kharits

🌼 can I post abt this on other platforms? 🌼 yes ofc!!!! feel free to post your work on twitter, instagram, pinterest (?), whatever the fuck. im not doing anything off of tumblr or ao3 but u know go crazy.

🐈‍⬛ who can participate? 🐈‍⬛ any artists, editors, writers, posters who like fem dnf!!! however, personally i do not care to interact w crit blogs/lurkers and will not be interacting with anyone who does and we will just all have to be fine with that 👍

💫 is there a tag I should use or an ao3 collection? 💫 yes there is a tumblr tag!!!! it is #fem dnf week 2026. i will make an ao3 collection when we get closer probably. ofc nobody HAS to use either though. and i also always recommend not using a twitter tag bc people are insane there.

not the contained queer popcorn romance, which is fine, and certainly not scott/kip as a ship (sorry to kip but his actor shares a striking resemblance to #my dad and enduring that was actual psychological torture). what hooked me by the lip was the themes of privilege it introduced

scott and kip communicate basically perfectly, and expeditiously. their circumstances drive them apart, but never each other. there's no mess. they have a romcom style meet cute and altogether bow-wrapped little u-haul romance. even in their difficult moments they support each other and acknowledge the other's needs or try to do so. it's the all american cherry pie wholesome wattpad/hallmark fantasy of closeted gay romances, well made and produced and good enough to stand on its own

but it's episode 3. not a vignette standalone. this is part of shane and ilya's story

on the surface it seems like skip is expanding the depictions of what closeted athletes can look like, while assuring the viewer that the writers know how to write healthy communication with compelling drama. that's probably its intention. but it's not what makes it interesting

scott and kip are both white, usamerican, (mostly) neurotypical men. one of whom is an established, respected hockey player (man in the crease notwithstanding) and closeted but self-determined gay man. the other is a normal out gay guy in his 20s/30s with a loving support system, pillared (crucially) by his dad. they both have a great deal of security around and within them, in spite of scott being so closeted

meanwhile shane is mixed race, a model minority asian/japanese icon in his very racist hypermasculine conformist national sport, undiagnosed autistic, and a closeted gay man (Very Confused flavor). he has obvious signs of undiagnosed ocd & given all of this, probably cptsd. he's sexually submissive to the point of deviance. he sits like his limbs are filled with lead and his japanese parent is his manager

all-american cherry pie scott and kip are a framing device to demonstrate how healthy communication itself can become a privilege. bc of their national, political, and personal circumstances, shane and ilya literally can't communicate the way scott and kip do. their relationship is messy and confusing and sexually deviant. it's difficult to explain, categorize, and defies most norms. its fabric itself is queer in a way skip's isn't

ilya is an eccentric & brash russian/slavic esl immigrant living alone in the us on a visa in a foreign league which punishes players for having a personality more interesting than strawberry milk and white knuckles the cold war profile of russians like a woobie. at home he's a russian national athlete with an abusive family in the police/military and a closeted bisexual man (Will Be Jailed/Disowned flavor). he has textbook flags of undiagnosed cptsd/ptsd. he's sexually dominant to the point of deviance and he's financially responsible for his terrible remaining parent who's dying of dementia on the other side of the world (+ his crackhead older brother)

this is why scott and kip are the perfect couple to break the coming out barrier. they're about as ideal & commercially shippable as it gets for a gay couple in a cultishly racist/etc industry like hockey. this is also why so many cishet viewers are so fond of them. it's a recreation of their in-universe narrative purpose—skip are there to win normie audiences over, so you don't stick your nose up at hollanov & the queer dysfunction they depict

they have the potential to be more compelling than a lifetime movie if these themes become foretextual. i want to see them use their privilege in allyship to shane & ilya. this is why they're in the story