TO RING IN 2021 I AM ABANDONING MY DARLINGS

By that I mean I am giving myself permission to say like “this may get finishing they might not get finished but I have projects I want to work on and forgive myself for not finishing these.” Not every WIP has to be IP. But some of the words I wrote were pretty good! I’ve shared most of them in WIP Wednesdays at this point but just to have them all in one place that’s not my scrivener draft titled “SENT TO THE SHADOW REALM” would be really nice. 

Every other thing I started this year I ended up posting (except for one thing which is for 2 rare 2 pair)! Which is pretty cool. Like I wrote in my writing reflection post, I wanna just be more forgiving and write whatever words come to mind. Any words are good words it doesn’t matter if it ends up being a full story.

Also some of these are really, really rough. Like a rock that just freshly fell into a running river. There’s typos and grammatical errors and some prose is just straight up bad but like. Like I’m just copy pasting without going over anything to make it neater or prettier I hope you don’t mind

UNTITLED YUTO/HUI (PENTAGON) 1.4K

BASED OFF OF HOW HUI ALWAYS BUSTS INTO VLIVES

START DATE: LIKE… DEC 2019 OR JAN 2020

“You’re not fucking subtle at all, Adachi,” Wooseok says, not even bothering to look up from his phone screen to call Yuto out on his shit. But it’s not really shit, because Yuto was absolutely under no circumstances looking at the door to his studio space.  At least., not turning his chair around completely to just stare the door down, it was a simple glance over his shoulder. Every minute or so. 

Yuto lets out an incredulous sound, somewhere between a sqwuack and a snort, “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, attempting to nonchalantly play it cool. He clicks around his desktop, toggling between Garageband and Pro Tools pretending that he’s actually getting work done on his midterm assignment. Wooseok mumbles “pfft, okay loser” from his spot on the couch, hunched over his phone probably texting lovey dovey sweet nothings to Shinwon instead of working on the midterm he also has due for the same class as Yuto. 

He fiddles with the bass and treble levels and slaps a reverb over the beat he’s been toying with for a few minutes before the itching need to look at the door again overwhelms him, again. And, god, does Yuto try to ignore it but he lets his focus waver and he think he hears a door click open but doesn’t realize he swivels his chair around, just to see 6that, no, there is no one walking through his studio door.

“That right there is what I’m talking about. You’re waiting to see if Hui-hyung is gonna bust in,” Wooseok says, jabbing finger in Yuto’s general direction, finally looking away from his phone and tossing it on Yuto’s ratty One Piece fleece blanket. 

There’s a warm flush that rushes through Yuto’s whole body, from his ears to his toes, a horrible mix of embarrassment and dread. He wishes he didn’t feel like a kid caught stealing from his mom’s purse, but he can’t help it and can’t help pulling his beanie down over his ears to cover how red they probably are right now. 

“W-what! No! That’s not- It’s not- Just no!” Yuto’s words stumble out of his mouth. Wooseok just gives him a fucking look and Yuto desperately tries to remember the days where he> was the one giving Wooseok looks regarding his Shinwon situation.

But here’s the thing: Yuto is waiting to see if Hui was going to bust in through his studio door completely unannounced, bringing instant cup ramyun and the coffee drinks that come with the fun collapsable straw Yuto likes from the GS25 a block away from campus.

He doesn’t respond, but the red growing on his cheeks and across his nose is enough for Wooseok to look smug about it. 

“Uh-huh you keep on lying to yourself and to me, your best friend,” Wooseok says and Yuto groans and swivels back around to his computer, clicking around the screen yet again. Wooseok sighs and gets up to drape himself atop Yuto’s shoulders, resting his chin on top of Yuto’s head.

“Play me back the last thirty seconds, I liked the reverb,” Wooseok says, poking at Yuto’s cheek and before seeing the file name, “Hui edit dot mp3, really? Bruh, you’re a fucking goner.” 

—

Hui was always someone who was in Yuto’s orbit, just a few too many degrees of separation between them and whenever they were in the same place it was with a bass line rattling the floor and sticky syrupy boozy concoctions being pressed into empty hands.

 Hui was always this untouchable figurehead to Yuto, the darling star student of the music department who already had a copyright to his name and money in his bank account. Everyone in the department wanted to work with Hui just to have one tiny chance of that the Midas touch of him would skyrocket their success or to be him. 

And it was Yuto getting glimpses of Hui whirl past in studio spaces and in the music building hallways laughing full-body giggles, music comp 101 assignments marked up with encouraging messages at the top in purple ink falling out of his arms or muttering to himself about lyrics and rhyme schemes and being so enamored by the whimsy Hui brought to even the dullest of days. And how Hui, even when they were only passing acquaintances seeing each other in dark crowded basement, he made the effort to say hi to Yuto

And Wooseok’s shitty boyfriend just happened to be Hui’s roommate. And Yuto’s TA. 

—

It’s a Tuesday and Yuto is not paying attention to what the professor is saying at all, something about beats per minute and the value of recording your own instrumentals versus using what’s already in a program he guesses, but he’s too busy staring at Hui and every once in a while shaking himself out of Hui-induced daze to jot down whatever his brain is actually able to process about harmonics. 

Hui was busy sitting to the right of the podium, jiggling his foot where it was crossed over his knee and interjecting with small tips and pointers when prompted and busy chewing on the end of his pen when not talking and it’s sending Yuto into an early grave.

Yuto’s zoning out again, eyes glazed over staring down Hui’s mouth as Hui chews at his fingernails, but Hui catches his gaze and shoots Yuto a tiny smile and an attempt at a wink and Yuto prays the small whine he lets out is inaudible. 

There’s a kick to his ankle and Wooseok hisses out “Dude, weird, I fucking heard that,” under his breath while Yuto’s cheeks go warm and flushed and he fumbles, drops his pen on the ground but it rolls down to, like, two row in front of him underneath another student’s desk and, oh my god, he wants to eat sand. 

Internally groaning, he leans to rustle around in his backpack desperately searching for another pen, but there’s a tap on his shoulder and Hui is looking down at him with a wide grin holding out an extra pen. Yuto blushes (again, he’s been blushing a lot recently maybe a call to his doctor to figure this out wouldn’t hurt) and bows his head incrementally in thanks to, their fingertips brushing gently as Yuto grabs the pen and suddenly he becomes hyper aware of just how big his bands are in comparison to Hui’s smaller, slighter ones.  

His garbage brain provides him with so many inflammatory images of himself coming up behind Hui at his workspace, gently picking up Hui’s hand on the mouse and bringing it up to his mouth to kiss it, tenderly and with confidence. Hui would spin around in his chair and tug Yuto closer by his belt loops until Yuto’s knees bracket Hui, thighs pressing against thighs, while Hui smirks up at him and bites his lip. God, there’s nothing Yuto wants more than to lean over Hui, hovering, not letting their bodies press together to tease Hui. 

“You can keep the pen, don’t worry about it!” Hui interrupts his daydreaming and Yuto doesn’t see the flush of peachy pink high up on Hui’s cheek before he turns around to return to his spot at the front of the class. 

The pen has little nibbles and teeth marks at the top and Yuto wishes he wasn’t gross and ignores the way he unknowingly runs his thumb along the ridges. 

“Gay,” Wooseok coughs under his breath and this time it’s Yuto’s turn to kick Wooseok’s ankles, “And gross.” 

—-

It’s not Yuto’s fault that Hui has set a precedent of busting into the music production’s meager personal studio spaces. It started at the beginning of the semester with Yuto hunched over his acoustic guitar in his assigned studio

UNTITLED WOOSEOK/YUTO, 158 WORDS

VLIVE BLOWJOB

START DATE: IDK PROBABLY LIKE AUGUST 2020

It’s a stupid idea. It’s a really stupid, idiotic, could-get-them-fired, blacklisted to hell and back, publicly-shunned-forever kind of stupid idea.

 And it’s not like Yuto isn’t into the idea. He is, like, extremely into the idea. It’s not even like saying no was an option, he was gonna yes regardless but especially not when it comes to Wooseok wanting something, he gets it. Yuto can’t say no, not when Wooseok’s big and sparkly eyes get bigger and sparklier. But he especially couldn’t even beging to say no when Wooseok, sleep-warm and mussy haired, shoved his face in Yuto’s neck and mumbled “So how do you feel about semi-public sex but also, like, wildly public sex?” 

—

Wooseok licks a wide stripe from base to tip of Yuto’s dick and swirls his tongue over the head before sinking down entirely and Yuto nearly drops his tiny humidifier in a clatter onto the keyboard.

The seed got planted during their fanmeet. 

UNTITLED SEOKMIN/MINGHAO, 226 WORDS

THIEF PRINCE STEALING FROM A REAL PRINCE AT THE MASQUERADE. THEIF LORD MEETS CINDERELLA I GUESS.

START DATE: UHNNNHHH SEPTEMBER 2020??

Seokmin was five years old when his father gave him a mask, black sateen and nose elongated like a corvid’s beak, and an elegant dagger big enough that felt like a sword in his tiny palm. He was sent off into the night with a push on the back and the utterance of a phrase Seokmin has internalized since birth: “Come back swift, come back rich.” 

He took flight. He clambered up on parapets using balustrades and guts, ducked behind archways,  and swung into windows. The clammy grip on the hilt a hair too tight and his heartbeat thrumming with anticipation, but the cover of night swaddled him and his fingers itched to get on pretty and shiny things. 

That night he made his first steal, a fat ruby nestled in a gold ring. One man’s treasure, another man’s salvation. The ring was gone, but Seokmin slipped a Fool card’s in his wake.

He came back swiftly, wind nipping his heels urging him to run faster to climb higher, follow your feet till you come home to the stars. 

He came back rich, he brandished the Duke’s ring with his chest puffed out to his father. His father’s mouth stretched into a wide grin as he loosened the ribbon holding up Seokmin’s mask, brought him close and whispered into his ear “Well done, my Thief Princeling.”

EMO FEST JUNGKOOK/MINGYU, 600ISH WORDS

SUMMER OF LIKE AU. MINGYU MIKEY JUNGKOOK PETE.

START DATE: LMAO UUUUHH EARLY SUMMER 2020 I THINK

Jungkook and Mingyu start being JungkookAndMingyu, a Frankensteined compound word, always smushed together like those long untranslatable German words, some time back in the winter of ’04. It’s after that summer’s Warped, for sure. 

However, like most things in the scene, they begin, start, and end with Warped Tour. 

✯

Warped Tour ’04 was remarkable for several reasons. Enough booze in him and Jungkook will admit that there was only one truly remarkable thing about Warped that year.

Yes, it was Bulletproof’s first Warped. Jungkook saw parts of the country he’d never seen before, endless highways and parking lots, but still. There were East Coast kids screaming his words back at him and he got stoned with the dudes from Taking Back Sunday behind their tour bus. He got to make out with some girls. Some guys too. 

However, the most remarkable thing was Mingyu Kim standing sidestage for one of Bulletproof’s set. Jungkook only knew him from Alternative Press covers and Live Journal posts. Photos didn’t prepare him for Mingyu: broad, summer festival tanned, cigarette hanging from his mouth, and jeans that were practically painted on. 

Jungkook gives Mingyu one last lingering look down the tour bus stairs. It’s the same final lookover he gives his bass just right before going out on stage. Strings tight, strap loose. The roar of the crowd gone for those last five seconds. Except, now he doesn’t hear crickets, he doesn’t hear the THPS3 soundtrack blasting from the next bus over, he doesn’t hear the hum of air conditioners working overtime. 

He just wants to brush his finger tips along Mingyu’s broad shoulders, maybe he even let his hands smooth down his chest, palms catching on the peeled up ink on his AFI shirt. Give Mingyu the attention he deserves. 

“Jungkookie, get the fuck in here. The new Viva La Bam episode is on!” Taehyung yells from somewhere in their bus. 

He and Mingyu are still looking into each other’s eyes, both barely containing grins. Jungkook thinks Mingyu looks even more beautiful in blue and tungesteen than he does in orange and pink. 

“Give me a second, I’m busy!” he yells back, eyes still on Mingyu and how his beanie is smushing . Mingyu snorts a giggle and pushes his glasses up. 

Jungkook takes a step down. They’re eye-to-eye now and Jungkook can stil smell the chlorine clinging to Mingyu’s skin.

Mingyu’s eyes soften, goofy smile, and he’s twisting the toe of his Etnies into the dirt. His hands itch. Mingyu inches forward, gets into Jungkook’s space, hesitantly puts a hand on Jungkook’s hip, pinky trailing on his studded belt, fingers teasing up underneath Jungkook’s shirt. He resists the urge to frantically check if anyone was walking through the maze of tour buses.

“So, I’ll see you when we wake up in Phoenix?” Mingyu asks, breath ghosting on Jungkook’s cheek. If he turned just a hair to the left, he could kiss Mingyu. Kiss him. Kiss him good night.

“Yeah, hopefully there’ll be no bridges you might fuckin fall off there,” Jungkook laughs out. His chest tightens at how stupid cute Mingyu’s fake-hurt face contorts. Stupid pointy teeth, like a fucking vampire. 

He’s drafting a post in his head. 

Amazing new mexico sunset. I'm hanging on a bridge with my friend mingyu kim from sev. Its all orange and pink above us. We went to another waterpark again. I love high fives again. Totally back in love. Saw the most amazing movie... I think its called spirited away. Watch it.

IfYouGiveAMouseAKookie

UNTITLED SEULGI/IRENE, 133 WORDS

SKATER GIRL SEULGI AND HER NEW GIRL CRUSH IRENE.

START DATE: PROBS LIKE JULY OR AUGUST 2020

Night falls and so does Seulgi. 

Well, she falls flat on her ass. Literally. She can drop into an empty pool with her eyes shut, in her sleep, hands tied around her back, nothing but the feeling of smooth cement under the wheels of her board to guide her. But apparently all it takes is a pretty girl with a messy bun and cherry red lipstick to fuck all that up.

There’s a resonate “oof” from everyone who watched her fall. It’s mortifying and she thinks maybe she’ll spend the rest of the night from down here actually.

———

“Who’s that girl Johnny brought with him?”

“Hm? Oh, that’s Bae Joohyun. Out of your league for sure.”

“Ouch, didn’t ask. But okay.”

“You wanna know if she’s gay.”

“I wanna know if she’s gay.”

2 RARE 2 PAIR JUN/HOSHI, 137 WORDS

I’LL EVENTUALLY REVISIT THIS MAYBE BUT I HAD A STORY I WANTED TO FINISH INSTEAD I’M STILL DOING RAREPAIR JUST NOT THIS PROMPT

START DATE: LITERALLY THE DAY OF WHENEVER THE FIRST CHECK IN WAS

Soonyoung leans on his elbows, cutting deep in Junhui’s space, on the cafe table. Junhui can see the lightest smattering of freckle across Soonyoung’s nose. He might be able to make Cassiopeia if he looks hard enough, which he isn’t. 

“So, what kind of music do you listen to?” Soonyoung asks, light and giggly. Junhui freezes. He doesn’t even have a Spotify account. He’s taking too long to think cause Soonyoung has an expectant look on his face.

“Haunted house soundtracks from the 50s,” he spews out. Oh my god, he’s an idiot. It’s the 70s haunted house soundtracks he listens to. What a foolish blunder. A textbook flub.

“That’s so hot,” Soonyoung all but sighs out dreamily and takes a sip of his fancy cafe banana milk. Junhui doesn’t exactly know what to do with that

HALLOWEEN FIC VERNON/SEUNGKWAN, 803 WORDS

BASED OFF OF THE SCARE ME BY LUDO. LITERALLY TRANSCRIBED THE LYRICS MYSELF BEFORE THE BAND POSTED THE LYRICS. I STILL WANNA FINISH THIS. I JUST HAVE OTHER STUFF FIRST.

START DATE: OCT 2 2020

“Hold your breath, it’s rude. Be considerate of the dead. Or the undead, for that matter,” Seungkwan says jabbing Hansol in the ribs with a pointy elbow. Hansol hisses through a laugh and let’s himself get jostled off the sidewalk. He rubs at his side underneath the thrift store flannel, but the rubber werewolf glove on his hand just makes the fresh bruise hurt more. 

It’s funny because Seungkwan’s technically been dead for fifty years. And Hansol never holds his breath on purpose around him. 

There are times when moonlight catches on one of Seungkwan’s fangs when he’s thrown his head back laughing at one of Soonyoung’s terrible jokes and that’s when Hansol is left breathless. Like he’s the one who had his breath snatched away by being Turned, but it’s just his hauntingly beautiful best friend. 

But right now they’re walking past the old churchyard on the edge of town, mossed over and reeking of petrichor, shadowed by towering pines, and no one buried in it since 1862. A chilly breeze gusts low, nipping at their heels. Crisp fallen leaves ghost against the sliver of skin between the cuffs of their jeans and sneakers.

If Hansol inherited his dad’s superhearing he would hear the whisper of “Go back. Turn around,” but instead he physically shivers. It creeps up his spine and the hair on the back of his neck stands up. Nothing good every comes from a shiver up the spine. He nervously glances to the side at Seungkwan, but he looks unfazed. They’re the only ones of the side of the road hugging the cemetary. The cackles from the little devils and toilet paper mummies and swashbucklers float over with the wind. Hansol rushes to take a deep breath and Seungkwan nods appreciatively at his puffed up cheeks. 

“I just don’t get why you insist on dressing up like a werewolf every Halloween. It’s so gauche,” Seungkwan chides knowing Hansol can’t respond. He’s too busy texting their groupchat to see Hansol roll his eyes. His lungs burn but it’s just one more block. He doesn’t trust the wind tonight and he’s not taking any chances. Sometimes there are truths to Old Wives’ tales, especially the ones regarding the dead. 

They haven’t walked past the old churchyard since last Halloween. There’s nothing beyond it besides woods, a smattering of old Victorian mansions, and the interstate on-ramp. It’s easier to pile into the backseat of Mingyu’s shitty 2002 Camry and drive everywhere, but it just feels wrong to be in a car on Halloween. The magic in the clean Autumn air and the pumpkin orange sky doesn’t hit the same from behind tinted windows. 

The aura of the old churchyard didn’t feel this, well, off last year. Abandoned cemeteries and rotting churches are always creepy, but now the woods seem darker and forbiddingly misty. Almost as if the trees had formed a barrier to keep everyone out or, worse, to keep something in. Hansol notices one of the mausoleums closer to the wrought iron fence separating the living from the dead has a new crack in the marble. It’s remarkably fist shaped. Subconsciously, he squints his eyes. There’s claw marks, too. He picks up the pace. 

“Hansol, stop being a baby! You’re scarier than half the things in there!” Seungkwan yells after Hansol, huffing into a light jog, the black and red polyester cape tied in a neat bow around his neck trails after him. He’s panting and puffing to ploy Hansol into taking pity on him even though he’s well aware that Hansol knows he doesn’t actually need to breathe. 

The second Hansol’s foot lands just after the edge of churchyard he exhales in a great big whoosh.

There’s a dreadful lupine howling in the distance, resounding from over the tips of pine trees and Seungkwan scrunches up his face in confusion.

“Who even is that? We know every werewolf this side of the Hudson,” he asks. Seungkwan scrolls through his phone screen, pursing his lips in concentration. “It’s not even a full moon tonight, my moon phase widget said so.” 

“It’s Mingyu,” Hansol answers. He silently prays Seungkwan doesn’t press cause Hansol really doesn’t want to say it. The thing about having super, special werewolf hearing is that you kinda know what every wolf’s howl sounds like, in all situations. 

“Why is he acting out, what gives?” Seungkwan asks. He looks at Hansol expectantly. Like he knows all the inner machinations of Mingyu’s big dumb werewolf brain just because he’s also a werewolf. 

“Um, that’s definitely Mingyu getting his back blown out by Seungcheol right now,” Hansol says. He feels blood rush to his cheeks. Seungkwan’s face cracks into disgust and Hansol can’t help but double over in a cackle.

“Ew, I didn’t need to know that, Sollie! What the fuck!”

Okay that’s all of them. If you enjoyed any of them, please let me know! Feedback on stuff that I wrote regardless is still important to me!!! And if you read all this, a sincere thank you!! 

hi:) 

I’m here to muse about writing in 2020. I’ll be honest: part of me doesn’t feel like I “deserve” to write an end of the year wrap up. 25k published words doesn’t feel like a lot to me. I had really grandiose ideas about what I wanted to achieve this year: massive amount of words, sweeping stories, make people feel some intense emotions! But I disappointed myself! Which of course is silly and stupid! If you wrote some words and you published them for a bunch of friends and strangers to see, no matter the amount, it’s deserving of some introspection! I’m trying to enter 2021 with more kindness to myself in this regard and I’m treating this uhhhhh blog post as the first stepping stone for that. Take my hand and let’s process some ~Feelings and Emotions~ together. Imagine there are a bunch of sparkles trailing after us. 

Let’s Talk About The Process And Identifying As a “Writer”

Contrary to popular belief, I am not a fiction writer. Hold up, before you’re like “but ria von wizardshinwon you post fic! We sometimes read it! You’re a fiction writer!” hear me out. I still consider myself a writer. It's what I'm best at, it's what I get paid to do, I am confident in calling myself a Writer. 

However, I’m just an essayist. A pretty solid one actually! I’m good at research and delivering my opinion in a clear, hoighty toighty, academic jargon riddled way. It comes very easily and very naturally to me. And I like doing it! Writing two thousands words on a topic I’m familiar with? Easy peasy lemon squeezy pumpkin pie motherfucker. In give or take three hours, I’ll have a diatribe on why I think Cubism is inherently racist (primitivism is whack and Picasso is a bastard in case u wanted a sneak peek at those thoughts) or like why I think Metal Gear Solid is queer theory praxis.  

Two thousands words of fiction on the other hand? It’s like pulling teeth, nasty rotted teeth. Fiction writing does not come easily to me at all. It’s surprising given that I’ve been an avid reader all my life. My senior year of high school I read 50 books on top of the reading I already had to do for class. Who does this? Certainly not me now. This is not the same brain that tore through the unabridged Les Misérables twice (TWICE!!) in one academic school year. FOR FUN. Anyway they died holding hands. Whatever. Moving on.

But, I cracked the code the other day on it’s so hard for me to write fiction: it’s because I’m reverse engineering everything in my head before the words are even down on paper. I think about meaning and intention and overwork things till the dough is gummy and spent. And then there’s no cooked, delicious bread on Ao3. We’ll have to get Boston Market for dinner. 

I’ve spent my entire life picking a part other people’s words, analyzing them, squinting at them through a microscope to find themes and symbolism some higher deeper human meaning, that I’m afraid that my words won’t be up to snuff if someone does that to me. 

So ultimately, fiction writing is a very frustrating process for me. Words don’t flow smoothly for me. I hem and haw and plonk along and nitpick. Always nitpick. And I find inadequacy in the process when comparing it to how easily it comes to others.

When the juices do flow, I have terminal Can’t Shut The Fuck Up Disease. A bitch has NO clue on how to be concise. There’s a post on tumblr that’s like “Anyone else with ADHD have a problem with rambling on and on because you have to get all your thoughts out in an incredibly specific way with zero room for misinterpretation about what you said?” and someone replied with “Is this post an example of that?” YES, THIS POST IS AN EXAMPLE OF THAT. Additionally, I have an impossibly high standard for myself! It’s called perfectionism and because perfection is unattainable, I constantly feel like a failure. That’s that on cripplingly self-esteem luv xx! 

I’m trying to shift my focus from “Wow, how will I get people to like my stuff?” to “What do I have to say? What do I want to say?” I’m so concerned with how people will view the end product that I don’t stop to think, what’s the goal of this story? Why am I the one writing it? I want to start being more purposeful. And sometimes the purpose is to tell a story about growing pains and learning to love others and sometimes the purpose to smush two people who wanna see make out together and just have fun! I want to enjoy the process!

My kpop real person slash fanned fiction does not have to be the next great American novel. It just has to make me happy and hopefully someone else too. 

Friendship Soup

However, I somehow manage to persevere and every other month or so and shit out 5k words. The n I post it to ao3 and I’m like “please, please enjoy this slop. This gruel. This wallpaper paste porridge,” after complaining to every single friend I have (who also happen to be writers) about my imposter syndrome, my foundational false sense of inadequacy, and generally just dragging my feet about how someone’s dick just won’t get out of someone’s mouth. Then I make my friends hold my hand through the whole thing.

And I will be the first to admit that I have a trouble internalizing when people says nice things about me and about my writing. My brain is a festering overflowing septic tank and it tells me things like “ur friends r lying to u” which hey brain why would you say mean things about my friends like that?  But thank god for them, literally nothing would’ve been written if they were not there.

And really, I think that’s what I my 2020 year of writing is about: friends and, ultimately, a community. 

For a while fan fiction writing was a really lonely process for me, especially when I was still writing BTS only. I was just a pebble in a riverbed with thousands of other pebbles hoping to wash ashore and hoping someone would pick me and my words up and put me in their pocket. And I also just stopped writing for about a year. That was due to a lot of Things. A perfect storm of Life Stuff (if u know u know, if u don’t, well you’ll see me talking about it on unlocked main at 3am on a bad night sometimes), falling out of love with a thing you spent two years of life dedicated to loving, and feeling unmoored after the glamour of that thing wore off.

(In fact, had I not gotten into Pentagon in October 2019, I probably would’ve said goodbye to kpop entirely. Go off butterfly effect, damn!)

Long, long story short I abandoned ship, swam to the shores of Pentagon, then stowed away on a train to Caratland in February 2020. I joke constantly that I flew to Seoul to support Pentagon and came back a Carat (it’s not a joke. it’s true. My tolerance had finally waned and I bought my first Seventeen album IN Incheon International Airport). I’m, obviously, still a Uni. I’m just bad about writing content for them (and also…. 80% of what litte Pentagon fic there is…………………. Woof). 

So I didn’t write again really. That is… until SVT Rarepair happened. My friends introduced me to their friends, and suddenly I was writing SVT fic and becoming getting along with these people like a fire in a bush. The rest is history! 

And we’re all in this soup together. A chowder even! I like chowder.

There is a sense of camaraderie and sincerity from this group of writers, where we’re all genuinely excited to see what each other creates and want to encourage and help each other anyway we can (of course there's some bad stuff but that's just the nature of literally any community, online or offline).

Alas, I do the dumb thing where I’m like you guys are all so good I can never be that good wtf, but at the same time it pushes me to want to be better and work hard to get my writing to the next level. I have so much to learn from everyone! Reading fic has become less of a passive hobby;  now I read actively. I make note of why a character moment is successful, why the pacing is snappy and flows, and why do I love the order of these beautiful words so much. 

And you’re all ridiculously talented. To the point where I’m like… how did I con these people into being my friend and how did I trick them into thinking I was good at this thing. When’s the GOTCHA moment going to come? I hope it never comes. I really like my home here and how lucky I am to be surrounded by such greatness. I don’t want to speak too soon or jinx anything, but I think I’ve found lifelong, stupidly, talented friends. 

Specifically Isi, Maya, and Kim (it took me so long to figure out the ordering of these names cause you’re all so immensely important to me please envision urselves holding hands in a kickline or something). I owe so much to each of you for the hand holding, late night words of encouragement and reassurance, and every time we said “Haha And Then What?” 

Also a sincere thank you to my best friend and room mate Tori who is the one who has to hear me complain about writing in the meatspace everyday in our apartment, but at least we complain about writing together. And I think that's special :)

There are so many others too and if you’re thinking “Oh, I hope this includes me” guess what? It does. 

OKAY CAN YOU PLEASE JUST TALK ABOUT YOUR FIC?

Yeah:) I can:) And I’ll be talking about them chronologically:)

So I started writing Seventeen fic (I took a brief pitstop in girl group town but we’ll get there) cause for once I was fucking inspired. 13 boys and a seemingly infinite amount of permutations and combinations of dynamics to explore. And instead of it being daunting, I found it exciting. And there was a group of friends I found myself in who also were excited. Thank you Heng:garae sensually horny Minghao in the jeep for starting it all. And let’s get into that:

‘I have my beauty — you your art’

Minghao/Joshua | haoshua

5.3k

Affectionately and colloquially known as “jeep fucking.” So turns out all you need is a beautiful kpop idol, a red jeep, and the idea that he should get railed in it to meet one of your best friends. Isi and I started following each other maybe like two weeks prior to this. I tweeted something about how I was gonna write Minghao getting his shit rocked in the Red H:G Jeep and then I got a really scary @ from twitter user eightpaint saying “hold on let me dm you” and I thought she was gonna tell me something like UUHHH CAN YOU NOT I HAD THAT IDEA FIRST and then it was the complete opposite of that! We decided since we both wanted to write it, we’d craft a little cinematic universe (this is a tool that will be important later), and now here we are six months later pontificating to each other about the extolls and perfections about one another.

This was supposed to just be a sexy little PWP. Joshua is hot, Minghao is hot, and Minghao was gonna have his dick ridden like it’s never been ridden before. I was gonna shake in a dash of metaphor and purple prose. But the little sifter cap fell off and dumped a shit ton of literary devices about Greek art, museum culture, paint, nature, and worship and a little bit of Oscar Wilde?? I dunno dog. I had never written anything like this before, I always relied heavily on my humor and more stream of consciousness style of writing and apparently writing about Minghao just demanded me to lay the purple prose on thick.

Also lmao I wrote this when Joshua was not even properly on my radar and I was still pretending Minghao wasn’t in my bias line. Oh, what six months will do to a person. Now haoshua is one of my favorite dynamics in Seventeen and I cannot get enough of them.

I still really like this one. For like two months I was like ick cringe? Cause I just went soooo heavy handed on the metaphors and similes. But I had fun writing it and Isi and I went from strangers to creative partners because of Minghao and the jeep. Wild how that happens. If I do start thinking about how crazy the circumstances were that Isi and I became friends I WILL start crying.

But long story short, the two of us are cut from the same cloth, the cloth of god actually, and we’re mad scientists hell bent on crafting a cinematic universe so self-indulgent and so niche. I could not imagine how my 2020 would have gone without her. Isi gets how my brain works on a creative level more than any other person, we… might as well have the same fucking brain. We have a doc where we’re outlining out Secret Wonhao Project and there are parts where we cannot tell who individually wrote what because we sound and think so similarly. It’s really rare to find someone ever in your whole life that matches you so perfectly on a creative and emotional level. Isi Just Gets it. I hope everyone gets to find their creative match and finds their Isi. 

‘Skate or die trying’

Vernon/Seungkwan | verkwan

3.2k words

Um this entire year end wrap up is longer than this fic EL OH EL anyway. So. After the success of jeep fucking I was like “hnnnrnrnnrgg brain machine need attention and praise juice hhhrnnfnngngnr” and then I wrote this in an afternoon. The entire month of July I had gone through a full on quarter life crisis childhood dream regression because my 25^th birthday was approaching. So I got really, really into watching skateboarding content again. And then I bought my own skateboard. And then I wrote this fic. 

I’m always desperate for skateboarding or XGames fic. I think it lends itself really well to internal vs external conflict and growth. And the aesthetics are good. The Extremely Goofy Movie is also a cornerstone of my personality which then led me to Really Really love the Tony Hawk Pro Skater games and letting Jackass and Viva La Bam influence too much of my humor and interests when I was 13. It is glaringly apparent.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun writing this. It was a no brainer decision to write this from Seungkwan’s POV, but also I was super nervous to write Seungkwan. He’s a special brand of neurotic and caring that I didn’t know if I could nail and turns out, um, if you just write a version of your own embellished inner monologue, you just sound like Boo Seungkwan. Hahaha…. I’m happy so many people enjoyed it and thought it was a leedtle bit sexii too.

I feel like Verkwan is deceptively tricky to write and I want to revisit these sk8tr bois soon cause I wanna dig deeper into the verkwan dynamic! Maybe something longform? Hansol gets a sponsorship? He travels for a competition? Seungkwan learns to skate? Who knows!!!

Hold my hand ; put on a show

Seulgi/Irene | seulrene

2.1k words

Baby’s first fest fic she actually completed and didn’t drop out of! This one was for GG Jukebox Mixtape round and it was based off of My Best Friend’s Hot by The Dollyrots. The initial plan for this fic was a fun, light-hearted summer rom com vibe and then I accidentally Bleak Boy Bingoed all over it. But it was important to write. This was the first instance where I was writing to say something. 

The Monster MV behind the scenes came out and there’s this moment where Seulgi checks with the director before shoving and crowding Irene up against a wall. It’s hot, it’s sexy, it’s manufactured. Sure, the MV itself has references to Carmilla, an actual lesbian vampire story, so it’s not like it’s entirely queerbaiting. However, it was imperative that I write about the expectations and curation of sensuality between women in Kpop spaces. And I think I did just that. I included a lot of layers, like onions and ogres, to the story. It’s short and writing it was hell cause I thought I was doing a shit job the entire time.

(Partially because I knew the interest in a canonverse, non-explicit, introspective work for a GIRL GROUP??? Was not gonna get hits. People just don’t fucking read and write girl group fic. I wish they would. I really wish they would, women are just as complex and interesting and dynamic and sexy and fun as the boys we spend our time writing about are. Please I’m begging you. I’m gonna try to write more in the future too.)

But Billy, another one of my best friends, was so kind and was like shut up you’re doing a great job and saw me physically in the meatspace toil away at it one night in August and he kindly beta-ed it and filled me with the fire of determination to soldier on and finish it up! I wish more people had given it a chance, but I’m thankful for the people who have and made the effort to tell me they really liked it. Specifically Nikita who is hold my hand put on a show's biggest fan. 

This new devilry

Shinwon/Joshua | shinshua 

HI OKAY SO. I WENT A LITTLE INSANE AND SAID ‘I WANT ME TIME’ and then I wrote about Shinwon von Pentagon and Miss Joshua Hong fucking in the Inkiygayo Bathrooms. This was born out of two things:

1) 95z makes me crwaaaazthy and I think Shinwon and Joshua should be friends.

2) We need more crossovers in Kpop. All these people know of each other and are colleagues. Just.
Smoosh em together.

All of this (read as: shipping real people) is fake anyway

October comeback season was literal insanity. Everyone was coming back and everyone was at the same schedules and everyone knows that Inkigayo is where idols mingle and hookup. And Pentagon and Seventeen were at Inkigayo at the same time. So thus the Inkigayo Bathroom Cinematic Universe was born.

A perfect liminal space and blank canvas where anyone’s dreams of idols hooking up can come true. I encouraged friends to write self-indulgent semi-public quick and dirty bathroom sex and I’m so happy people joined me on my journey to single-handedly change the kpop fic zeitgeist (lmao I’m kidding).

I got scared cause it got out of hand and out of my control for a hot second (I really wanted to limit the collection that you could post to for friends only and also for it to just be a lowkey just for fun thing and then for two days I was freaking out just total AAAAAAH JANET MARTY WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE THIS IS RESPONSIBILITY???) before things simmered back down again. The Inkigayo Bathroom Hookup Cinematic Universe is still there for mutuals to post to anytime they get the hankering to smoosh idols together! It’s a fun, pressure free space to play in.

Is it the best sex written out there? No. Is it the worst? I hope not. Did I write the funniest and most clever line I will ever write in my entire fic writing enterprises? Yes. I will never be able to top “God, where did you get that mouth?” “The doctor’s office.”

Yes, I want to write more Shinshua. Will it happen? Idk, anything is possible.

AND FINALLY

Your heart in this game

Wonwoo/Hoshi | soonwoo

4k, WIP

Sports fest fic was the bane of my existence for six months. I claimed Ariana’s prompt bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, filled with ideas!!! I knew what I wanted to do! I wanted to write a story about passion recognizing passion, skill recognizing skill, found families living in foreign countries, my love letter to video games, and how much I missed Manhattan like a limb (I live on a direct train line in and I haven’t been into the city since November last year I am dying squirtle). I wanted it to follow along the entire Overwatch League season. It was gonna be a 50k long masterpiece. This was gonna be my swansong, my magnum opus, my masterwork. 

And then, I wrote the first 2k in June and then literally did not touch it until like a week ago. Party scenes are hard! I got stuck choreographing a party scene for literally six months. I set up unrealistic expectations for myself and then was mad I wasn’t going to have my 50k done to drop on deadline day.

I complained about this fic for months. I had Maya workshop it with me on the CELLULAR PHONE twice!! TWICE!! For hours!!! Kim heard me bitch and moan about this thing nearly every fucking day. I sent excerpts of my first 2k to Abigail, to Isi, and I think to Lars at one point? I don’t know I made everyone look at these same first 2k words once a month for six months. I’m insane and I don’t know the value of my own work and need people to pet my hair and tell me I’m pretty.

I was so caught up on not submitting a WIP that I ended up just never writing it. And then it all came together like two weeks ago, when I figured out how to properly plot something and Maya held my hand and was like This Is Good This Will Work You Got This You Can Finish It You Just Gotta Make It Smaller. But I wasn't going to sacrifice my vision after all and I was like lmao it’s just gonna be a wip. This is the pacing I set out for the beginning and I’m keeping it that way. I’m glad the deadline is gone and past and everyone knows it’s mine and I can emotionally move on from sports fest fic and revisit it when I am inspired to work on it and not feel a sense of obligation or responsibility towards it. 

Thank you so much to everyone who gave it love and took a chance on it despite it being a WIP!!! I hope to make you laugh and have soonwoo kiss sometime in the near future! 

A Little Reflection In The Moonlight and Making Goals

Sorry this is turned less into less of insight in the Ria Tee Writing Process and more of how writing fictionalized versions of kpop idols fucking each other has impacted how I’ve grown as a person this year. I did a lot of crying and deleting words and sinking into a depression hovel over writing and other times I laughed a lot, was proud of what I wrote and thought I really was a genius. 

I learned a lot about myself and the sludge disguised itself as my brain and how I have to make Being A Creative And Mentally Ill ~Work~ For Me. Here’s what I figured out and what I’m gonna start implementing in 2021: 

1) I work soooooo much better when I’m bouncing ideas off of another person. The themes, plot beats, scene ideas, symbolism, dialogue, pacing, and mire poix that goes into making a good story soup finally clunk out of my brain and make itself evident is when I am talking to another person. I will not come to these conclusions toiling in my own brain factory cause I will just think myself in circles until I fall down dizzy.

2) Be proud of my own voice and stop worrying. As I’ve reiterated several times through this, I constantly compare myself to others and instead of being like “What can I learn from this person?” I default to “I wish I could write like this person, I will never be able to write like this person, I should just throw in the towel” That helps… no one. I gotta grab my own damn self by the face and scream WHEN PEOPLE COMPLIMENT YOU THEY ARE NOT LYING TO YOU. 

3) Forgive myself for being a slow writer. Maybe once I forgive myself for this, my brain will just shut off and I can start nyooming. Nonstop words. But also the last time I did that I wrote 6k of a BTS magical royalty AU I never finished (it may get turned into a SVT affair???) and realized if I kept writing and pacing it the way I was it was going to end up being a 200k monstrosity. And unfortunately my brain works on a dopamine/serotonin feedback loop. If I don’t get attention immediately and get pat on the head for doing a good job I will not finish the thing. This is partially why almost everything I write is short form, because I’m not good at working at things over time. My braaaaain is a hellscaaaaape. Anyway. Anticipate longer things in 2021

(This post is also proof that I do have the ability to just… fucking Go. I typed all of this in like. Two hours maybe.) 

4) Set aside writing days and set aside reading days. Waiting for inspiration to strike or kicking yourself all day going “I should be writing I should be writing I should be writing I should be writing” does miserable things for your mental wellbeing. I noticed days where I said “Today, I am just going to read and absorb and have fun” and days where I said “Today, I am going to write at least 400 words or write for these two hours” helped a lot. There’s a really helpful post I see going around that Sir Terry Pratchett had a writing goal of minimum 400 words a day. Sometimes he wrote just that and sometimes he wrote more, but what matters is words are going on a page. He wrote all of fucking Discworld like that. And Discworld is like. A million words long. Insanity!

5) No Fests 2021. Quite rich of me to say after just finishing up modding my first fic fest, but no fests 2021. I’m not fuckin’ doing it. I think We Are All Deal With Fest Burnout this year. The attention and networking is fantastic, but the way the deadlines impede my natural writing process… whack. Deadlines and I are like exes that are still in the same group of friends. We get invited to all the same parties, but we’re just never going to be the same. I work HORRIBLY with deadlines. For six months every time I wrote something that wasn’t for one of the four (FOUR) fests I signed up for (I ended up dropping two), I felt this overwhelming chest-crushing sense of guilt. That I wasn’t “supposed” to be working on this I have xyz fest to be working on! I should be finishing this and not starting a new project! The stress for something that’s supposed to be for fun is just not worth it for me. I’m doing this shit for fun and I’m not getting a grade on it, so no more deadlines that cause unnecessary stress.

As for some tangible goals: 

1) I’m not setting myself a word count goal for this year. That’s just myself up for disappointment lmao. Instead, I’m going to aim for like one thing posted every other month. I’m also getting back into the swing of writing more essays again so the writing that advances my career will, uh, take some precedence. 

2) Be aptly prepared to write birthday fic. I received so much birthday fic this year and I don’t have enough words in my body to express how loved that makes me feel. I know how much work it goes into writing, so the idea of someone doing that out of the kindness of their heart for me? Bonkers. So I want to give back!!! Show how much I love the people who love me.

3) Be like Terry Pratchett and write like 400 words…. Maybe like 3 times a week. Just to have the juices trickling? I dunno remember that one Neopets game with the tubes and the juice. Something like that.

4) What Skills Do I Want To Spend Skill Points On? I want to improve my pacing. I want to figure out what needs breather scenes and where lots of action has to go. I want to stop rushing to show things, but on the flip side also get to the fucking point. Start trusting my readers and show not tell! Remember that thing about that ADHD tumblr post? Same shit for me and fiction. And finally, work on making dialogue sound like the characters speaking and less like me. 

But!!! I have exciting projects lined up that I hope you all can look forward to. Here’s a sneak peak:

1) Rare Pair: lmao. I should be working on that right now but I’m writing this instead. It’s… very different in tone from what I usually write and I hope you all like it!
2)  ‘your heart in this game’: hopefully will get wrapped by the time summer rolls around! I have everything plotted out, I know what I want to happen, and mostly importantly it’s written down so I won’t just forget it.
3) Riabelle Secret Wonhao Project: lmao onto your butts y’all. she's gonna be a big and crazy one

There will probably be other stuff in between! Who knows when and how inspiration will strike but at least those are the conked crete plans so far. 

Phew! You made it the end, congratulations! Sorry bout all of That. I hope you enjoyed the peek behind the curtain and see the Wizard instrumenting these silly little stories and see the deep seated neuroses behind it all. To more writing, to continued great friendships, and the strength the soldier on.

See y’all on the otter slide.