#171928

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" There’s a long pause and then Drai comes up next to him. “Lauren said she sent the invite.”

“Yeah, no, I got it.” Drai says nothing about the admission, nothing about the fact that Dylan never RSVP’d—and that Drai definitely would have known that anyway. "

Something I wondered, rereading 171928: how much did Lauren need someone to talk to, to be telling Leon about inviting a guy she barely knows and assumes Leon doesn't? You gave us a couple hints about how Lauren feels about Connor and Dylan at the end, but I'd love the director's commentary about what she knows and how she feels about it (esp when she has a lifetime of double dates and group vacations to look forward to)

sorry I had to recover from a busy weekend :)

Lauren’s parts were something I had a vague idea in my head about and put hints toward but they weren’t exactly solid, sort of an open door for me to play with if I ever wanted to come back to it (like I am now with Leon’s pov). There’s a decent amount of her in Leon’s fic because I wanted them to have a strong relationship, but I’m still blocking a lot of it out so I might not have a clear answer for you

That one Connor/Giroux “wip” I mentioned does have a Lauren scene in it where they talk about marriage for the first time and it’s a bit of a coming out moment for him. He doesn’t directly name Dylan, but she asks enough leading questions to put together the mcstrome part

The whole edm polycule is together when Connor and Lauren are organizing wedding invites and Dylan’s name comes up (dw it’s a scene in Leon’s fic). Both Connor and Leon are weird about it, Lauren notices. Leon’s also weird at the wedding when Dylan obviously doesn’t show. Lauren guesses.

Note: She and Celeste are aware of Leon’s self-destructive fuckboy thing. They don’t know about the winners rooms.

Leon and Lauren butt heads a lot because they’re both headstrong, but they’re very protective of each other. When Leon goes to Washington, Lauren’s the one who pretty much covers for him until she can’t (this is one of the reasons he and Connor are arguing). She doesn’t really have an opinion on Dylan yet except for maybe wariness, curiosity. It’s not until Leon comes back a mess that it sort of sours.

It doesn’t stay that way, Connor does a lot of advocating on Dylan’s behalf. But I don’t want to say too much because I’ve barely gotten to the back half of Leon’s fic and I don’t want to commit too much yet.

In general, I think originally she was sympathetic to Dylan’s jealousy of her and Connor, but it largely went away after Leon got hurt. I think the second they all meet and Lauren gets Dylan alone, he gets dealt the shovel talk of the century and doesn’t get the chance to defend himself at all. They’re definitely a little petty, a little cold to each other at first. She probably pulls Leon aside when they get to Spain and asks him why he brought Dylan to their place (the polycule’s) and Leon has to defend his and Dylan’s relationship for the first time. I imagine Lauren and Dylan can be possessive in similar ways.

It’s a bumpy road and probably takes a few “are you over him or not’s” on Leon’s end to get Dylan in line

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I change my mind, there’s no way stromer hasn’t hit that (drai)

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"always a bridesmaid, never a bride..." i can't stop thinking about 171928 leon hearing this ngl

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*kicking rocks at connor* in 171928 why doesnt he text when dylan gets traded to the hawks? :(( also dylans a better person than me i fear i could nawt have forgiven davo LOL

You know when you just put something off and keep putting it off and forgetting, and by the time you remember it’d just be too uncomfortable to say anything about it so you don’t? The man was busy…

I think whenever other people asked him about it, he said the right things and told the truth—that he was so happy for Dylan and over the moon, but he just forgot to tell Dylan that.

Dylan’s a better person than me because I would have forgiven Davo from the beginning and been making myself miserable and absolutely killing vibes at his wedding

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omg Claude/connormcd fic?? Never heard that before… can you say something more about them???

I spoil you 

They have a really complex and antagonistic relationship where Connor really does admire and look up to G as a player and on career level, but there’s the trauma of the first room and the reality of how G sees him. Claude picked Connor because he was a pest and because he knew it’d piss Sid off, because Connor was “off limits” then, and he would have been especially off limits to Claude (I’m so weak for cheesby if you can’t tell). It’s only after this that Claude realizes how special Connor really is, and they kind of trauma-bond. 

It’s not a relationship and it’s not steady, but there’s a certain expectation from G to Connor of “when I call, you come.”

When Dylan says—

He can’t see it, what Draisaitl was saying, what everyone else sees when they look at Connor—like he’s a trophy, the Cup given blood, life. Like if they got a taste of him, it’d bring them the real thing, if they broke him, it’d mean they could touch it. 

—it’s sort of G’s point of view eventually. Connor’s sort of his consolation prize in everything—almost above Sid. When Connor goes to him when he doesn’t know what to do about his contract, at this point in his career, Claude knows he not going to win a Cup, so Connor’s like, his next best thing. Connor goes to him for advice for this exact reason—because G likes that Connor’s the best and he likes that he’s sort of broken him. Winning a Cup will make him even better. (Dylan makes a few comments on Connor’s pride. Claude is a strong source of that.)

They do have a weird soft spot for each other. It’s all very blurry and complicated and toxic. There’s a very deep underlying “storyline” that’s sort of about the violence of “almost” Claude is perpetuating here, and in the wip I actually opened it with Connor taking a room with Macklin, who Connor is fixated on (loosely touched on in Leon pov), in a similar way G fixates on Connor (slightly less possessive/toxic and more “if I’m in my twilight years, you’re the next Me and I have to make sure you’re Good Enough”)

Anyway, a lot of the wip was written when I couldn’t figure out if Connor was going to stay or leave, and a lot of the dialogue is Claude asking him exactly that. It turned into something more about the cycle of trauma, and being just barely not good enough but having something/one no one else does. 👀

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I’ve been rereading the fic because obviously, and english is not my first language so sometimes it takes me a bit to get subtext(? anyways I just realized what ‘Connor’s been watching him (Bowie)’ probably meant plus knowing all the things I know now. does connor know about mitch? cause that’s what I figured was going on… also I wonder if dylan will ever know about Mitch. I really love 171928 and I cannot stop reading or wondering a lot about it!

Connor does know about Mitch, yes. He doesn't find out until Leon comes clean about everything after the huge summer fight.

Mitch knows Leon is bi, and knows that he's having fucked up sex in and out of the rooms, and knows that he's messing around with another player. He doesn't know that it's Dylan until Dylan visits him in Vegas.

Dylan probably finds out about Mitch pretty quickly after the story ends, once the pieces are all in front of him and he has time to think about it. It's another thing I almost wrote in—the scene where Leon lists all the people who know about him but chooses to leave out Mitch— but I didn't think Leon was ready to tell him. So Dylan will have to either realize on his own or Leon will have to tell him.

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this is going to be such a cornplating question but once it got inside my head i had to ask it, i think you might not even have thought about it bc is no really important but, we know what leon has for connor’s contact picture, does he have one for dylan? and what would it be? also the question applies for dylan and if he has one for leon. I figured that it’s not important enough for you to have thought about it before but i would like to know what you think it’d be

oooh that’s a good question! and yeah i’ve never thought about it lol

my first thought was maybe one of the sunsets they traded, or a picture of bowie (dylan’s for leon). i’m not sure how subtle they’d be lol

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to no one’s surprise I’m rereading 171928 again and as a stromarner #enjoyer, when connor says in the last chapter “I know your jealous face… you used to do it to marns all the time.” what exactly does that mean? is one of these sentences that confuses me a lot as a non english speaker bc for me it could be that he is jealous of marns being close to connor which would make the most sense but still wanted to make sure a bit bc of the narratives this creates… like even if there wasn’t anything between marns and connor to be jealous about there’s a feeling there that lingers also bc if mitch was sleeping with leon is like oh, same guy again, and the history between them. sorry for my rambling but your fic just always leaves me thinking and feeling a lot.

I wrote it just to mean that Dylan’s always been a bit of a jealous and territorial person when it comes to Connor’s attention—even when it comes to their mutual friends. The same way Connor was telling Leon “I had him (Dylan) first,” when they were arguing before Dylan interrupted them, Dylan was also the kind of guy who would say stuff like that.

Also, a lot of the jealousy from Dylan as kids came from him not really understanding that Connor is aromantic. So observing Connor’s other relationships and jumping to conclusions about them—not knowing that Connor himself doesn’t even know that he’s aromantic, and was/is largely just doing what feels good and comfortable.

It has been sooo tempting to turn leonmitch sleeping together into a thing, but I assure you they have not and will not, I’m not that evil I promise