kay

kay | '99 | she/they | usually putting my guys in a situation (hrpf style)

ao3

minors please dni !

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Anytime I can read Jack and Luke being the protective ones, or the mature ones, or the ones holding it together, I always like it.

It just seems like Quinn gets left alone/left out a lot. Especially with his parents, at least from what I've seen in interviews and stuff.

Plus Jack and Luke seeing Quinn as a person rather than just the older brother as they all get older, and with the more time they spend apart.

Like, suddenly there's gaps where there shouldn't be and Quinn already seems like the personality that's hard to pin down in a lot of ways and him withdrawing, maybe without even noticing or meaning it, seems like it would be one of those thing that you don't notice until it's already pretty deep into it.

One of the reasons I love Quinn and MN/Minnycule because they wanted him. They still want him.

And I feel like it had maybe been awhile since anyone wanted him like that? Especially with Jakc and Luke growing up and having each other.

Idk I have so many feels about them and their relationship.

And how that was impacted by him going to MN and being clearly so much happier.

Plus the idea of the Minnycule (platonic or whatever breakdown of that you want) and Jack and Luke joining forces to make sure Quinn functions semi successfully and is actually happy and healthy. 😭

Mainly because I love the idea that he's pretty good at talking care of other people (older sibling powers) but couldn't take care of himself if his life depending on it.

Sorry. Deep in my hughes brother feels and the end of Up in Smoke with Jack and Luke realizing maybe they don't know Quinn as well as they think in some ways and not being quite sure how to fix/address gave me a lot of feels.

ohhh my god thank you!! honestly when i first started looking at the hughes’ tag (before i even really got into the hockey scene) i felt like there wasn’t a lot of qh-centric stuff to read, especially with the three brothers and their relationship as the focus point. so, of course, i set out to write it LOL. i think there’s been a huge turnaround since then, as there’s a lot more qh-centric stuff now for sure! but yess exactly… the older brother who’s more naturally withdrawn but ends up unwillingly isolated… suchhhh a fun flavour >:] he’s been adamant in interviews that he really likes it when a team actually shows they want him (like committing to umich because they “were the first to actively recruit him”), and also made a point in his first press with the wild about the fact they pursued him. so for sure he loves to be wanted (ofc, who doesn’t!) but he really does show it’s important to him for a team to want him and usually pays back that back with loyalty (here's me manifesting that new contract, btw)

i think he’s pretty independent/isolated and has learned to be that way, whether he wanted to or not, but it’s why it makes for a very fun hrpf thesis with him hehehe. i really like the aspect of two brothers being in each other’s pockets all the time while one is on the sidelines and only gets snippets, which works both ways. quinn only gets glimpses of them, they only get glimpses of him. very fun if something’s going wrong for sure heheh

I like that in this fic and the previous one in the series we see that how their parents react to this is actually a major stressor for JACK….we don’t as much see Quinn’s unfiltered reaction or opinion we very much get it through the lens of Jack who is constantly thinking and worrying about how they’re behaving about it and what Quinn will do if they upset him….guy who saw Quinn retreat before and got Scared…Brock who isn’t as much thinking about Ellen and Jim behind baseline acceptance whereas Jack is so afraid that’s what’s bothering everyone and so afraid to be grouped in with them in Brock’s and particularly Quinn’s eyes…wahhh…(getting Scared by the distancing on Quinn’s part towards his parents….getting Scared by the idea of being seen in that role too….yay)

Jack is so perfectly mean at the end. In fact he’s SO mean I almost shied away from reading it….Jack girl you can’t blow everything up like this!! Mitski voice He gets mean when he’s nervous:( and then feeling so wretched and apologetic….i like the theme in this fic of Jack believing he’s only worrying about how things are affecting Quinn and not realising he’s actually exhibiting the behaviours of someone being affected by things….Brock not knowing how to tell Jack to stop measuring things by Quinn’s exes….i like the idea of younger brother Jack who’s seen the Quinn-parents relationship breakdown and who’s seen the aftermath of these shitty relationships and has internalised quite a lot of it into a stressful little amalgamation of things that he’s now processing by having venomous fights about pda….he means well! And once again LUKE is so fab in this you’re so so good at writing Luke dialogue it hits every time.

Sorry for this diatribe I’ll stop now before I go on forever but I truly loveeeeee your Quinn (et al) writing!!

As usual I loved this fic and you’re a fantastic writer, thank you for sharing xxx

AAAAAA GOD THANK YOU!!!! don’t apologise at all for diatribe i LOVE IT this made me so happy to wake up to thank you…

jack’s in the unique position where he knows quinn and his history and what angles people will use to get at quinn too (like their parents). but it means he is also in the position to get stuck in the mud because he thinks he knows all of quinn’s context/experiences/personality, only to realise quinn hasn’t divulged things to him about his relationships/sexuality/physical intimacy/affection (which, like, yeah. tmi, jack!). jack also keeps looking at the relationship through hetero goggles even though he’s trying his best not to, so that gets him stuck too. writing the brock pov in comparison to jack’s horrors was truly so fun to me because brock’s kinda just happy to be there, cruising along w everything and everyone, and then he slowly starts realising ohhh no… oh dear. jack’s way off and his foot has been on the gas this entire time.

THANK YOU FOR THE LUKE LOVE AAA !! he ends up in the unique position, in both fics, of having to be the middle-man with more rationality between the two brothers. he doesn’t take it so personally that quinn hasn’t divulged relationship things to him, and he also holds a lot of guilt for being more outspoken with his ‘ewww yuck’ reactions with previous boyfriends. quinn’s got fire in the other room, and jack keeps opening doors and feeding it oxygen, and luke’s running around trying to smother the flames before everyone burns shit to the ground. i also kept picturing him as this

jack with ellen + jim is suchhh a fun dynamic for me in this au. jack’s extremely critical of how they handle things, but he reflects them in a lot of ways too (one simply must always be at risk of the ‘youre acting like your mom/dad’ accusations!!), and yes exactly why it leads to a lot of projection !! he also ends up in the position that quinn ended up putting ellen & jim in, with complete radio-silence. granted, of course, to a less severe degree and quinn’s not cutting him off entirely, but it did come about because quinn couldn’t uphold his expectations and didn’t want to.

jack is soooooo endeared by brock in a sense of like. holy shit his brother doesn’t have a piece of shit boyfriend. wow fabes is kinda sick and amazing let’s keep him forever please fucking god quinn. keep it together.. and he’s so fucking worried quinn’s gonna blow it up because he has no understanding of a healthy relationship (and, tbf, he doesn’t. quinn+fabes are doing a lot of work outside of jack’s eyesight, but it’s not really for jack to get involved in. brock gets to deal with all the boyfriend things of relationships/sexuality/physical intimacy/affection and know quinn in that context. jack strong-arms his way in there, but quinn’s never gonna reveal some of the things he deems more private/embarrassing/shameful etc etc. even brock struggles there.)