Status: Closed
This round has closed. It remains open for fills, comments and remixes, but prompts are no longer accepted.
About
For this round, there is no theme for the prompt and you can suggest whatever you want. However! You can only prompt a single sentence and the fill must end on that sentence. Be controversial, be vague. Fillers, add to the atmosphere or subvert expectations, the choice is yours.
(Note: art fills just have to include the phrase and remixes don't have to follow the rule.)
Examples
Joshua
"Did you think America would change things?"
Soonyoung/Seokmin
Seokmin looks at Soonyoung one more time, "I may not trust you with my wallet, but I do trust you with my life."
97 line
In the dark they grasped each other, fingers intertwined, and stepped forwards.
Rules
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- There is no maximum cap.
- Tag and provide content warnings at your discretion, but a good guide are the Ao3 four (Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage) and this list of common CWs (cr: SportsFest).
- NSFW/Explicit content should be tagged
- NSFW art should not be visible, please provide a link and a warning. You may crop the artwork and embed a SFW preview.
How it works
Prompting
- Click on [Post a New Comment] at the bottom of this post;
- Change the subject to something interesting;
- Copy+Paste the following HTML into your comment and edit the sections. Feel free to add as much detail as you want!
Filling
- Reply to the original prompt;
- Change the subject to [FILL], you may add a title or stay chaotic;
- Copy+Paste the following HTML into your comment, edit the sections, and add your text.
You may also upload your fill to the AO3 Collection.
Remixing
- Post as a reply to the fill you are remixing, using the same HTML as above;
- Change the subject to [REMIX].
Art/media
- Upload your work to any platform (twitter, imgur, youtube, soundcloud, google maps, etc.)
- Using the same HTML code as above, copy the link into your fill or remix. That's it!
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(To explain, the HTML resizes your picture to 400x400px so that it fits on most screens. Users can view the full size if they click on it. You can also add a link to your work on twitter so that others can share it, or to any other website you want)
Note!
Need ideas? Have a look through the 2021 Fills Masterlist and the prompts there. You're welcome to keep interacting with, fill, or remix content from the previous rounds.
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[FILL] stay strong for us, for me
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: idolverse, ode to you backstage, character study, jeonghan pov, seungcheol martyrdom (kinda?), built from literally two scenes of seungcheol's htr ep,
Permission to remix: Yes
a/n: i opened up the prompt and realized that i'd in fact strayed very far from the original idea. wren i'm so sorry if this isn't what you first imagined. i was rewatching seungcheol's htr ep and there is just. so much to unpack from oty in general. and this was born. i hope you enjoy regardless.
***
Stepping off stage is horrendously liberating — to the guilt crouching, ugly, in his chest.
Backstage is a hustle of costume changes and jumbled voices, make-up artists flurrying around the members, fixing hair, thickening the air with hairspray fumes. Jeonghan chokes on the cloying, chemical sweetness, gasping and sinking into the couch. In the mirror of the makeup tables, Soonyoung’s eyes sharpen at him.
“Someone get Jeonghan-hyung the back massager,” he calls into the fray, and Jeonghan does his very best to be grateful. But it’s difficult when there’s attention turning to him and sickening worry on the members’ faces. If his body isn’t already shutting down, Jeonghan thinks he might have thrown up at that. A staff member hurries over, heavy black massager in hand. He has to physically manipulate Jeonghan’s body into a hunched-forward position; the guilt in his chest unfurls, climbing up his throat.
When the massager touches his back it’s a welcomed relief. Jeonghan lets his body shake with the force of its vibrations, too weak to do much about it. A cameraman is crouching down in front of him, probably recording to insert it into some episode of Hit the Road. Please stop, he imagines begging.
He doesn’t. Instead he sits and trembles with the force of the massager. He might be crying. In another world where he cared more he might have hidden his face, might have tried to manage his expressions more. In this one he lets himself break just a little, enough to show the people that he’s no god. Maybe they’ll stop expecting so much of him, of all of them, then.
“Is Jeonghan-hyung okay?” A voice approaches him. It sounds like Minghao. Jeonghan nods, an automatic reflex to reassure kicking in, without looking up, hand already gesturing for Minghao to go, to not worry, to put himself first and Jeonghan last. Minghao doesn’t budge. The cameraman gestures impatiently for Minghao to move out of frame.
“Hyung,” Minghao says, quieter. Through the slits of his eyelids Jeonghan can see the gold glint of his costume. Even in the blinking and weak LED overcast backstage, Jeonghan can see how it glimmers.
Go shine, he thinks, go on stage, where you deserve to be. He can’t put it into words anymore. He just gestures and hopes actions speak louder than words.
He hears Minghao saying something, and at first he thinks it’s to him, but then the cameraman is standing, walking away, leaving just the two of them and the staff holding the massager to Jeonghan’s back. But soon he’s walking away too, the massager transferred to Minghao’s hands. Jeonghan lifts his head slightly to send a questioning glance his way.
“What are you doing,” he musters. He should sound more scolding, do his job as a hyung and shoo Minghao away. Minghao should be getting ready to go on stage, not still here mothering over Jeonghan.
But he can’t make himself do it. He’s so tired.
“Taking care of you, because Seungcheol-hyung no longer can.” The massager switches off. Minghao’s careful hands replace it instead. Jeonghan leans into the touch subconsciously. Sighing, he lifts his head to scan the room for Seungcheol. His gaze snags on him in the back room, shoulders slumped, anxiety scrawled over his face. He’s doing that thing where his brows are furrowed and he’s clearly trying to maintain a neutral expression, but Jeonghan has learned to read Seungcheol before he learned to understand himself. Fatigue is written into every crevice of his body; Jeonghan’s guilt feels too large for his chest.
“He’s leaving, right?” He asks Minghao, digging his teeth into his lower lip enough to leave behind imprints. Minghao’s hands hesitate over a knot near the top of his spine.
“He should be,” he answers back, words weighed with every ounce of the worry Jeonghan feels building in himself. Like a lump in his throat, moisture behind his eyelids. He’s afraid to look into it lest he crumples under it.
At that moment, someone calls Minghao away. The hands on his back offer one parting squeeze, and then the room is flooded with emptiness. Seungcheol is gone from the back room. Jeonghan can only hope he’s in the car.
/
“You’re not going back on stage.” Their manager is insistent. “You need to rest, Jeonghan-ah. Seungcheol is in the car. Go join him. Someone will take you back to the hotel.”
/
The silence in the car suffocates him. Seungcheol doesn't speak, but Jeonghan can sense the words that are cycling through his mind.
“Stop blaming yourself, Seungcheol-ah.” A hypocritical statement. He has not been any better.
Seungcheol’s voice is choked. “Tell me Jeonghan, is this how a leader is supposed to behave?”
“Is a good leader supposed to run away when things get out of hand? Is a good leader supposed to even let things go out of hand? I can’t even get myself under control. How am I fit to lead?” His despair seems to encompass the entire middle seat separating them. Jeonghan’s throat closes up. He has nothing to offer to that.
“Am I weak, Jeonghan-ah? Am I unfitting?” In the near decade Jeonghan’s known him, he’s never heard Seungcheol’s voice so small, so afraid. It terrifies him.
“No,” he responds fiercely, too sharp with panic, struggling to placate the fear. “No, you are absolutely not weak, or unfitting – Seungcheol-ah, don’t say things like that.” He needs Seungcheol to be strong. Seungcheol has always been strong for them, for him.
A clammy palm meets his in the dark. The moment Jeonghan’s hand closes over his, Seungcheol is squeezing like Jeonghan is his only tether. Jeonghan is the one that needs to be strong now. The thought is staggering. All of a sudden he has no idea how comfort works anymore. How do you soothe a weariness that’s soaked four inches deep into muscle and sinew and bone?
In the end, he can only plead.
“Give me something, Seungcheol-ah,” he begs, voice watery and thin, one gasp away from cracking. “Tell me you’ll be okay.”
The next breath Seungcheol takes tells Jeonghan that he is crying into the darkness, the only weakness he’ll allow himself to show.
“If I had anything left to give, don’t you think I would’ve already given it to you?”
Re: [FILL] stay strong for us, for me
Re: [FILL] stay strong for us, for me
Re: [FILL] stay strong for us, for me
(Anonymous) 2022-02-24 12:40 am (UTC)(link)the jeonghao. i have a lot of feelings about jeonghao and the relationship that they have that is so built on those early days, that mutual trust and the intimacy of trusting someone to translate for you (how vulnerable that is!) and to let yourself be doted on and loved the way jeonghan did for him, and seeing that come back here in minghao taking care of jeonghan..... i'm going 2 cry.
WUH UW WUWHIEWWIFGRD i think i just like idolverse because i like to see people at their most vulnerable, to kind of peek behind the windows that we get to look through, and jeongcheol is just, to me, open vulnerability all the time. that whole "you are the only person who knows the weight i carry because you carry a similar cross" of it all is hanging over their heads all the time, even if it's not readily visible with jeonghan the way it is with seungcheol. and that being illustrated here, in jeonghan very obviously in pain but looking for a pillar to lean on, and seungcheol crumbling under the weight of it...
also i do not know if it was intentional, but if so: having minghao be the one to approach jeonghan when it was mingyu who approached seungcheol hits so hard. you've hit me where it hurts twice with the idolverse moments permanently tattooed on the inside of my eyelids, dude literally wtf!!!
Re: [FILL] stay strong for us, for me
jeonghao and their relationship are just so special. a lot of what you said about them really resonates with me too. all the vulnerability in the trusting and how they have this intimacy that probably stemmed from all of that vulnerable trust early on that is ingrained in their relationship!! they're my loves.
"i think i just like idolverse because i like to see people at their most vulnerable, to kind of peek behind the windows that we get to look through, and jeongcheol is just, to me, open vulnerability all the time." ALL OF THAT BC YEAH.
and about the gyuhao approaching jc thing it was not intentional but now that you've brought it up oh jeez. OW. i didn't even realize. okay apologies for the extra unintentional pain.
Re: [FILL] stay strong for us, for me
(Anonymous) 2022-04-22 02:05 pm (UTC)(link)Re: [FILL] stay strong for us, for me