, cheeky smile pulling at the corner of his lips.

“Forever,” Etho had agreed, and he didn’t know yet how much he’d mean it.

—

Etho didn’t know, going into Limited Life, what would be of him and Joel. They had lived together and they had died together. They had made each other promises, and they had cared.

By the time they died, neither had brought up the loaded question: what comes after?

Nothing, Etho realized. Nothing, was the answer.

Etho wasn’t intending to target Joel as his enemy because of it, not after everything they’d been through together and everything they’d done together, but it sort of happened before Etho had time to realize what he was doing, and suddenly each time he opened his mouth, he was trying to get Joel’s attention, or blaming him for something, or bringing him up in unrelated conversations, because when he’d said forever and always, he’d meant it. It was bitterness mixed with uncertainty, colliding and forming something that wasn't quite anger, but was just close enough to blur the line.

It might’ve helped, perhaps, if Joel hadn't also decided to target him.

Etho should've expected it. He knew Joel by then, so when Joel came up to him and said, “Can’t believe you replaced me with a cow, Etho!” not having expected it was all on him.

“He keeps me company at least,” Etho said. A joke, though perhaps not. It was up to Joel.

And then Joel said he was planning to settle down on the ocean with Jimmy, and things were clear, but Etho didn’t want to see, and that was on him, too.

“Oh, so you’re going to make a boat with a new friend, hey, Joel? I thought we were the boat boys,” he joked. He wasn’t sure where they stood with each other. Maybe they were on different teams, but that didn’t necessarily make them enemies, was his thought process.

Joel shot the cow, and cleared it up for him.

"Anything precious you get is getting sniped out now,” Etho said then, and it was so far from anything they'd ever said to each other before that Etho almost stopped mid-way through, but he only had to hear Joel giggling, mocking him, and no hesitancy made it through at all.

I will follow you forever, Etho wanted to say. Like we promised.

He’d meant it when he said it back then. He meant it as they shared resources back in the Relation, and as they hunted down Pearl, and as they died together in the lava. A promise was a promise.

And really, he was keeping his promise when, only a few days after Joel had confirmed their new status as enemies, Etho pulled him into his mob farm just to mess with him. They were on opposite teams, on opposite ends of the map, and pulling him closer, regardless of how or why or when, was making good on his promise. It was almost a shame that the mob farm still wasn’t done by then. Etho was kind of hoping he’d slip through the middle openings, into the actually dangerous part of the farm.

Joel said, “Etho, I’m three hours and twenty three minutes away from yellow. I will kill myself to get to that point to come back and kill you.”

Their friends laughed and cheered. They mocked Joel, and they mocked Etho, but none of them knew that Joel wasn’t joking, and none of them knew that Etho was counting on it. Together forever, was their promise. And what was more intimate than death?

And maybe it was that realization that made him focus all his efforts during the green hunts.

Forever, he’d promised Joel. Forever, forever. Even as enemies. Maybe especially as such.

“I’ve got him hooked!”

Forever.

“Off you go, Joel!” he screamed, giddy and elated as he pushed Joel off his own base, off to his demise.

Forever.

“I fell!”

He landed on Joel’s water. Together forever.

“You saved me! You saved me Joel!”

Forever, forever, forever.

“So now I can kill you!”

After all, Etho had never been one to break his promises.

#smalletho #smallethoweek #trafficshipping #oh shit i need a tag for fics #uhh #giddy words #sure lets go with that #prompt was obsession/promises btw

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differenteagletragedy · 6 months

Note

How do you think "Jealous Boyfriend"?

(if Cove or Baxter is a very possessive boyfriend.)

HOT TAKE ALERT

-- I know gb patch says that none of the boys are jealous or possessive, but I don't think that is necessarily true and that is fine.

-- They're definitely not jealous/possessive in a toxic way, but I can see Cove and Baxter getting into their feelings a little bit like this over MC.

-- If you and Cove don't start dating when you're 13 (little middle school sweethearts, bless) and he likes you but can't tell you, then I think he would get jealous if other people give you atttention.

-- NOT IN A TOXIC WAY

Cove: I saw you talking with [person's name] after history, are you friends with them now?

MC: Yeah, they're really nice, we've been talking some.

Cove: That's cool.

Cove's internal monologue: Does MC like them more than me, are they going to be their new best friend, what if they start dating someone and I never get the nerve to tell them how I feel, what if what if what if *combusts*

-- If you still don't confess in Step 3 and go on to be adults without sharing feelings, then he's going to keep it up.

Cove: Oh yeah, you're hanging out with your coworker later? Is it like a date? Just curious!

-- I think if you started being around/seeing someone with genuinely bad vibes, he would get more possessive, like to be protective. More hugs if you all hang out together, more inside jokes, a little glare here and there.

-- But if you found a good person that made you happy, he wouldn't fight it, he'd just sit and stew in his poor little feelings.

-- If you're with Baxter, he is yours and you are his. In a NON TOXIC WAY.

-- The guy is going to be insecure, he just is. And choosing to be with him is choosing to accept that. If you don't want to, that's fine! But friends, please remember, YOU CAN'T CHANGE HIM.

-- So yeah, if you're out with Baxter and somebody gets a little flirty, he's not going to be subtle about it. Hands hands hands, "darling" this and that, the whole thing.

-- To be honest I've talked to @meowzilla93 about this so much that I don't remember where my thoughts end and theirs begin, but preemptive shoutout.

-- But he is so HAPPY to be yours, it's not at all a "you are mine and I am mine," you belong to each other (in a sweet way).

-- Clingy clingy clingy, he's not going to get upset about you hanging with your pals or anything, but if you make friends with someone new then he's going to have his own internal monologue about it where he's happy for you, but he's also scared because he doesn't think that much of himself, but he also wants to be the kind of person who isn't jealous, but he's also kind of just not. This will all take place in his head.

-- Baxter please talk to someone I love you so much

#our life beginnings and always #cove holden #baxter ward

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rafferty3207 · 11 months

Note

Hi!! Can a request a fluffy Roy x Reader oneshot? Maybe one the reader is part of the gang and is Roy’s plus one for the charity gala. She and Roy are being very sweet and flirty with each other throughout the evening. When Roy and Keeley tease Jamie about being bid on by a little old lady, reader joins in on Jamie’s side and defends him, and playfully teases Roy back. Roy takes the dig, but sexily whispers to her later that she’ll pay for it after the party. Just overall fluff with these two love birds. Sorry if this is too long & thank you in advance!!

hello!! I love this!! I'm a sucker for a fancy dress moment and I may have gotten carried away - Only after having written several thousand words did I realise you maybe meant more of an established relationship but I thought a get together at the gala would be so cute so enjoy!!

You'll Pay for That

Warning: Swearing (because its Roy obvs), teensy bit of jealousy, two horny idiots in love

A/N: proofreading is for the weak, gif is not mine

You couldn’t stand it any longer.

You’d been to black tie events before, but none like this one. This was the Richmond FC annual charity gala, and as you waited in your living room, fiddling with the straps of your dress, you were nervous.

When Roy Kent, famously the grumpiest bastard in all of Nelson Road, asked you to be his date, everyone was surprised. Especially you.

You’d been at Richmond for the last six months and not a single day had passed without you thinking about Roy Kent.

You had noticed how attractive he was the minute you first saw him, with his dark curls and thick stubble and toned arms. He definitely caught you staring more than once. You had even once walked in on him changing, although you swore to this day it was a complete accident. It was an accident, but you may have lingered on his muscled back perhaps a minute or two longer than necessarily. You had also caught him glaring once or twice, but he glared at everyone so it was hard to tell.

But it wasn’t until you had caught him icing his knee after everyone else had gone home that everything really changed. You had said nothing, but left him a ready-made cool pack in his locker before the end of the day, and if you saw he was starting to limp around or look tired, you would make up some excuse for him to come into your office so he could sit down. Of course, he never said anything, but your coffee order miraculously started appearing on your desk every morning, and he always would invite you to eat lunch, whether it was with the players, the coaches or just with Keeley and Jamie, who had founded a new tradition on the Friday to try a nice new restaurant nearby. While you had got along with everyone in the office before this on a professional level, you found yourself becoming thick and fast friends with the whole gang after this, especially Jamie, who started teasing you about how he had gone soft around you. You batted it off, but your heart couldn’t help but race whenever the possibility was mentioned. But you had to tell yourself it was nothing,

One lunch trip however, a month before the gala, both Jamie and Keeley cancelled at the last minute, and you found that you and Roy would be alone. But Roy had already reserved a table at this nice new Italian cafe nearby, so the two of you decided to go anyway.

This is not a date, you told yourself. But you were surprised to see Roy quickly order a bottle of wine. Was he nervous?

“It’s 12pm on a Friday?” You chided him as the waiter handed him the bottle of red.

“And? We’re two adults, we can do whatever the fuck we want?” He was still avoiding eye contact, looking at the bottle.

“I guess we’re not getting any work done this afternoon.”

“I have nothing better to do today than this, do you?”

“‘Nothing better?’ Wow, okay. Glad to see that’s how you see my company.” You folded your arms, playing stern.

Roy’s head suddenly whipped around. “I mean - that’s not what I meant -”

You raised an eyebrow.

“I really like spending time with you.”His eyes flitted from you to the empty plate in front of him.

“Oh.” You tried not to blush at his words. “Well, I really like spending time with you too.”

“Good.” Roy nodded.”Now let’s order some fucking food shall we?”

Over the course of the lunch, which ended up lasting almost three hours, you found yourself chatting about anything and everything. He told you all about Phoebe’s progress in school, Jamie’s progress in training, and after the third glass of wine, all about his grandad and how he taught him everything from football to taking care of orchids. You told him how you were finding the new job, how your new flat still needed decorating and after the third glass of wine how you only had the new job and flat to begin with after a big breakup and now everyone wouldn’t stop asking you who you were going to the gala with.

“I feel like I’m sixteen and I’m the sad sack who doesn’t have a date to prom again.” You fiddled with your necklace. Roy’s eyes dip for a second before looking back at you intensely.

“That is because they are all mentally sixteen. It’s fucking stupid, just ignore them.”

You swill the remaining wine in the glass, eyes intently not on him. “Easy for you to say Roy. I bet you have a queue of supermodels waiting for an invite from yours truly.”

Roy snorted in derision.

“Supermodels aren’t interested in old ex-footballers.” You look up to see Roy looking at you, eyebrows softened. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to go with a supermodel anyway.”

You leaned in slightly closer.

“So who do you want to go with?”

Roy opens his mouth but his phone starts vibrating.

“Shit.”

“What?”

“We really need to get back to work.”

You couldn’t help but feel disappointed when you got home that night. But when you walked into your office, there was a small white orchid on your desk with a note.

For your flat.

I don’t know how the kids do this but apparently it’s a prom tradition to give your plus one a flower?

Over the next month, you spoke to each other every day. When you weren’t leaving little post its of your favourite Jamie quote or exchanging glances over the morning meeting whenever Ted said something so very Ted, you were texting trying to figure out all your gala details - you were having difficulty finding a dress suitable that would match his ‘heather charcoal suits’ or whatever he said.

Eventually, one morning, Keeley had asked for your measurements as she apparently ‘knew someone’ which she told you while winking and walking away.

Two days before the gala, a beautiful black box arrived on your doorstep. It is the most beautiful dark silky dress, with just a small note attached.

This is what I mean by heather charcoal.

Of course, it fit perfectly.

So here you are, It is the day of, and your hair is done and your makeup is done and you are sitting on your couch, ready 30 minutes early, tapping your heel impatiently.

When there is a knock on your door.

Roy is standing there, looking even more handsome in his all black suit. It is tailored perfectly and you wondered if you could sack off the gala entirely and just spend all evening in your bedroom. But you shake the thought quickly away.

“You’re early.”

Roy looks around. “Well you said you always get ready too early for these things and it stresses you out and you just want to leave, so here I am, in case it was true.” Your heart wants to burst right there and then.

He finally takes you in, looking you up and down.

“Whoever didn’t take you to prom was a fucking idiot.”

You blush and you really do feel sixteen again.

“Oh that reminds me.” You pull out a small box. “This is for you.”

Roy opens it to find a small delicate corsage of white flowers, including one white orchid.

“Someone told me it’s traditional to get your prom date flowers.” You swear you see Roy’s eyes water, just a little, before he steps closer to you, bringing his hand to your face. You hold your breath, lean in, until -

“Oi you two, are you coming or what?!” Jamie yells from the limo. The two of you jump back from each other.

“Sorry, I forgot to say -” Roy tries to explain, but you hurry down the stairs.

“Don’t worry about it.”

The ride to the venue you find yourself tightly packed with Roy and Jamie in the back seat. Your hand is right next to Roy’s thigh, and you try to subtly inch it towards him, until a sharp corner finds it right in his lap. You pull away, hoping Jamie hadn’t noticed, but he’s oblivious, still talking about some new book he was reading.

“It’s called “The Body Keeps the Score”, but it’s not even about football…”

You and Roy exchange looks, trying not to giggle. The slit in your dress has hitched up just a little, and you suddenly notice Roy’s hand leaning just against your bare thigh. His fingers are drawing small circles and your whole body feels electric.

“...ooh we’re here!” Jamie once again interrupts you and Roy pulls his hand away. The car pulls to a stop. Roy steps out first and offers you a hand out of the car, leading you up the stairs. His hands are large and warm and only slightly calloused and you wished you didn’t have to let go, but once you are through the door he immediately pulls away.

“We are going to need a drink to get through this. French martini right?” You nod, impressed he still remembers your cocktail order after one late night drunk text conversation where you drunkenly told him about your teenage dream to live in Paris and drink cocktails in a bookshop like Hemingway.

“Babes, please tell me he has snogged you already.” You jump.

“Keeley you cannot sneak up on people like that!” You brushed yourself down. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Oh come on, everyone can see it babes that you fancy the pants off each other. Just find a broom cupboard already and get on with it.”

“For god’s sake Keeley. It’s not that easy. Everytime I think he's going to do something, he gets scared or we get interrupted. Or both.”

Keeley huffs, thinking hard, before catching sight of Jamie.

“Look all I can say is that there is one man who can annoy Roy into doing anything and that’s him.”

“So I get Jamie to kiss Roy for me?”

“No, although that would be hot. I don’t know babes, but if anyone could figure it out, it’s you.”

“Figure what out?” Roy stands behind you holding two fancy looking cocktail glasses.

You turn around to find Keeley gone.

“Nothing, Keeley’s just talking some shit.” You look down. “I didn’t realise you liked Sex on the Beach.”

“I like sex in lots of places.” You tilt your head. He looks down at the cocktails. “Oh. You meant the drink, didn’t you?”

“Yes, although that is very interesting information. Where else do you like sex, Roy?” You tease him, watching his jaw clench ever so slightly as he starts walking over hurriedly to the table.

“Let’s sit down.” You poke his cheek, at the tiniest hint of his blush..

“Not before you tell me.”

At that point, Roy stops, places the glasses down and leans over, his lips right by your ear. You can feel his breath against your cheek and his chest mere millimetres from yours and all of you tenses.

“Why? Would you like to find out?” He leans back smiling. “Now who’s embarrassed?” He takes a seat next to Keeley and you try to gain composure. You know you need to gain one up on him, but it is not until the subject of the charity auction comes up, you see your chance.

“How much do you think I’ll rake in this year?” Jame leans back in his chair.

“50p?” Roy suggests, arms folded.

“Maybe £1 if you’re lucky.” Keeley chimes in.

“After Lust Conquers All, you’ll be lucky if one of these old biddies at the front coughs up.” Roy grins.

Jamie’s brow crinkles.

You see your chance.

You lean towards Jamie and place your hand on his arm. You notice Roy’s eyes burning into you.

“So what exactly do you get if you win one of these bids Jamie?”

“You can spend the night with me, doing whatever you like.”

“Whatever I like?” You practically purr. “Interesting. Maybe I’ll bid on you Jamie. To save you from an old biddy of course.” You wink at him before leaning back. Jamie’s eyebrows raise, and he looks to Roy as if to ask for help. Roy simply glares at him.

As you sit back, you feel Roy grab your wrist. Without saying anything, he drags you out to the corridor.

“Am I in trouble?”

He finally lets you go.

“Don’t you dare think of bidding on that little prick.”

“Why? Do you want me to bid on you instead?” You look back at him with a smirk.

“Don’t be stupid.” You feel a sudden deflation. “You never have to buy me. I’d be yours for free.”

The breath leaves your lungs for a moment. “What?”

“Why do you think we’re here? Why I’ve done all of this? You know you could have me any time, any place, just say the fucking word.”

At that point, you step to him, grab his face in both hands and kiss Roy Kent. For a moment, he is still, almost surprised at the sheer force. But then he melts back into you with equal passion, pulling you in by the small of your back. You run your hand through his hair, kissing him over and over until you eventually have to come up for air.

Once you finally emerge, face scratched from all the stubble, lips swollen, you smile at him. “You know I was just teasing about Jamie right?” You say to him, your arms wrapping around his neck.

“Oh I know.” He growls into your neck, “You’ll pay for that later though.” You can't wait.

#ted lasso #ted lasso fanfic #roy kent x reader #roy kent #romance #roy kent imagine

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yunhohours · 1 year

Text

Seventeen: Top 5 Kinks

a/n: i received many requests to do this series with various members after readers saw the ones i did for wonwoo and seungcheol. those are copied and pasted here, but the others are all new <3 also since there are so many members and five kinks a piece, there will likely be overlap! i don't want to assign kinks to members that i don't genuinely believe they could have just for the sake of sWiTcHiNg ThInGs uP

p.s. the kinks are not necessarily in order!

seungcheol

mutual masturbation - he likes to watch you touch yourself while he touches himself. smirks like hell the entire time. likes to instruct you on exactly how he wants you to touch yourself.

skype sex - this is similar to no. 1 in the sense that they’re both essentially mutual masturbation, but this is different in his mind. this feels particularly exciting to him because it feels so playful and he probably does it at random times that may not be the smartest choice. he feels like you’re doing something you shouldn’t be and he likes that. of course he gets to watch you, too, which we already know he likes.

shower sex - loves pulling you out of bed with him for his morning shower. he loves the way his senses are heightened from sleep, the way the water feels on his skin, the way you feel around him. he goes hard despite being groggy. it really wakes him up and he likes to start both of your days off “the right way.”

filming - i know i am beating the “cheol is a visual person” thing to death but he is. if you let him, he’ll have a gallery full of photos and videos of you in various stages of undress and engaging in various sexual activities. with him only, of course. would not surprise me even a little bit for him to have a photo of you obviously naked (but unable to see anything compromising), looking up at him, sticking your tongue out as he grips your chin as his wallpaper on his phone.

creampie - he is possessive, proud to have you, and accomplishment-oriented. this gives him all of those at once. he feels like he’s marked you, he loves that no one else gets to have you like this, and he’s succeeded in a) finishing and b) claiming you. bonus points that he gets to enjoy rough sex without having to worry about stopping to pull out or have a condom “in the way.” (i am not advising this, please be safe!)

jeonghan

phone sex - ok hear me out. he doesn't actually love phone sex that much. not in the way that it makes him horny and you touch yourselves together. but he absolutely loves getting you worked up and making you yourself for him. that part... that's what does it for him.

quickies - to put it simply: jeonghan sometimes thinks that all the time and intention that goes into having sex just feels... silly? like he's not trying to make it a big deal and if it feels like that then it can throw him off if he's not in the right mood. quickies are perfect because it's none of that. just pleasure without all the other stuff.

drunk sex - this is pretty similar to the reason he loves quickies tbh. drunk sex is less serious and he loves that. but also, when his mind is less active in the way it normally is when he's sober, he is better able to truly appreciate how beautiful and perfect you are. there are no mental distractions. just you and your body.

threesomes/sharing - if you're into this, so is jeonghan. like he's really so into it. but the center focus of this is always your pleasure. jeonghan mostly likes to watch you being pleasured by someone else, but he doesn't just want to sit off to the side. he wants to talk to you during it and kiss you and let his hands touch you wherever they please. he's not quite a cuck, not quite a voyeur, because he has to be involved to some degree. he will engage with the third party but to a more minimal degree (probably just kissing/touching, no oral or penetration).

sex toys - sex toys just incite curiosity in jeonghan. he loves trying new ones with you to see what they can do. it doesn't always go smoothly and he loves getting to laugh with you about it. you probably have an entire chest for both your pleasure and his.

joshua

scratching (receiving) - i don't think joshua realized how much he liked having his back scratched up by you until he saw them in the mirror. just looking at the marks excites him and makes him want to go looking for you.

striptease (receiving) - joshua is the best audience of one when you give him a little show. he sits there with that little half smile, half smirk on his face and acts so casual. just humming in response to what you say and saying simple things like "oh really?" "is that right?" "wanna come sit in my lap, pretty girl/boy?"

car sex - ngl i think most of the time joshua just wants to have sex at home. alone. but sometimes when you look too good and the vibe is just right, he gets the urge to pull in somewhere empty enough and fuck you in the car. his adrenaline is always racing and he can't stop grinning about it for the rest of the day.

blindfolds (receiving) - on the rare occasion, joshua likes to be completely at your mercy. the way you touch him is heightened so much when he can't see it coming and it makes him a sensitive mess. literally feels like he's in heaven.

pet play (light) - i really need to emphasize the light here because a) joshua would not think he'd be into this on his own and b) he only dips his toe into it but fuck if he doesn't like that little bit. come to him naked with a collar and kitty ears on (bonus points for a tail!) and he's thanking all the gods for you. loves calling you kitten. loves the way you want to please him and be good for him.

junhui

oral sex (giving) - jun loves giving you the sloppiest head over omg. he has a job to do and he doesn't care what happens in the process as long as you're blessing him with your beautiful moans and rewarding him for his hard work with an orgasm. often goes down on you with no plans of anything else afterwards.

sexting - you cannot convince me there's a better sexter in the world than jun. bro makes you so fucking horny with just words on a screen. he doesn't need his voice, pictures, anything. he specifically loves initiating it when you're not at home because he's a menace (hot).

voyeurism - jun likes to attend sex parties/clubs with you and get yourselves riled up watching other people fuck. the need gets so strong just watching for so long without any physical stimulation that by the time you actually do have sex, it's intense and doesn't last long but the orgasms are always top tier.

exhibitionism - similarly, jun likes to be the show for other people. he's very much aware that he's a godlike specimen and so are you. why not gift others a once-in-a-lifetime experience that they'll surely never forget? this bleeds over into your normal daily life as well - he is not bothered if someone catches you two. quite the contrary.

dirty/messy/sloppy sex - yes, jun likes giving you sloppy head but he also just likes everything to be messy. he loves when you're both sweating all over each other, when you're drooling on each other, when he can see the cum leaking out of you. something about feeling dirty really does it for him. the messier the better.

soonyoung

kissing - listen, hoshi loves kissing. he could kiss you all day every day if time and you permitted. but like... he really loves it. if you just kiss him long enough, he's going to be so fucking horny he can't stand it. you don't have to touch him or even kiss him particularly intensely (though of course that helps).

rimming (receiving) - i will die on this hill. nothing will make hoshi whinier than being on all fours with your tongue working his hole. he's so loud and so happy oh my god.

temperature play - temperature play is just fun and what is hoshi if not a fun guy? he giggles a lot when your skin stutters from a drop of wax by his hand and he moans with stars in his eyes when you're dragging a cube of ice down his body with your mouth.

drunk sex - he's beyond grateful any time you amplify his already fantastic time by having playful, head empty sex with him. he gets so clingy when he drinks and he just needs you to remind him how much you love him and how special he is.

somnophilia (receiving) - this really only happens when you wake him up with head but it's one of his favorite things in the world. he falls into sub space immediately upon waking and fully trusts you to take care of him and make him feel good.

wonwoo

praise (receiving) - he likes to know he’s making you feel good. he’s confident in his abilities so he doesn’t necessarily need it, but a choked “you feel so good wonwoo” will have him buzzing. his ego likes that.

lingerie - just the idea that you put so much thought into dressing up for him makes him feel special and that does it for him. it helps that you look amazing in it too, of course.

scratching - mark his back up when he’s fucking you, please. it’s a reminder that he made you feel so good you were holding on for dear life and he cherishes every single one.

breeding - he’s familial and likes a bit of possessiveness in the bedroom. loves the idea of you being full of him. makes you feel even more like his. probably isn't actually trying to knock you up but if it happens, he's not sorry about it.

somnophilia - consensual of course. wake him up inside of you in any way and oh my god he could swear he’s in heaven. there are probably many middle-of-the-night sleepy fucks every year and he never wants them to stop. very gentle with you when he touches you awake he's so lovely.

jihoon

comfort sex - woozi almost doesn't even mind when things upset him anymore. you always take such good care of him when he's stressed or upset, making him cum to clear his head and relax. now when something gets him worked up, he's almost grateful because he knows he gets to go home and be treated like your precious pillow prince.

morning sex - similar to comfort sex, woozi uses morning sex as a way to get through life. he knows he's going to be busy and stressed pretty much every day but starting the day off inside you surely helps. he also thinks you look so beautiful when you first wake up. how is he meant to keep his hands to himself?

dry humping/clothed sex - woozi is more than happy to cum in his pants as long as you're cumming in yours too. sometimes it's just easier, but mostly he thinks it's hot because it feels like you're both too eager to have each other that you couldn't even take the time to get your clothes out of the way.

orgasm denial (receiving) - woozi knows how to run the show and assert himself. he likes to be viewed as capable and a leader, even if he doesn't always feel that way himself. but with you... he likes relinquishing all that control to you and letting you tell him what's what. denying his orgasm is peak control. he gets so frustrated and whiny but he wants you to keep doing it over and over.

oral sex (receiving) - there's just nothing like your warm, wet mouth. he doesn't have to do any of the work and reaps all the benefits. plus you look so hot taking care of him.

seokmin

dirty talk - dk is communicative. he likes to talk to you and listen to you, even during sex. he has plenty to say on his own, but listening to you talk dirty to him? omfg he's gonna cum rn.

body worship (giving) - you are the most perfect thing on planet earth and our darling dk is going to make sure you know that. he'll spend so much time kissing and praising every part of you that you'll simply have to agree with his assertion that there is nothing more beautiful than you.

make up sex - this absolute angel cannot stand fighting with you so he never lets it go on for long. he'll come find you, apologize profusely, and then kiss you until you're giving in to him, letting him show you just how sorry he is.

loud sex - the way dk looks at you with hearts in his eyes when you're moaning nice and loud for him should be a crime. it makes him feel good about himself to know that he's pleasing you well enough that you can't get a reign on your volume level. even if you could, he wouldn't want you to. only fucks you harder to see just how loud you can get with the biggest grin on his face.

hair pulling (receiving) - pulling dk's hair is a sign that he's doing something right and he wants more. it feels good too. he lets his head fall back into your hand with the most blissful moan.

mingyu

size kink - is anyone surprised to see this here? me neither. mingyu just loves the way you gawk at his large body and can't seem to keep your hands off of it. his ego swells every time. he also loves how tiny you look crying out his name underneath him.

praise/degradation - he loves both, okay? he wants to be the best, most beautiful and perfect boy in the world for you but he also wants to be your pathetic little toy. he likes to be objectified when you degrade him - he's not into being sissified or anything like that. just remind him that he's for you to use and that he should consider himself grateful, that kind of thing. he'll even let you slap him around a bit. as for praise, just give it all to him. he eats it all up.

choking - mingyu is happy to be on either end of this one. he never wants to participate to the point of either of you losing consciousness, but he thinks the display of power is sexy.

semi-public sex - mingyu doesn't want to actually be caught fucking you, but he likes the adrenaline that the possibility creates. he especially likes it when you're the one that's needy for him and he "gets" to sneak you off into a closet or bathroom somewhere to take care of you. "can't wait until we get home, hmm? tsk tsk you're lucky i'm such a good boyfriend"

teasing - another one he's happy to be on either end of. he loves to tease you and he loves it when you tease him. that feeling of being head empty only each other during the middle of the fucking day no less is intoxicating. he could live in that state of limbo forever. the actual sex is great of course, but the foreplay of teasing might just be better.

minghao

lingerie - this is especially his thing when he gets to pick out your little outfit. he loves playing dress up with you and then fucking you stupid in it.

spit kink (giving) - no way in hell would he admit this to another soul, but he likes to spit in your mouth. he thinks it's nasty, but that's the point. you're so willing to please him that you'd let him spit in your mouth? my fucking god.

finger sucking (giving) - think of anything you can do that proves you're wrapped around minghao's fingers and you can bet he's into it. loves making eye contact with you while you suck your juices from his fingers. "you just do anything i want, don't you?"

dumbification (giving) - here we have yet another degradation kink of minghao's. he absolutely loves when you're so cock drunk and fucked out that you're barely even there anymore. can't talk to him properly (if at all), just pathetic sounds of pleasure falling from your lips. makes sure to taunt you about it the entire time.

overstimulation - minghao is usually on the giving end of this. watching you shake and cry because he won't relent on pleasuring you plasters the most self-satisfied smirk on his face. but once in a blue moon, he lets you take the lead. and when he does, he wants to make the most of it. so don't let him off easy. make him cry.

seungkwan

handjobs - seungkwan loves blowjobs, don't misunderstand. but handjobs are special. he loves watching your hand around him and he likes that your mouth is free to talk to him. he loves to have a back and forth of flirtatious banter as if you're not literally going to make him cum any second as it is.

cockwarming - seungkwan likes to pretend that he can be all cool about this. he likes to think that he can feel you wrapped tightly around him and be perfectly content with just that. sometimes he's right, especially when he's sleepy enough. but other times it's just a guise he uses instead of just admitting that he wants sex. those times, he holds out for as long as he can, but once he gives up, he fucks you harder than usual. he likes the challenge.

roleplay - he only likes a very specific type of roleplay: when you pretend you're strangers meeting somewhere and seduce each other. seungkwan is all about banter (as evidenced by kink #1) so this gets him going.

fingering (giving) - making you cum with only his fingers is a favorite pastime of seungkwan's. he especially likes doing this in the mornings when you're pretty and needy.

perfume/cologne - seungkwan just can't help himself when you're wearing a nice fragrance and he gets a whiff. all he can think about is burying his face into your neck to drown in it while he fucks into you.

vernon

face-fucking - vernon loves when you let him take control of your mouth on him. he loves to fuck himself into your throat if you can take it, but if that doesn't work for you, he'll take it nice and easy, just guiding you with his hand on the back of your head. always makes extra sure you're okay afterwards because he's the sweetest dude.

somnophilia - sometimes vernon wakes up in the middle of the night with an aching erection. those nights, he's grateful that you let him slip himself inside you even while you're sleeping. you're so good to him.

lazy sex - somno is usually pretty lazy, but vernon just loves lazy sex in general. it's nice when neither of you have to exert so much energy and can focus solely on how good it feels to be full of each other.

mutual masturbation - this is usually accompanied by watching porn together. you'll both sit up against the headboard, eyes glued to the screen as you touch yourselves. at some point along the way, your eyes drift to watching each other instead, kissing often and sometimes taking over for the other.

spanking (giving) - i think this is a repressed kink of vernon's lmao. like he'll usually spank you as a "joke," but when he hears the way you yelp - or worse, moan - in response, he's in trouble.

chan

sex toys - finding new ways to make you cum is so fun for dino. he memorizes the way each toy makes you respond and uses that information for good evil. he has no interest in using them for himself, but he loves looking up at you while he fucks you with one of your toys. you look perfect to him like that.

dirty talk - i'm convinced dino has a filthy mouth omg. like he just gets so cocky when you're having sex that he starts saying any and everything he can think of, no matter how crazy it'd sound to him when he's thinking straight.

wall sex - if there's one thing dino's gonna do it's try to show off to you. and holding you up against the wall while he absolutely ruins you is one of many ways he likes to do that. he feels so fucking powerful that he can't help but go harder on you.

thigh riding - dino is quite confident when it comes to his muscles. in the name of peacocking to you, he likes to make you cum on his thigh. sometimes he'll guide you, doing all the work just to show you all he needs is his thigh to make you feel good. other times, he'll sit back and make you do all the work. proves the same point after all, doesn't it?

jealous sex - dino is yours and you are his. any time either of you feels jealous because of someone else, dino think it's high time you remind yourselves. by fucking, of course.

#th: svt #seventeen smut #seventeen kinks #kpop smut #kpop kinks

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