hey what if we were explorers on a different planet and our resources were running low and there was trouble and i decided the best course of action was to sacrifice myself to try and save you . and we were brothers
black cat... if[when] quinn shifts back into a human what cat-like tendencies he mostly has... and if you have any thoughts on the ellen side of it [if she acknowledges his return, the mental state she's in after it, etc...]
and white knight... did u have any mood boards or visuals for the ship/quarters... or any other tidbits u want to give heh...
post transformation tendencies:
random daytime naps and extreme insomnia
enjoys tuna a LOT more than he did pre-transformation. also eats it in a distinctly catlike manner.
gestures and body language that are like. technically not weird but somehow weird? like he scratches his ear like a cat, not a human, but it sounds insane to say that out loud so no one's gonna try. there's definitely something unsettling about him just in general.
and ellen definitely acknowledges his return if/when they get him turned back into a human, she like... snaps back into action but it's very brittle, like she's acting like her old self but she's obviously not that person anymore, and there's this vaguely panicked, manic edge to it. like she's trying to smooth it over and organize the pr aspect and ease quinn back into a "normal" life, but she desperately needs everything to be completely fine or she'll snap at any moment. jack kinda avoids it because he's got his own shit & quinn doesn't really notice because he has more pressing matters, but luke definitely does and it's just another weird vibe he's forced to grit his teeth and bear alone...
re: white knight, i didn't have a moodboard or anything but this was the main visual inspiration for sunspot! its so crazy that the head shape literally looks like petey lol like how did a random tumblr artist back in 2013 somehow know that i was gonna need this exact visual inspo... and for the whole series i was imagining the aesthetics / vibe of alien - you can see it shown pretty well here & here! obviously the plot is completely different but i wanted that feeling of isolation and like... people clocking in to their shitty fucking jobs in space, worrying about their paycheques, getting annoyed by maintenance checks, etc. i don't think i got the second part as much but it was still good to have something to work off of while i was writing!
would love to hear more tidbits about "I'm glad you're still alive" series!!
since the assaulter was still in a way associated to hockey, does quinn ever come across him ever? does she tell other people about what happened other than jack/petey, especially luke? does she ever have a fight with her dad? what does quinn's and nico's relationship end up becoming, does she get more comfortable around him?
i think it's very vaguely hinted in the story, but the guy didn't go past college hockey, so she isn't really worried about seeing him again! honestly re: telling her parents i had multiple scenes written but couldn't decide on the vibe. i don't think she'd ever tell her dad but i do think she might try to tell her mom, and i think she'd really regret the attempt, like this universe's ellen wouldn't be bad about it, exactly, but quinn really struggles to express (or even understand) what she needs from other people, so she'd probably go into the conversation thinking that it was important to be honest and come clean, only to realize halfway through that she actually didn't need to do that and is now subjecting herself to a line of questioning that she is not at all equipped to handle. i did write an attempt back when i was originally working on the series and never posted it, but just shared it in another ask here!
i'd love to write in her telling luke but i'm honestly not sure she would... it's not written at all but i did imagine ellen's boy mom (derogatory) tendencies migrating to this universe as well, like there's always been a divide between luke & "the girls" and quinn kind of never even noticed, maybe still hasn't figured it out. jack absolutely has, or has at least developed resentment towards their parents, but quinn still looks up to them and wants them to approve of her, which is why it's so difficult for her to open up about what happened. and luke kinda ties into that because like. he's the baby and he's the boy and in this universe he's got more attention because of that. like quinn loves him but she loves him as the baby brother her mom expected her to take care of. like she and jack were absolutely mothering him from an extremely young age, and they were getting trained to put his comfort above their own needs and desire. and again, quinn internalized that in a way jack didn't as much. so how could she ever tell him about this...
& re: nico, i think what makes her ease up on her discomfort is not the way he treats jack but the way he treats quinn herself, that he knows everything but isn't weird about it, & most importantly that he keeps her secret. and nico's obviously trying really hard, and because he's doing most of the work it makes it easy for her to just follow along, until eventually the residual awkwardness is mostly just that she's embarrassed he saw all of that.
also sorry I got ahead of myself and forgot to put a question in the last ask, but I would love to know anything about the I'm glad you're still alive series, something you always wanted to talk about but never got the chance to or even just some random facts etc!!
i kind of rambled in the previous reply so here i'll just give you an outtake of quinn trying to talk to ellen after the first instalment in the series! i realized after starting that i had no idea where it was going so it's just been kinda sitting in my drafts for months... i must set her free...
untitled i'm really glad you're still alive thing (3k):
"Everything okay?" Ellen asks as she eases the car out of the driveway, pausing to take in Quinn's appearance before she focuses back on the road. Not much to take in, honestly. Quinn hadn't even bothered washing her hair.
It's just the two of them, for once. Jim's still back in the house, waiting for them to come back with coffee and Jack and Luke are out in Jersey, getting their place before they leave for the summer. Quinn and their parents will fly out to meet them in the afternoon, a women in sports event in New York that Quinn's been dreading for months now.
Maybe that's what her mother can sense, somehow, looking at her, although Quinn had thought she was doing a pretty good job of hiding it. She talked to her therapist before she left, even squeezed in an emergency session from her room at her parents' house, speaking low and quiet so they wouldn't hear, and she's, like, resigned to the reality of it, at least. Trying not to let it grow into something it isn't, not when her bad mood will threaten to ruin the already precarious mood of the trip.
It's mostly been nice spending time with just her parents, like a little pitstop before the big family reunion, but there's pressure, too. This is the most time Quinn's spent alone with them since everything that happened last year, and she knows they've been watching her much more carefully than usual, waiting for any sign that she's going to break Their concern is personal but also professional, and it's fucked up, maybe, that Quinn finds that part strangely comforting.
"Just tired," she tries, now, snuggling deeper into her hoodie. "Looking forward to coffee."
They're going to Quinn's favourite place, since it's her last day. She's not really a coffee person, strict about her diet and a baby about the taste, but their cold brew is insane.
"Just that?"
Quinn takes in a deep breath, trying to decide if this is the moment. Her brain is screaming at her that it's not, but she honestly can't tell if it's a rational objection or just cowardice.
"You've been doing so much better, these days," her mother continues, oblivious, as she flicks on her indicator to switch into the turn lane. "I know you don't like talking about it, but — we were just so worried last year, baby. Whatever was going on, I'd hate to see you backslide."
Quinn grimaces. She's been talking about it a lot with her therapist lately — like, being honest with her parents. Whether it's really even worth it. She told Jack mostly everything, their first night back at the lake, wine-drunk on a bottle Josh's mom had given them, her head buried in Jack's stomach practically the whole time. She thought it would feel good to get it all out — like, cleansing, or whatever — but honestly, what really felt good was throwing up practically everything in her system the next morning, like she was finally getting it out for real, like, physically.
Pretty much no one else, though. Nico knows more than she's comfortable with, but he's obviously not gonna, like. Ask. Petey's never pushed for more than what she shared with him. He barely even acknowledges he remembers it, except for the way he looks at her in the locker room, sometimes, meeting her eyes when one of the guys says something that cuts a little too close to the line. Alert, ready to jump in. Willing to make himself uncomfortable, just so it doesn't have to be her.
She hasn't even tried, with her family, even though she talks to at least one of them every day, and now that she's doing better it feels more and more like she's hiding something for real, like she's lying to them on purpose. There's no one else in her life who really needs to know. It was one shitty thing that happened. It isn't anyone else's business, now that Quinn's done flatlining over it.
But her parents….
"Um," she says intelligently, coughing into her fist. It's not a great start. Ellen's eyes dart over to hers, eyebrows slightly raised, because she knows Quinn well enough to wait a minute to let her finish, knows even when she really wants to say something she can never spit it out right away.
Fuck. Quinn can't fucking do this. She wishes Jack were here to elbow her, maybe call her a pussy, have Ellen sighing at her to watch her language and Jack rolling her eyes in response.
"Just, like," Quinn starts, fingers tapping nervously against her knee. "Um. I started seeing a therapist, actually. A few months ago. She's been helping me a lot."
Well. That's as good a start as any, she guesses. It's true, at least. It's an opening.
Ellen blinks at the revelation, clearly not expecting it. She probably thought Quinn was going to say something about Brady.
"I thought you were already seeing someone," she says, a silent question that she doesn't bother waiting for Quinn to answer, this time. "Did you switch?"
"No." Quinn takes a deep breath, lets it out through her nose. She doesn't really want to do this at all, ever, but it's better here in the car instead of back at the house, where her dad might overhear. "No, like. Jack helped me find another one. She works with, um. She specializes in. Like. Trauma recovery, or whatever."
The car jerks as Ellen leadfoots the gas, just for a split-second, before she realizes what she's doing, gets herself under control. Quinn stares straight ahead and tries to pretend she didn't notice the slip.
"Trauma recovery? Quinn, honey, what does that mean?"
Quinn can't fucking do this.
"Um."
God. She sounds so fucking stupid. She's her team's captain, for fuck's sake. She's supposed to be able to talk about things, even when it's hard. She coughs, her throat unbearably dry all of a sudden, and doesn't say a single thing.
It's a short drive to the coffee shop. She didn't bring a water bottle with her.
Ellen takes another glance over at her, makes a sound in the back of her throat, and then flicks the indicator again, sharp and decisive, making a right the first chance she gets. She pulls into a spot in front of a FedEx, puts the car in park, and takes a deep breath. The car is totally silent.
"Quinn," she says, finally, voice very deliberately flat. "Did something happen?"
"It was a long time ago," Quinn mutters, still staring straight ahead, like there's anything to fucking see. It's a Sunday; the FedEx isn't even open. She feels about fourteen years old. "I guess I just needed to, like. Talk it out, or whatever. Rewire my brain, kinda."
"What was a long time ago? How long?"
Quinn takes in another deep, slow breath. She thinks about the lake, how cold the water felt in early June, the way it had weighed her clothes down. It had been so hard to make herself wade back to shore.
"Like, college," she answers, finally, looking through the FedEx window again, eyes fixed on the envelope display. "It happened in college."
What happened, is the obvious next question, but Ellen falters, unable to ask it.
"Rachel said it's normal," Quinn says into the silence. She feels so fucking stupid, talking in circles about this, but if she stops speaking Ellen might work up the courage to ask for real, and that would be way worse. "My therapist, I mean. She said sometimes when stuff like this happens people go, like, decades before they can talk about it."
Her mother makes another small, hurt sound.
"But I'm doing a lot better," Quinn hurries to reassure her. "Just, like, with Jack, when she told me about Nico, I guess I got really freaked out. Like it made me think about it a lot, and then it started — I dunno. I can't remember what Rachel called it. But, like, the signals got all messed up, like, in my brain. I kept having all these weird panic attacks and stuff."
"Baby."
"There's, like, exercises you can do," Quinn tells her. "To like, train your mind to stop freaking out about it. I'm feeling way better now, I swear."
"What do you mean, exercises?" Ellen asks faintly, obviously overwhelmed.
"Like, with your eyes, to help — I don't really know how it works. Rachel explained it better." Quinn winces at the gobsmacked expression on her mother's face, and goes back to looking at the envelopes instead. "I really am okay, I promise. I just — I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't brought it up, I don't — "
"You can tell me anything," Ellen says quickly. Quinn isn't really sure she even thinks before she says it, or if it's just her default response. There's no reason for tears to prick at the corner of Quinn's eyes, hearing those words out of her mother's mouth. "You know that, honey. Anything."
Quinn sniffs, hard, and nods. She wishes they'd waited to have this conversation after she'd gotten her fucking coffee. She wishes they weren't having it all, kind of, but also —
"I didn't lie on purpose," she says, almost a whisper. "Like. I just — I just didn't know how to tell you."
"I'm not angry," Ellen tells her, voice just as soft. "I promise, honey. I'm not. You can — will you tell me the rest of it? So I can know?"
Quinn shrugs. She doesn't know if she can. She's worked really hard, with Rachel. Her body doesn't have the same fucked up responses anymore, and even if it does, she knows how to calm herself down. But it still doesn't feel good.
"It was stupid," she manages, finally. "Just — in college. I was at a party, I got too drunk. I shouldn't have — I was so stupid. I thought it was safe."
The silence in the car feels like it has physical weight. Quinn sniffs again, harder this time, knowing Ellen will hate it if she wipes her nose with her sleeve. Ellen reaches across her to dig a mini-pack of Kleenex out of the glove compartment before she can try anyway, hands it over in silence. Quinn murmurs a quiet thanks.
"I just felt so dumb," she admits, scrubbing at her nose until it stings. "That shit happens all the time, right? I felt so stupid that I couldn't just forget about it. Like, why was I letting it control my entire life?"
"Quinn, honey," Ellen starts, but Quinn shakes her head.
"I know," she mutters, staring down at her own knees. "I talked to Rachel, like, a lot. She explained it to me, you don't have to — I know why. I don't need you to tell me."
"Maybe I want to."
Quinn's mouth twists before she can stop it.
"I always worried so much about Jack," Ellen says softly. "She's so sensitive, you know, and she's always been — well. You know how she is. I was so worried she'd get herself into trouble, or that she'd say something she couldn't take back."
Quinn snorts, scrubs harder at her nose.
"But you were always so careful," Ellen continues, and Quinn's faint smile drops from her face. "So quiet. Jack complained about everything, but you never did. I should have known…."
"You couldn't have known anything," Quinn interrupts, because that's the exact train of thought she spent months — years, even — spiraling out over, and she isn't going to let her mother start now. "It was just — something bad that happened. There wasn't anything you could have done."
Ellen breathes in sharp through her nose, grip tightening on the wheel. Quinn hesitates, then reaches for her hand, awkwardly trying to peel her fingers free. It feels a little weird, just sitting there holding her mother's hand, trying to pretend she doesn't notice Ellen's crying, but Quinn doesn't let go.
"I'm guessing you didn't report it," Ellen says, finally. Quinn shakes her head.
"I was — I don't know." She doesn't particularly like to remember it, definitely doesn't want to get into any detail. "I just wanted to pretend it didn't happen."
She wonders if her mother is ashamed of her. If she thinks Quinn should have toughed that out, too. Quinn watches her face closely, eyes on the tense set of her mouth, but it's impossible to tell.
"Is being home making it worse?"
"What?"
"Do you not feel comfortable here?"
Quinn shakes her head immediately, before she's even really had time to think through whether or not it's actually true.
"You'll tell me, though?" Ellen pushes. "If there's something we can do?"
Quinn doesn't think there's anything either of her parents can do, at this point. The realization makes her feel weird, and kind of cold. Like she's grown up for real, finally crossed over a line she didn't even know existed. She has to do this all on her own.
No, not on her own. She has Jack, and Brady. Petey, back in Van.
She chews at her lip, picking at the tissue where she's still got it clenched in one fist, shredding at it until little flecks start to cover her sweatpants.
"I guess I'm just kinda dreading tomorrow," she says hesitantly, not looking Ellen in the eye. She doesn't want to feel her disappointment, which is stupid, because didn't Ellen just say Quinn could tell her anything? "Like, the whole women in sports thing. I don't really think…."
"You don't think what, honey?"
"Like. It just feels weird, I don't know. I talked about it with Rachel, and she said I need to, like, reframe it, but I just…."
"Reframe it how?"
Quinn can't tell if her mother's honestly trying to understand, or if she's doing the same thing Rachel does during their appointments — asking careful, pointed questions, leading Quinn towards the conclusions she can somehow never find on her own.
"Like, thinking about it in a positive way," Quinn says carefully. "It's good, right? To be successful."
"Yes," Ellen agrees, voice also careful. Quinn can feel her staring, the force of her gaze practically burning the side of her face.
"It just doesn't feel right," Quinn blurts out, unable to keep it up. "Like, how can I be encouraging other girls to follow my example, when…."
It's the strangest fucking feeling, like she herself didn't even know that was how she felt, not until the second she hears the words coming out of her own mouth. She's sat through however many appointments with Rachel, in-person sessions and Zoom meetings and frantic phone calls, and still she's never articulated the thought until now.
"Like, I don't know. It's not like I've had a blast, you know? It feels so fucking hypocritical, getting out there and pretending to be an inspiration, telling girls they should want to join the league too, play just like the boys, when, like…."
She can't finish that sentence. A glance over at her mother says she doesn't have to.
"Baby."
"It's fine," Quinn says, closing her eyes for a moment. She breathes carefully through her nose, just like Rachel taught her, until the brief spasm of nausea passes. "I'm just being dramatic. I know that."
"You're not."
Quinn glances over again, skeptical this time.
"You're not," Ellen insists. "Honey, that's — all of that sounds perfectly reasonable to me."
Weirdly, that isn't what Quinn wanted her to say. She wanted her mother to tell her to snap out of it, to get over herself. To straighten her shoulders and get out there and lie. She really thought that's what Ellen would say.
What that says about Quinn, she has no idea. Her next appointment with Rachel isn't until next week.
"You know, your father always seemed so sure of himself," Ellen says after a moment, when it's clear Quinn has nothing else to say. "Pushing you girls towards the NHL. And I wanted it, too, honey. I'm not going to deny that. It seemed like such a huge move. Both of my baby girls… I never could have imagined that for myself. It felt like a dream, almost."
Quinn nods, shaky. She doesn't really have anything to say to that.
"I guess this is what every mother is afraid of," Ellen says, with a tight smile. "Making a decision and realizing it was the wrong one. Thinking maybe someone else would have done a better job, or maybe — "
"No," Quinn says quickly, a weird sense of panic overtaking her at the thought. Quinn's good at hockey, okay at other stuff. She thinks she's a decent captain, and a pretty good sister, but she has to try really hard at both. She's never been as sure of herself as her mother is, and she's always felt most comfortable around that certainty. "I don't want someone else."
"When you and Jack were little, when we first started teaching you guys to skate, I remember… God. I'd forgotten all about this until now. I told your dad he couldn't go easy on you two, just because you were girls. I told him he had to push you just as hard."
"Mom."
Quinn watches, horrified, as her mother covers her face with her palms and breathes, slow and deep. Unlike Quinn, she actually bothered with mascara this morning. She's going to fuck it all up like that.
"Mom," she says again, urgent. "It's fine."
"No, it's not, honey."
"No, stop, that's not… I don't ever — that was the whole reason I kept quiet about it, like, I was so scared if I said anything, I wouldn't be allowed to keep playing. So don't tell me that it wasn't worth it."
Ellen falls silent, eyes wide and shocked. It's funny, Quinn thinks, a little hysterically. She was so scared her mother would look at her differently once she learned the truth, but it's only now that Ellen's staring like she doesn't recognize her.
"What?" Quinn mumbles, suddenly embarrassed. "You can't be that surprised, right? I've always…."
She's always wanted to play. She and Jack were vicious when they were young, both desperate to beat the other, Quinn refusing to listen even when her parents asked her to play nice with her sister. Why would she ever do that, when she could be playing to win instead?
"I'm not surprised," Ellen insists, which Quinn's pretty sure is a lie. "I'm just… I'm really proud of you, baby. You know that, right?"
"Yeah," Quinn says, not sure it matters if she agrees or not. There's a beat of silence. She coughs, scratches at her knee. "We should get that coffee, though. Dad's gonna wonder where we are."
Ellen takes a slow, careful breath before putting the car back in drive, one hand coming up to cup the back of Quinn's head, quick, before she rests it on her seat to twist and check behind them. When they were kids she'd never start the car until everyone had their seatbelt buckled.
hiiii, can I just say I absolutely love all your works but especially "I'm glad you're still alive" series......like seriously that rewired my brain so thoroughly, I think of it very often!!
i absolutely love when it's someone that thinks things in a particular way and thinks that it's normal to think that way because of something that happened to them and are like, oh wow other people must also function that way surely and then one day it just hits them that no that's absolutely not fucking normal
I love that it's just quinn trying to figure out how to function normally, to not give anything away, her whole line of thinking that if I ever let my guard down it'll be my fault just like dad said it is and despite her trying her best to not let the bad thing that happened define her actions, defines it anyways because she is forever changed and affected by it, even if she doesn't want to admit it!!
and god the absolute loneliness of it all, of carrying it for so long that even jack can't tell when she changed so much from who she was before and after that thing that happened, that it took nico of all people to figure things out and piece it together!!! and that petey is the one she talks to!! and despite being so fucked up she still has so many people in her corner who love her and would do anything for her even if she doesn't always see it that way!! and that both jack and quinn don't know what to say but it's ok they'll figure out their way because they always do!! and the way you've portrayed brady, like that changed the way I think of him (for the better) and she was so perfect for this quinn
this made me bawl so much lol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i think the loneliness was what really hit me the most while i was writing, like in general when i write any fic w quinn that's always an aspect, just because i think there's a sense of loneliness inherent to people who struggle socially or don't connect well with others. and the main people quinn connects with are jack and luke, so in this fic, to have the relationship with jack strained pretty much leaves her alone. also the aspect of jack being prettier and more social and a better player... quinn doesn't hold any of that against her (like in general, obviously she has moments) but it's the obvious reason for her behaviour, it's what anyone (including jack herself) will think is what's going on. like honestly jack probably says something to that extent to nico lmfao and nico maybe believes it at first but like. at the lake house when he accidentally wakes her up he sees that she's genuinely terrified by him, specifically, and i think after that his mind is changed, even if he's careful about easing jack into the idea.
and YES re: events that change us forever, it's really hard especially when writing about this topic specifically, because i don't want to communicate the sense of like... being ruined, or anything along those lines. but i think people flinch from the reality and even if i can't dig into it perfectly, it's challenging for me as a writer to make the attempt. quinn is trying SO fucking hard to be "normal" but normal for her has changed forever. and accepting that will make it so much easier to live her life, but it's a hard lesson to learn, especially when she's forcing herself into isolation like this. but she crawls her way out!!! there are people who love her and want to help her, and that's what i wanted to show the most.
Question game, calling upon the Overripe Universe!!! First off I’d love to hear any tidbits of lore that you feel like sharing! Would love the behind the scenes of what the other Hugheses are thinking, and what Nico and the team think about Jack before/after the … event…
ok luke's thinking oh my god my brother's gonna die. and then jack comes back from getting fucked for three days straight and is no its totally fine. doc said its normal it could happen to anyone. (it's not and it couldn't.) and obv luke does NOT believe him but jack is acting normal (honestly better than normal) so like wtf is he gonna do... he knows his brother and he knows what's gonna happen if he pushes. i do think jack and nico can kind of hide what's going on from the team for a while by using patches all the time so they don't smell like each other but there's no way luke doesn't at least suspect. but again. jack's not talking about it and he can't snitch to their parents bc also there is the aspect that luke's been lying to their entire family on jack's request lol <3 so meanwhile ellen and jim are like. well that's unfortunate but as long as you're managing it and there are no longterm side effects... (they don't know jack continues sleeping w nico slash possibly don't even know he slept w him the first time, jack phrased it as "i had to go off medication and go through heat" and does not clarify that he didn't do so alone). and luke has to be like yeah no totally. eveyrthing's fine. and it's not like he WANTS to think about his older brother's sex life so he's mostly willing to go along until not yet when it's like. no you have to talk to me. i don't even care about your feelings because i feel fucking bad and need to address it.
re: q i don't even know. LMFAO. i think i mentioned earlier how there's this weirdness btwn him and jack bc theyre both jealous of each other but never will admit it, jack wishing he was like quinn and didn't have to worry about biological issues at all vs quinn wishing he was like jack and could be "normal" and have people want him normally. so unlike with luke there's weird baggage that's hard to navigate. but at the same time it's always been the two of them, they've always been a united front, and i don't think jack could keep the truth from him for long. also i think when they're home they don't patch or anything so they can always smell everything, so even if jack kept it a secret for that long, when they were home quinn would know just from smelling him that something had happened. abo logic doing the heavy lifting for me in a big way here...
as for the team i think both jack and nico were right, like yes the guys would probably think it was weird (or at least some of them would), but jack is like. their guy. and nico would back him up. and i think management etc is always gonna put jack first so he'd have that on his side. so as long as he went into it with the attitude that they could deal with it or get fucked, he could power through it. like definitely it would get weird as guys got traded or told their buddies and it kinda spread around more but at the same time. i do think in this universe like... there are other omegas playing in the league. it would eventually be something that people know but don't talk about. like maybe snide comments on the ice, but nothing that's like... typical bullshit they'd say even if they didn't know for sure. which honestly jack was already getting. so.
i hope you’re still answering fic questions! under skin is my favorite fic ever. i remember you answering someone on tumblr a while ago, saying that the behind-the-scenes is that nico has convinced himself that jack was groomed/abused by his dad/close coaches ? but really jack is just wrapped up in the quinn of it all, combined with nico acting a bit shifty. so my question is, in your head, do they ever actually have a conversation about this misunderstanding in its totality and how would that go??? i know jack got a bit of resolution when nico told him that his talks with timo were about work. anyway im just so curious for any more of what you’re imagining behind the scenes for them, in the present, past, or future lol!!!
oh it for sure comes up, maybe not for a while because nico's hesitant to ask about it outright and obviously jack's never going to do it first. but i think at some point nico makes a comment that makes it clear what he thinks happened and jack's like wait what. wtf. why would you say something like that...
tbh i don't really know how to write it in a way that wouldn't feel it was recycling things that people have written before, but if i could i'd absolutely add a coda of nico suggesting therapy and jack just outright being like well why would i need to do that. suddenly forgetting all the barfing and bad sex etc etc etc. he's fine. why would nico think that. and i think nico's (maybe vague) suggestion that something happened within his family, or that it happened to him, would be really realllyyyyyyy threatening to him, esp since it's been shown that his memory of back then is extremely spotty. like oh my god. what if someone DID touch him... what if it did happen to him... maybe it happened to him too and he just doesn't remember. anything could have happened. sometimes it feels like it did... sometimes when he remembers it he remembers it like he was quinn instead. so maybe nico's right... so that would be really destabilizing to him!!! and he is not a person who reacts well to being destabilized. as we know. so it wouldn't be a nice few days or few weeks or whatever but at the end maybe they'd have a real conversation... and wouldn't that be nice <3
I love the idea of OMCs in hrpf, and I loved ben in "right there if you want it", and also the whole petey kinda walking in on them flirting was great!!
do you think ben ever becomes anything more than just a one time hookup for quinn? does he ever find out that that quinn was quinn hughes? (I do love that quinn got traded to mnwild for this potential)
and does quinn ever come out to his family/friends on his own terms? how do they take it?
omg i also looooove omcs i love letting closeted guys have a nice somewhat normal time... it's enriching for them...
& i believe this so strongly that i actually started a sequel for right there if you want it lmfao but i kinda couldn't figure out the angle and what i wanted to happen, like i just couldn't think of enough material to pad out in between the scenes. but yes ben does figure out who quinn is! from the draft:
and then they have phone sex and then i couldn't really think of anything after that <3 but i do agree that the trade would be fun to tackle, like quinn going from having this kinda not serious phone thing that he's keeping hidden from everyone because what would be the point? it's not going anywhere? to showing up in wild and kinda tentatively letting people figure out that he does kinda have someone, maybe even before he lets his brothers figure it out, because it's easier when it's guys who don't really know him. and like it would be obvious what was going on bc if it were a gf he'd just tell them outright. idk. idk!!!! maybe some day i'll get in there and finish it...
Question about your process for your latest fic! It was so new to read a fic where it’s Nico in a SituationTM and Jack having to react to it; it’s usually all of us torturing Jack (as he should be tbh; nothing wrong with that). How was it to flip that part of the dynamic??? And how was it to write from the perspective of someone struggling with depression who is just losing hours of time here and there? You did such an amazing job of showing how lost Nico was, from his perspective, but without him quite realizing it for a while lol if that makes sense
omg i decided i wanted to flip the dynamic literally months ago but it was sooooo hard to find the right premise!!! i actually wanted to do a medical emergency (similar to holocene!) but i don't have enough knowledge about hospital stays to feel like i could do it justice... i LOVE reading fucked up medical shit (hospitalization, medical trauma, honestly just like. regular ass doctor's appointments) so much because it's something that's so easy to romanticize or focus on the feelings, but actually it's literally just about. your body. it's failing you or it's hurting you or there's something you need to do it. and i love fic that acknowledges all those things instead of just focusing on how it feels emotionally.
however i clearly did not do that LOL so i kinda floated along until i remembered this fic which is so superior to anything i could possibly write but gave me enough juice to at least have a premise... spent a lot of time researching psychological effects of working on an offshore rig (final result: Bad <3) and then kinda went with it from there. & i gotta be real here. i think writing people losing hours of time is kind of easier than writing stuff actually happening because you can just gloss over the parts you don't have details for... i was struggling a lot with how to balance nico's mental state and keep it believable, because like, I'M depressed, yes, but nico usually isn't. but then i thought about it a little more and like... i think someone who's never had any issues like that would actually be so much more freaked out by it? like i had intrusive thoughts and insane anxiety as a child so i had sooooo much practice with it. but this version of nico has never experienced anything like that, has never had his own brain turn on him, so he has no idea how to handle any of it. he thinks he just has to push through it and keep going and instead of helping that just keeps making it worse. yay !
comebackhome- after their fight in the kitchen while Nico goes outside what happens when Jack rejoins his family? Does he attempt to put on a front that everything’s fine even though everyone heard that whole thing or is he too rattled to even play at normality? And what does his family do/say to Jack after overhearing that??
i'm gonna be honest jack does not even bother to go back into that dining room LMFAO he goes straight to the living room to pretend to message people on his phone while deciding whether he's mad enough to ditch nico there and make him hitch a ride home with quinn or luke. his mom is the one to come in and say theyre gonna head to the neighbours' and give him and nico some space (the "to get your shit together" is implied). quinn possibly comes in to awkwardly talk to jack or possibly just kinda hovers and then goes out to the deck. luke is actually also still on the premises but has fucked off to the basement to play video games while avoiding the situation entirely. there's no food left at his apartment and honestly he's suffered through wayyyyyy worse vibes in that house. water off a duck's back baby........
Low ceiling, small room - does Nico ever dom Jack again? Does Jack keep picking up subs?
yes, after the end of the fic they enter an exciting new phase of their relationship where jack progresses to pretending to take subs home to save face but actually ditching them as soon as he's out of eyesight of his teammates, and then letting nico dom him later (for purely practical reasons) (obviously). he is in exquisite agony the entire time because he can't bring himself to admit he wants nico to get all over him and nico mostly keeps it either platonic or one-sided (gets jack off but doesn't make jack touch him) (mostly because jack refuses to properly articulate boundaries and he doesn't want either of them to regret it later) (he is literally gagging for it but ok king. sure). this lasts idk several months. maybe longer. until jack finally cracks and just asks for what he wants. and then nico gives it to him <3 isnt it so nice how some people get everything they want...
also four legs and a tail verse i wanna hear anything you’ve headcanoned about other players and their daemons……
ok being fully honest i didn't really think about it that much like if you gave me a specific player i could probably come up with one but i mostly stuck to the main players.
as previously discussed this is kirill:
brock:
& this is jesper!
and that's as far as i got lol. petey is a crow and he feels weird about it but will never everrrrrrr admit that. the indistinguishable brunet guys on the stars are both beagles. matt boldy is a canary. sidney crosby, canadian legend and icon, is obviously a loon.
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