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2022 Round 2: AUs
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Status: Closed
This round has closed. It remains open for fills, comments and remixes, but prompts are no longer accepted.
✧ Seventeen Holidays ✧
About
When you put the characters you love in a new world, you end up loving them even more. Sometimes it's about the aesthetic (dark academia). Sometimes it's about straining those ship dynamics to the extreme (Pacific Rim). Maybe life is hard and you need to exorcise something (unemployment/coporate slave AU). Or perhaps you are so in love with the world you want to see Seventeen in it. Shakespeare, My Hero Academia, RuPaul's Drag Race. No problem - just give some context so anyone can fill it. Examples
MinWon - Bittersweet
Ah yes, the ambiguous Bittersweet MV. I'm curious to see anyone's interpretation of those MinWon scenes.
Any / NCT AU
Remember how Seventeen was supposed to be subgroups divided across Korea, China and Japan? What if that happened and the members were split up, only to reunite once a year. Or if they promoted like NCT - thinking about the graduation angst of NCT Dream, the ridiculous schedules of SuperM. Who is Mark and over-employed. Who is Shotaro and stuck in the basement?
Wonhui X Link Click (Donghua)
Link Click is a show about two guys who run a photography studio and time travels to help their customers. Wonwoo knows every event within 12 hours of a photograph being taken and Junhui can time travel and possess the photographer for 12 hours to complete a mission. Wonwoo speaks in Junhui's mind and tells him what he needs to do - where to go, what to say, what will happen. There's a rule that Junhui can't change the past because it will change the future :') but Junhui wants to :'). Would love to see WonHui investigating another sebong's story, or an exploration of their contrasting attitudes to fate (resigned vs headstrong - roles can be reversed if you want).
Rules
How it works
Prompting
Filling
Remixing
Art/media
Note!
Have you considered trying for the 17hols hall of fame? The categories are: Exactly 400 Words, Year of the Tiger, Five of a Kind and the Rarest Pair. ▽ Click for More Info ▽Exactly 400 words: your fill is the absolute minimum word count. Well done you cold curt succinct savage. Year of the Tiger: in celebration of 2022, we will also celebrate anyone who supports this agenda (context: burn your ears). You must seamlessly incorporate a horanghae or wooahae or hahahahanihae (etc) in your fill. You can not regret it. Five of a Kind: You win this if you fill 5 prompts, and each fill is different in the same way. E.g. 5 different ships, 5 different AUs, 5 different mediums. You also win this by doing 5 remixes! The rarest pair: the fill with the rarest pairing at the end of the fest wins. This is based off the number of works in the ao3 tag. For simplicity, this will be the / tag and not &. (e.g. a “Wonwoo & Minghao” platonic fill will be counted by the “Wonwoo/Minghao” tag). The ship must only have Seventeen members and be the main pairing in your fill. We will update the category with the current titleholder during the fest so you know who to challenge~ I anticipate polyamory. (To help us out, please mention that you’re going for one of these categories at the beginning of your fill.) Navigation
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don't go breaking my heart
Major Tags: Ella Enchanted AU
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None
Prompt: Josh as Ella Enchanted – who has been given the ""gift"" of obedience. He's on a journey to get his fairy godmother to take the gift back. He falls in love with the prince, but then is told to kill the prince. You don't need to write all that, but a Josh attempted murder when he doesn't want to...chefs kiss. Pick a scene or just take the characters up to you!
[FILL] Don't Go Gentle
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Ella Enchanted AU, idolverse, almost-violence
Permission to remix: Yes
I don't know why I idolverse'd this but the prompt grabbed me,, hope this is what you were looking for sticky! <3
***
Joshua Hong is good.
He is good and polite. He is gracious and generous. Hospitable, quiet. Forgiving. Most of all, he’s obedient. He won’t say no. He can’t.
And isn’t that lovely? An idol who never says no.
No wonder Pledis snatched him up so quickly.
/
In the end it was a manager.
Thirty-something and going gray, he’d been around long enough to remember when Joshua still stumbled over his Korean fricatives. Long enough to see a few crucial slip-ups: Seokmin joking, “Go home, L.A. boy!” and Jeonghan turning white. Mingyu demanding a hug and then recoiling too quickly when Joshua obliged, flushed and apologetic. Jihoon too nervous to speak in his presence for weeks after accidentally commanding Joshua to cook dinner for the whole dorm.
This manager watched. He waited.
Eventually he must have developed a theory and decided to test it, because one morning he took Joshua by the elbow, hidden in the shadows of the company building, and muttered, “Break Myungho’s leg tomorrow. Tell no one. Forget we ever spoke.”
Joshua had half a second to panic before the words sunk in.
Then he obeyed—and forgot.
/
In the early days, after the debrief with the CEO and before they started filming 17 Project, Seungcheol would stumble over himself double-checking that his suggestions were only that—suggestions. Not orders. The others weren’t as careful, but they learned quickly. Jeonghan had his fun with the whole thing in under two minutes, after making Joshua fetch him a glass of water from the toilet bowl. Twice.
When Joshua came back with the second glass, Jeonghan’s face changed. The little smirk of disbelief fell away. He leaned forward on the bottom bunk, a lock of hair falling gracefully across his jaw, his eyes glittering. “You know we have your back, Joshuji.”
“Yeah.” Joshua looked away. Swallowed hard.
So many people had figured out his secret and made the same promise. His aunt, who once told him to sneak into his mother’s perfumed closet, dark and smelling of mothballs, to steal a fat wad of cash. An older church friend, practically family, who thought it was funny to make Joshua jump rope until he fainted. His grandfather on his father’s side, who never bothered to learn the rules of his curse and didn’t care if Joshua spent seven hours scrubbing the bathroom floor. It builds character, he used to say. Makes him into a man.
They’d all been tempted, one by one. Who wouldn’t be? How could he blame them? It was only a matter of time, now that he’d chosen this life, until the secret got out to the public.
“Yah, I’m serious.” Jeonghan caught his gaze and held it like they were interlocking hands, like they were making a pinky-promise. “Okay? You and me. We’re in this together.”
“Sure,” Joshua says.
He had to trust the members. There was no other choice.
/
It starts to hit around midnight.
Joshua’s heart races. His stomach spins. It’s an awful feeling, but a familiar one—this is how he feels when he’s resisting a command. Joshua tries to relax and let his body lead him to where he needs to go, but something is still different. Like, subconsciously, he’s rejecting the mission. God, what did someone say to him? He can't even remember, he must’ve missed it. It must’ve been during dinner earlier.
Joshua paces in his room, moonlight violent on the tousled bedsheets, until his feet drag him into the dim kitchen. Beneath the counter, in the dusty half-empty cupboard that hasn’t been touched since Mingyu moved out, there’s a toolbox. His hands shake when he removes the hammer. It’s heavy in his sweaty palm.
What the hell. What the hell?
He lets his body take him down the hall, past his own doorway. He stops where a thin band of gold underlines Minghao’s door and knocks hard. One, two, three.
Minghao peeks out. “Hyung. What’s up?”
He’s bare-faced, hair soft as a dream and falling elegantly around his face. In his silky black pajamas he still, stupidly, looks like a model, tall and graceful and perpetually out of reach, undoubtedly one of Joshua’s favorite people in the world.
And yet—there’s a snake uncoiling in his sternum, a thick, hot desire pressing on his chest. Suddenly he knows he’s going to hurt Minghao. He’s going to—
A premonition flashes across his mind’s eye. Joshua takes the hammer to Minghao’s knee. One, two, three. The sickening crunch, the screams. Joshua’s heart does a backflip. He thinks he might throw up. Sweat erupts over his body, a god-awful chill. It’s going to happen and he can’t stop it, he’s never been able to stop it, this is a fixed point in his destiny—
“I’m so sorry,” Joshua chokes, lifting the hammer.
Minghao’s face drops. “What?”
Joshua swings. Minghao jerks backwards and the hammer knocks harmlessly against the hardwood floor.
“What the fuck,” Minghao says loudly.
Joshua can barely speak through the tears clogging his throat. His hands are shaking too hard to hold the hammer; he drops it and immediately falls to his knees to retrieve it. Shadows stretch long in the corners of Minghao’s tidy bedroom.
“I’m sorry,” Joshua gasps, his eyes blurring. “Myungho-yah, I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s—what’s happening, please go, don’t let me hurt you—”
His voice rises to a wail as his hands close around the hammer again. The gravity of the situation dawns on Minghao; he kicks his slippers into Joshua’s chest and climbs backwards onto his bed, his eyes wide and dark and scared.
“Who did this to you?” he asks. “What happened?”
Joshua bites his lip hard enough to bleed. “I don’t know.”
He takes a small step forward. If he concentrates hard enough, embraces the full-body ache and the surging nausea, maybe he can slow himself down. Give Minghao time to escape.
Except there’s nowhere to run in the tiny room. Joshua’s feet drag him one step closer. “No,” he gasps, words tumbling out, addressed mostly to his traitorous body, “No, I won’t do this. Not this. I can’t. Not him.”
“It’s okay,” Minghao’s voice wobbles. Of course he’s trying to soothe Joshua, despite the way he’s cowered himself into a corner, his feet digging canyons into the mattress, his muscles locked and trembling with fear like a small animal. “It’s okay. Hyung. I know it’s not you.”
Joshua climbs shakily on to the bed. His weight dips the mattress; he feels his heart sink and settle at the bottom of something dark. Heavy as a stone.
“Don’t,” he says as he raises the hammer. Minghao’s eyes dart around the room. His fingers clench on the jagged wooden bed frame.
Joshua grits his teeth and lets pain throb through him, slowing his shaking hand. “Fuck—please stop—d-don’t be obedient.”
The hammer hits the bed with a soft thump. Joshua pitches sideways, sliding ungracefully to the carpet, all the momentum leaving his body in one fell swoop and the pain disappearing with a blink. Weight lifts off his chest so quickly he gets light-headed. The room tips over and spins.
He realizes he’s starting to hyperventilate and stops in the next second. Wiping his face dry, he looks up at Minghao, who hasn’t moved a muscle. Their eyes lock.
Minghao throws himself off the bed and crawls straight into Joshua’s arms.
“Wait, I could hurt you,” Joshua protests, weakly, his hands still trembling, the hammer like a corpse behind him, something he can’t look at or away from. “I almost… I was going to hurt you.”
Minghao takes Joshua’s face between his hands and looks, really looks, in that intense and startling way he has perfected.
“But you didn’t,” he says. “Did you resist a command?”
Joshua still feels shaky—but light. He lifts tentative hands to Minghao’s waist. “I think so.”
“Stand up,” Minghao says firmly.
Joshua clenches his stomach in preparation for the pain of resistance. It never comes. He sits, quiet as a mouse, so still that he’s hardly breathing. The dishwasher finishes its cycle and beeps loudly from the kitchen.
He defies the order. Painlessly. Easily.
Minghao’s face opens into a bright smile.
“I’m free.” Joshua laces his fingers with Minghao’s, a laugh bubbling out of his chest. “I’m, oh my god? Myungho-yah. Try it again.”
Minghao squeezes his palm. “Um, dance the chorus of Aju Nice. Right now.”
“No. No!" Joshua does the opposite; he wraps his arms around Minghao and rolls them sideways across the carpet, tugging him closer until they’re face-to-face on the floor like kids at a sleepover, their knees tangled together, his bare feet skimming against the dresser. “I won’t. Oh, my god. I broke the curse.”
Lying there, noses a breath apart, Minghao’s smile slips away. His careful brows go smooth. He loops his fingers around Joshua’s wrist.
“Who told you to hurt me?” he whispers.
The answer rises in Joshua’s memory like it was always there. “Manager Taeyeol-hyung.”
Briefly Minghao closes his eyes. “Okay. Okay.”
The horror that had settled over Joshua like a thick fog dissipates. He didn’t hurt Minghao. He’ll never hurt Minghao. He’ll never do anything else against his will. Tomorrow morning he’ll tell Seungcheol what happened and they’ll take care of it together, force an NDA down the manager’s throat and discuss their legal options. Send that man far away, regardless.
Tomorrow Joshua Hong will be a new person. His own person, for the first time.
"Thank you," Minghao whispers with feeling.
His hair hangs in his face like a stroke of dark paint. Joshua tucks a lock behind Minghao's ear, his hand lingering at the pulse in his temple. They exchange soft, secret smiles.
/
“Shua-yah,” the fan says later, giggling into her screen. “Sing me the chorus of the next title track!”
Before, Joshua would have to sing it under his breath, quick and quiet, just a line or two while covering his mouth or acting similarly coy. Offline fansigns at least have the advantage of someone else sitting across from him—oftentimes a member, sometimes a staff member hand-selected by Seungcheol and Joshua who is given a bare-bones explanation—ready to mitigate damage with an opposing command or a fabricated bad connection.
Today it’s Jeonghan. He finished his cycle of fansign calls two hours ago, but stayed to wait for Joshua anyway. His eyes fly up when he hears the command, setting down his iced coffee hard enough to make the little table shudder.
Before Jeonghan has the chance to counteract the command, Joshua wags a finger at the fan and grins. “That’s a secret,” he says. “I won’t tell.”
And it feels good.
Re: [FILL] Don't Go Gentle
Re: [FILL] Don't Go Gentle
Re: [FILL] Don't Go Gentle
+ the jihan in this too... so lovely. Thank you Klav!!
Re: [FILL] Don't Go Gentle
Re: [FILL] Don't Go Gentle