#( the beta editor got me so i had to make a new post )

[everythingheard]

with Goodnight ( @fameisasarcophagus ) ▌from here.

Joshua had never liked dwelling on his own mortality, even if reminders of it had lingered everywhere for as long as he could remember: in his mother's drawn-out death, looming over a game of cards where the loser harbored a particular propensity for violence, alongside every gunfight he raced headlong into. Despite his efforts of avoidance ( or perhaps because of them ), the reality of it had been made plain in his past and his present. There was surely no reason to expect the same wouldn't be true of his future, though he did wonder if he was capable of altering it if he tried. Josh Faraday steering clear of trouble — now, that Joshua wasn't certain he could utter aloud with a straight face, and maybe no one would believe him if he did. The notion that such was probably for the best just barely skirted around his thoughts as Goodnight's gaze turned to meet his.

A short laugh that sounded too loud for the tranquil quiet they inhabited escaped his lips at the words the older man followed with. "Damn sure hope I don't know." If Joshua was aware enough to register that he was dead, that implied his soul ( if they even existed ) lingered elsewhere, and that outcome seemed mighty risky to him considering the place he had always suspected it would end up. When he had decided to trade his life for the town, he had hoped for redemption of a sort — but his mind had been settled on the people of Rose Creek, not necessarily on the long-term aftermath. "When I'm done here, think I'd rather just be done." Of course, to believe so would entail accepting that no part of the people he had lost existed anywhere either, soul or otherwise, which unexpectedly disconcerted him.

Joshua could really use a drink right about now.

A smile rising along his mouth that he didn't fully feel, he pointed an index finger at Goodnight and tacked on, "Don't tell Horne I said that, or he's gonna try 'n give me another talkin' to. Already got an earful a coupla days ago 'cause I didn't take my hat off while he was prayin'." He lifted his eyebrows. "I got shit on you, too, 'course — since you started it, with your talk of not knowin' that we'll be dead. Practically led me right off the clean path of goodness into the weeds of sin." That sparked a genuine grin upon Joshua's countenance; the statement was so patently absurd that he couldn't quite help it.

[physalian]

On self-publishing, and why I did it

Based on the research that I have done, following other indie authors across multiple platforms, I think I've made an approach to this that is a lot less... shall we say, *intense* than people make it out to be? I've seen some YouTube videos acting like picking one route or the other might be the worst mistake of your author career.

I mean, I guess?

Back a few years ago I had a manuscript I was querying around and couldn't find any takers. Couldn't find any publishing houses that were accepting open submissions to pick up my manuscript either. So many of them had clauses in the application verifying that you were submitting to them and only to them and to expect a reply within 8-10 months. Coooool.

I did not have time for that.

—

The manuscript I had was 120k words. Baby’s first novel sitting at 120k words is not attractive to publishing houses. It’s a risk. I was younger and didn’t know much about finding an agent and all that jazz, so I had looked into self-publishing and was staring down an editor bill of about $3k minimum because of my word count. I did not have the money for that.

So that manuscript got shelved, meanwhile I wrote the sequel and got halfway through book 3 before writer’s block took hold.

Enter February 2024. I have an idea for a new book. 31 days later, I have that book’s first draft done—Eternal Night of the Northern Sky, on sale from draft to publication in seven months.

This time, I didn’t consider for one second trying the traditionally published route. ENNS is 111k words, it’s a doorstopper of a book, but the bulk wasn’t the only reason I decided to bootstrap myself to the finish line.

I wanted complete, absolute creative control every step of the way

If I have to market myself anyway, why am I splitting profit with a publishing house?

I *really* don’t have time to wait around hoping the right person sees my manuscript. I have a new job coming that’s going to eat up all my free time and could either delay ENNS a year or more, or get it out while I still had time to do so

I didn’t do this for money

I think that’s what makes so many of those rather intense arguments for one or the other so harrowing—the pressure is a lot higher if you invested all this time, money, and effort expecting returns to break even, if not actually turn a profit. Publishing with a publisher doesn’t guarantee people will buy your book, mind you, but it’s a helping hand nonetheless. If I even want to break even, let's say just on royalties from the ebook, I'd have to sell over a thousand copies.

Breaking down my above points:

I’m a firm believer in “if you want something done right, you do it yourself,” which does bite me in the ass from time to time, this I know. I didn’t want to get caught up in contracts or editors telling me what I could and couldn’t do or what I had to change. If ENNS fails, I will have no one to blame but myself, and I am at peace with this. If ENNS fails, and I’d gone through the trouble of signing my book’s soul away to a publisher, then I’d probably be a little resentful. 100% of ENNS is mine, even the cover. I had an image in my head of what I wanted the cover to look like, and I sat down and I drew it and it matches perfectly. Aside from the feedback implemented from betas and editors, my story is told the way I wanted to tell it. If it fails, I am at peace with this.

On marketing, I am not a person who does well with social media. Maybe it’s autism, idk, but trying to keep up with an Instagram is exhausting. I just don’t get anything from tiny text posts and blurbs and doomscrolling through influencers and advertisements. Social Media is, for me, exhausting. Tumblr is different, because writing is my strong point and this blog exists to share and curate something useful. But either way, I’d have to market this book alone, so why not do so with full creative control? If it fails, I am at peace with this.

I have a new job coming very quickly. My current job allows me about 5 hours of free time during my 8 hour shift on a good day not including the time outside work, and I work from home. ENNS was written in 31 days thanks to this job. The new one? Not so much. Seeing “please allow 8-10 months” and “please ensure this is an exclusive submission” on so many little publishing houses, and I did search far and wide, was incredibly disheartening. For me, personally, it wasn’t worth the gamble of waiting all that time, following the rules, and being told no or just being flat-out ghosted. Nor did I want to sit around querying agents into the void. This time, I didn’t have time to sift through agents. ENNS had to get out on the shelves as quickly as I could get it, and all that time (five goddamn months of editing, 500% of the time it took to write it) was spent perfecting the manuscript that it is, *not* waiting around trying to find an agent. If it fails, I am at peace with this.

And lastly, I don’t care if I make absolutely nothing from this book. I didn’t do it for the money, I did it to say I could. I have a day job, and I’m about to have a much higher paying day job. Maybe I’m lucky enough to have that, but I am under no illusions that putting in the hard work guarantees success. Success as an author is a crapshoot and being an amazing book is not the metric sales are measured in, if no one wants to read it. I’d like to make money, I didn’t do it for charity. It’s going to be priced exactly the same as another fantasy book of its caliber. But if only one person buys it, and finds something good from it, something in it that changes their life, then I will have succeeded, profit be damned. If all else fails, I am at peace with this.

—

This is not a post meant to sway people one way or the other. I know I didn’t do enough research or scour the internet hard enough to find a good agent. All of this is irrelevant when time was the most important factor in my debut novel. I was in a position where I could drop that $3k on an editor, so I did. I’m a capable enough artist to draw my own cover, so I did. I might be abysmal at managing social accounts, but less than a year ago this blog didn’t exist and it has over 5k reblogs and 950 followers and I think that’s pretty swell.

I’m 25 years old. I was not about to let it keep sitting around waiting for the golden opportunity with the perfect publishing house that might not have been coming. I had the means and motive to get it done, and by god, I did it.

If it fails, at least I can say that I failed trying. I am at peace with this.

—

Eternal Night of the Northern Sky is available now on Amazon in ebook and paperback! It is also available through your local bookstore.

Check it out on Goodreads!

[goodboylupin]

Better late than never! Welcome, one and all, to

The 4th Candy Hearts Challenge

A fun, stress-free Wolfstar mini-fest!

(If you remember how this goes , feel free to skip my introductory spiel and check for new rules!)

They’re sold by many companies and known by many names: Candy Hearts, Conversation Hearts, Sweethearts, and Love Hearts. Whatever the brand and whatever you call them, they’re the signature sweet of the season. Sure, you could buy your beloved a box of chocolates, but that’s an option any time of year! Good luck finding these bad boys in November!

Not that candy hearts are bad! Sure, they’re kinda chalky… and they taste stale no matter how fresh you bought them… but it’s not about the taste with candy hearts, it’s about the pastel, the experience, and above all else: the sayings! Who doesn’t remember going through a pack with friends, trying to find the kookiest message? Digging through a box to find one that was just the right level of romantic to give a certain special someone? (And maybe the heartbreak when you received one in turn where the message was just a big, pink smudge?)

Now, candy hearts have been around for a long time. And with a constant rotation of messages so we always got fun variety in a box, they’ve had a lot of sayings.

Through a great deal of internet sleuthing (and a little creativity on my part), I’ve collected over seven hundred of them.

Some are a little raunchy (TEASE ME), and some are downright rude (EW NO). They range from classic (BE MINE) to contemporary (SWIPE RIGHT) to were-at-one-point-contemporary (FAX ME). Some of them are, quite frankly so hyper specific it’s a wonder they made it into circulation at all (ME JULIE BEST MUM).

And they are all, even the weird ones, ripe with potential as fic prompts!

The way this mini-fest works is simple:

From 12:01am EST Feb 1 until 11:59pm EST March 1, drop me an ask containing these emojis: 🍬💕

If you don't want to send an ask from your main tumblr account (or don't have a tumblr account), you can do so anonymously. However, you must include the ao3 handle or tumblr sideblog from which you plan to complete the challenge.

I will shake my Great Big Box of Candy Hearts and pull out a unique candy heart for you and only you!

With your message in hand, create whatever that candy heart inspires and your own heart desires! Fanfic, art, graphics, playlists, head canons, shit posts, interpretive dances, cosplay, meta essays, it’s all great as long as its central focus is on Wolfstar, the relationship between Remus Lupin and Sirius Black!

You can either directly quote your candy heart message in your work or use it as a broader inspiration.

You are allowed to use the same candy heart as inspiration for multiple unrelated works and submit all of them to the fest.

You do not need a beta before submitting your work, but I do encourage you to get one. I want this to be as stress-free an event as it can possibly be, and in my personal experience, it reduces stress to have someone else look over your completed work for at least spelling and grammar so you don’t have to reread your own stuff and psych yourself out before posting. If you don’t have any fandom friends with whom you feel comfortable sharing your fanfiction, there are also online resources to find a friendly stranger (including, hopefully, our discord server — see rule 17). But if ultimately, you’d rather be your own editor, I certainly won’t reject your work!

Include the following caption at the beginning of the tumblr post or AO3 beginning notes: For @goodboylupin's Candy Hearts Challenge. My candy heart prompt was ____. I will not reblog your work or allow it in the collection until you have included the caption.

If posting on tumblr, please make sure the @-tag of your caption is working so I get a notification! It should show up on its own automatically as you type. Also tag the work with #RSCandyHearts, preferably within the first five tags.

If posting on AO3, post your work to the collection and tag it with goodboylupin's RS Candy Hearts Challenge (this tag will show up in the suggestions when you start typing it).

As long as the rules have been followed, I will reblog every work on Tumblr, and leave a kudos on every work on AO3. (If I haven't done so on your work and you see I've been active on this blog, then both the @-notification and #RSCandyHearts tag failed. Send me an ask with a link!)

If, after completing your first work, you want another helping of candy hearts, that’s more than welcome! Since I don’t want anyone to get a sugar crash, there is a two-day wait period between submitting a work and getting a second (or third or fourth or wherever you are) candy heart.

If you find you cannot come up with anything for your prompt, you can drop out and send a new ask to get a different candy heart. However, you need to give it an honest effort for at least one week before I give you a new one.

Works are expected by March 15, but this is a low-stakes, self-posting challenge! If you need more time, just message me or drop an ask. And if you want to drop out, that’s totally fine! I’ll even delete your first ask where you requested a candy heart if you prefer. I only need to know for the sake of my own record-keeping. Let’s all just be honest, considerate, and try to have a good time!

If you need a really long extension: Your candy heart is yours until January of next year, at which point, if I haven't heard back from you with an update or request for extension in the past few months, your prompt is going back in the Great Big Box of Candy Hearts so somebody else can have a go at it. The AO3 collection closes at the same time.

I will keep a masterlist of works pinned on my blog until at least March 22.

There's a discord! Feel free to join to discuss your prompts, your progress, your love of Wolfstar, or just to have another little circle in your sidebar.

Over the past two challenges, there have been a small handful of people who requested a candy heart, did not create anything and did not speak to me any further to tell me they were dropping out or having trouble. I work hard to make everyone a custom graphic and keep this fest running smoothly, therefore: Any creators with multiple instances of ghosting are suspended from getting another candy heart until next challenge.

Since this is not the usual timeframe for #RSCandyHearts, I'd love it if you could reblog this post to signal boost!

My ask box is open now to receive your candy heart requests 🍬💕

[awooghan]

24 to 25 ✧.* y.ji (part one)

❄ PAIRING: jeongin x fem!reader

❄ GENRE: fluff, angst, childhood friends to lovers, christmas

❄ WARNINGS: mild language, mentions of food, long as hell, i put the ‘slow’ in slowburn (in my defense this trope does not work without it), i’ve checked like 1922847473 times for inconsistencies but if there are any pls be nice it’s my first long fic ;w;

❄ WORD COUNT: 47.7k (part one: 25.9k; part two: 21.8k) i'm so sorry

❄ SUMMARY: “stay for christmas?” was a phrase jeongin first uttered to you when you were both ten years old, but you had no idea how much those three little words would mean to you as the years go by. (inspired by “24 to 25” by stray kids)

❄ NOTES: IT’S FINALLY UP!! i’m so sorry for the wait, i really really wanted to get this right and it took me wayyy longer than i thought it would. but i love how it turned out and i'm so proud of it. i hope y’all enjoy :’)

i’ll include more to the note when i'm not in such a rush to get this posted but tysm to everyone who helped me in writing it! @crispy-chan jas thank you for beta reading (i’m so sorry it was so long) your comments were really sweet and really reassured me that i was doing okay <3 thank u @pearleechai and @gloseoks for helping me out with that one part i got stuck on for like a week lmaooo. to parker specifically, ty for all ur help and encouragement in the couple chapters i asked for help on :D i’m sorry it meant u had some of the fic spoiled for u tho ;w; lastly, @svtbabies hopie u have been my lifesaver from start to finish w this fic. thank u so so much for planning w me and for the multiple times u saved me from a huge writer’s block. i wouldn’t have been able to complete this without you, so ty for everything <33 also ty for the banner lol

➳ IMPORTANT!!! this fic is so long that i have to split it into two parts. i'd use the legacy editor but i can't toggle btwn the two anymore 😭 i did not intend for it to be this lengthy but anything for childhood friends to lovers i guess

[part one] | part two

network tags: @straykidsland

9 years old. (prologue)

“Come on, Y/N, you can’t cling onto my shirt forever,” your mother urges you with a small chuckle.

You stiffen up in your spot at the edge of the picnic bench, and your eyes bounce between the several children on and around the playground equipment. Mixtures of squeals and cheerful laughter ring above the Christmas song playing from the outdoor speaker your new neighbors, the Choi family, set up. You forgot if it was the one with the son older than you or the son your age, though—you didn’t exactly bother to learn their names when your mother introduced you.

“Go on, Y/N.” Her voice fills your ears again as she gently pushes you off the bench. Speak of the devil. 

Shoving your hands in your pockets, you kick the dust with your feet and you keep your gaze cast down on the ground. You didn’t want to socialize—why would you want to make new friends when you had perfectly good ones back in your old neighborhood? Why couldn’t you just go back there? Or just snatch your mother’s dingy old flip phone for a couple minutes to send them a message?

Besides, most of the children here don’t seem like ones you’d be particularly… compatible with. You shouldn’t be one to judge, but the majority of the ones doing laps on the playground equipment couldn’t have been older than five or six. At your big age of nine years old, there’s not much you would have in common with a literal kindergartener. Plus, it seems like they had all formed a friend group of their own, and you’re more than content just watching them chase each other around, gleeful, high-pitched squeals bubbling from their sticky mouths.

Turning your head slightly, you find a group of teenagers sitting around another bench several feet away from all the adults, two of which had their bottoms perched on top of the table as they faced their friends. You would approach them, but just like how you wouldn’t exactly favor befriending the five-year-olds with crayons up their noses, the teenagers likely thought the same of you. Closing your eyes in despair, you groan to yourself and resort to dragging your feet across the dirt.

Why did you even have to move?

As you let out a sigh, you perk up at the fact you could see it in the cold air. It sparks an insurmountable amount of joy for some reason. Perhaps it’s because of the timing of the puff of air with the line, ’Jack Frost nipping at your nose’ that rings from the speakers at the other end of the small neighborhood park, but it causes a giggle to slip past your lips. It’s almost like a new light under the already-dimming sky, the soft pinks and oranges slowly dissipating as the sun begins to dip behind the mountains and give way to the overcast above. 

However, you quickly get distracted by the sight of a boy your age—or at least, you assumed—and you hesitantly step closer.

And there he was.

He was short, upside down on the monkey bars, and wearing the most obnoxious shade of purple you had ever laid eyes on. You aren’t sure what hurts more: the sun in your eyes or staring at his sweater. 

Looking away from the light gray clouds that hung above the park, you let your gaze fall to the boy. He watches you quietly as he continues to hang upside down, and you notice the small smile that paints his slowly reddening face.

Here goes nothing, you guess.

“Um… hi.”

He stays silent, staring at you with his beady eyes. 

Gulping, you continue. “I’m Y/N.” 

He mumbles something back, but you can barely make out what he says and you tilt your head slightly in confusion.

“Huh?”

“My name is Jeongin,” he repeats, only the slightest bit louder. 

A smile of your own quickly forms on your face. You raise a hand up for him to shake, and he just stares at it for a second before moving one of his outstretched arms to meet you, his hand grasping yours at an awkward angle. You both can’t help but giggle as you give your best attempt at a handshake.

“Nice to meet you, Jeongin,” you say, slowly pulling your hand away and letting his drop above, or rather, below his upside-down head. “I’m Y/N.”

“You said that already,” he says, and his bluntness makes you chuckle.

Slowly, Jeongin maneuvers himself so he’s sitting on top of the monkey bars instead of hanging upside down. Once he gets upright and steadies himself from the blood rushing down from his head, he stares back down at you. 

You stuff your hands into your pockets and heave out a sigh. “My mom says I need a friend,” you explain your current plight to Jeongin, and you find his soft gaze once again. It’s strange, really—you’ve only exchanged a few words with this boy, but you already feel comfortable enough to complain about your mother’s nagging to him.

You suppose that helps your next words spill out more easily.

“Want to be friends?” 

You watch Jeongin expectantly as he looks down, picking at a piece of lint on his hideous purple sweater. He ponders your question for a minute, and you feel a wave of relief wash over you when he finally nods in response. If your mom wanted you to have a friend so badly, there you go. You got one.

You stand there awkwardly, your eyes drifting back up to the sky for a moment. It occurs to you that you’ve never asked someone to be friends with you; it’s always just kind of happened.

And now you’re stuck, unsure what to do next.

You let out another huff of air, another smile tickling your lips as you watch the faint, white puff form in front of your eyes. Then you look back up at the boy in the obnoxious purple sweater, who seems just as amused by the cold air as you as he lets out his own breath, exhaling like a small dragon.

A chuckle escapes your parted lips as you watch him, kicking his legs lightly as he stares up at the sky. After another minute, you speak again.

“Can I sit up there with you too?”

Nodding his head, he mumbles a small “yeah” and the corners of your mouth twitch up as you hurriedly climb your way up onto the monkey bars. You dangle your legs through the same section as Jeongin’s, and you shift your position slightly as you steady yourself.

A gust of cold air causes you to shiver and as a response, you pull your puffy coat closer to you. This seems to make Jeongin chuckle fondly, and you feel his eyes linger on you for a second before he looks out at the horizon. Neither of you are tall enough to see much above the houses in front of you, but you figure you can use your imaginations to picture what lies beyond that. It’ll have to do.

You both remain silent for a while like this, allowing the chatter and Christmas music below to fill the air around you. It’s comfortable, it feels like a weighted blanket wrapped around your shoulders—which is funny to say because you’re sharing this moment with a kid you’ve barely known for ten minutes. You don’t mind, though. By the looks of it, and the friendly glances you exchange with each other, Jeongin doesn’t seem to, either.

Suddenly, a cold, wet spot falls onto your nose, causing you to gasp and look up.

“Is that…”

Jeongin tilts his head up as well, and he chuckles when another wet drop lands on his face. Meanwhile, you’re in awe. You let your mouth fall open, and your eyes swirl with pure wonderment as you watch the white crystals above you flutter down. It sends chills down your spine, but wraps you up in a cocoon of warmth at the same time. 

“Snow…” is all you manage to mumble. 

Jeongin turns to you, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Have you never seen snow before?”

You glance at him once, shake your head, and look back up at the sky. 

The boy’s jaw drops. It almost mirrors your dazed expression, except his features are twisted in surprise. But it’s true—snow was something you had only witnessed in movies. As far as you were concerned, the fluffy, white particles only ever graced the stop-motion characters on the old-timey Christmas cartoons you rewatched every year, or the main couple in whatever cheesy Hallmark movie your parents decided to indulge in.

That is, until now.

You didn’t know at that moment what type of future you had in store, but you know one thing: the snow is beautiful. And as you follow Jeongin down the monkey bars and to your first snowball fight, you have an inkling that you’ll be sticking with him for a while.

Maybe this move won’t be so bad after all.

10 years old.

You let out a huff of air, letting your chin bore into the palm of your hand. Unfortunately, though, the air inside a school classroom doesn’t allow you to watch it come to life. Sure, you had a heater and the bulky coat your mother gave you to thank for warmth, but at what cost?

No matter how hard you try to focus on the math test that was laid out in front of you, you just can’t. Not when the outside seemed to beckon you like a siren, begging you to come out and indulge in the ever-approaching Christmas atmosphere. 

It’s all tempting. So, so tempting. Everything else seemed to be falling into place—the air has started to get colder, Christmas music has been playing 24/7 in the stores since November, you’ve worn every ugly Christmas sweater you could get your hands on at least once in the last two weeks, and you’ve begged your mom for a cup of hot chocolate every chance you could get. 

Now you just need it to snow, and you need it badly. 

After you scribble a random answer for the question you’ve been stuck on for five minutes, you throw your pen onto the table and lean back in your hard, plastic chair in defeat. This was too much mental torture, espically when you could hear Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer faintly playing in another room. 

You can’t take it anymore. 

Hopelessly, you stare at Jeongin, who somehow sleeps peacefully next to you. You’re sure he’s been asleep since he sat down in his chair. His head lays on his arm, which is covered by his purple sleeve. You snicker at the sight and pray that one day he grows out of that abomination of a sweater. 

Your eyes drift back to your stupid math test, silently praying again that the torture won’t last for much longer. You were just one step away from greasy pizza and store-bought sugar cookies until your stomach hurt while The Polar Express filled the dim room. Well, one step away is technically two more questions, but it still feels so far.

You begrudgingly answer one of the questions then slump back into your seat, burying your head in your arms. You’re so close to freedom, but you still feel held captive by the test, like it’s shackled your arms and legs to your desk while Rudolph down the hall taunts you, dangling the coveted Christmas cheer over your head.

You don’t even care if you get the questions right anymore. You just scribble down some scratch work that seems somewhat coherent and circle whatever answer is closest then shove your test in your teacher’s hands, eager to get that nasty piece of paper away from you. Then you’re left to wait… and wait… and wait.

It’s unfair. You weren’t meant to be doing a math test the last day before winter break. You weren’t built to be suffering silently at your desk because some people didn’t know how to do long division. (Well, neither do you, but that’s besides the point.)

But nevertheless, you wait… and wait… and wait.

And then, finally, the last student turns in their paper.

The second the teacher plops the pile of tests on her desk, you practically spring up from your seat. You revel in the sweet, sweet freedom, but although your classmates seem just as relieved, they also seem painfully slow. That might also just be all the candy from your teacher’s goody bag pumping through your veins, but it made no difference to you.

Acting as self-appointed leader, you hastily motion for other kids in your class to move the tables to either side of the room, forming a sort of tetris with the desks, while others line trays of food across them. The pizzas are laid out next to different bowls of chips and festive little chocolates in the shapes of snowflakes and snowmen. Small Christmas-themed cups sit at the end of the table with giant bottles of bright, sugary drinks for you to choose from. Like, the ones that are bigger than your face. That’s how you know it’s good.

Hushed whispers of excitement make their way around the classroom as everyone settles down, wrapping themselves in the blankets they had brought to school for today. You take a seat next to Jeongin on the carpet right as the teacher switches the projector on, placing your paper plate filled to the brim with junk food in between you two as you get comfortable.

“How many cookies did you grab?!” Jeongin gawks, marveling at the sight. Whether it’s from amazement or concern is unclear.

You smile smugly at him. The light from the projector as your teacher sets up The Polar Express illuminates his baffled stare. “Not enough.”

He blinks once. “We’re not gonna split it?”

You giggle and push the plate closer to Jeongin, but not without swiping a Santa-shaped cookie from the pile. “I never said we weren’t.”

Jeongin just laughs at you and shakes his head, but the fact that he takes not one, not two, but three cookies from the plate tells you he’s just as excited as you. He attempts to remain nonchalant, though, as he wordlessly pushes a plate stacked with pizza towards you.

Grinning at him, you pick up a slice, the grease glinting in the low light. “Thanks,” you mumble as you take a bite. 

Rolling his eyes, he continues to laugh. “Don’t mention it.” 

There’s something about being next to Jeongin as you watch The Polar Express together, fluffy throw blankets draped around your outstretched legs that catch the crumbs from the snacks you two share, that brings you a sense of comfort. Excitement courses through your body, but somehow, you also feel oddly at peace.

It even seems to transport you to another world, and you forget you had even painstakingly suffered through a math test leading up to this in the first place. Eventually, your mind stops paying attention to the movie—it’s okay, though, because you practically know the story front to back. Instead, you find yourself daydreaming about being awoken in the middle of the night like the boy in the movie, and finding yourself on the fantastical train with Jeongin. A small smile decorates your face as you ponder, imagining all the chaos you could get yourselves into as you made the magical journey to the North Pole together.

However, when the other kids start to gasp and point towards the window, you’re brought back to the real world. Looking over to where they were pointing, you’re greeted with a powdery blanket covering the grass outside, and a grin instantly spreads across your face in delight. 

Finally. It’s snowing. 

You aren’t the only one to jump up from out of your seat in hopes of rushing outside to experience the first snowfall of winter. And you aren’t the first one out of the classroom door either. The calls from your teacher fade into the background like white noise as you scramble out from under your blanket and make a dash for the door as quickly as you can.

“Y/N,” Jeongin calls right before you can run outside, and you turn on your heel.

He speed-walks, then speeds up to an awkward half-jog to where you stand as he digs his hands through his pockets, and you can’t help but chuckle. It takes him until right after he stops in front of you to fish whatever this thing was out. Was it an early Christmas gift? The dreaded cheese touch? You are about to find out.

A crumpled piece of paper falls out of Jeongin’s coat, grazing his hand as he yanks it out of his pocket. He picks it up and unfolds it carefully, squinting at the note.

Leaning over, you peek over his shoulder and furrow your brows as you try to decipher the writing scrawled on. “’Ask Y/N about Christmas’?” You turn your head to the boy. “What about it?”

Jeongin eyes widen for a second as he tries to remember the context of the note. “My parents wanted me to ask if you wanted to…” 

You tilt your head. “Wanted to…?” You repeat.

“What was it that they said?” He mumbles to himself. He looks up, his eyebrows furrowed, and then something seems to click. “Was it… stay? Stay for Christmas?”

You blink, watching the boy with inquisitive eyes. “Stay for Christmas?” you question. 

“Yeah, stay for Christmas.” He hums, and his voice grows more confident as he continues. “Yeah, that’s what they said to ask!” He’s now grinning, and his movements become more animated. “Yeah! Stay with us for Christmas Eve! You have to come, Y/N, it’s a Christmas sleepover! It’ll be fun!”

You light up like a, well, Christmas tree at the idea. You could already picture the absolute blast you’re going to have. Chasing each other around in your pajamas as Christmas music rings in your ears? Eating the cookies his mom laid out for Santa until you're sick? Finding the jolly man himself? And imagine playing in the snow in the morning after ripping your presents open!

“That sounds so fun!” You squeal, beaming from ear to ear. “I'll have to ask my parents, but I'm sure they'll let me go!”

“Y/N, Jeongin,” your teacher interrupts your enthusiasm, her arm propping the door open. “You can’t stay inside by yourselves, come on!”

“Coming!” you two call back in unison, and then you glance at each other. You catch a mischievous glint in Jeongin’s eyes before he bolts for the door, outstretching his arm in front of you before you can react and outrun him.

“Race ya!”

“Hey!”

…

“Mommmm! Daddddd!” you drawl out, a frown stretched across your face as you bounce on the balls of your feet. Your finger impatiently hovers over the doorbell, and if your parents took any longer to grab… whatever they brought for Jeongin’s parents, you would just mash the white button yourself. Or you’d teleport yourself inside; forget the doorbell entirely.

You follow their movements attentively, your fists balled around your backpack straps and teeth pressed against your tongue to keep yourself from complaining more. You had already gotten an earful in the car, not to mention some confused glances when you mentioned the long-anticipated sleepover you had stayed up until the ungodly hours of 10pm preparing your backpack for. If they thought that was late for a fourth-grader, imagine their horror if they knew of your and Jeongin’s plan to stay up all night and see Santa Claus! 

Regardless, you couldn’t pinpoint why your parents raised their eyebrows and snickered at the idea of you sleeping over at Jeongin’s house. Maybe it was the fact that you had your hair messily thrown up into a ponytail and that your light-up Christmas sweatshirt was maybe a size too big—I mean, say what you want, but you’re perfectly dressed for the occasion.

You were sure that was the reason. And certainly not the fact you were practically jumping out of your skin—maybe acting a little bit too excited—to get inside to see your best friend.

Your parents just didn’t understand that this was a pivotal moment. Plus, you’re getting cold. One can only stand outside for so long.

After what felt like hours of waiting, the door finally swings open to reveal Jeongin’s mother, welcoming you and your parents inside. You release your backpack straps from your grip and sprint past your mother, shouting a “Hi, Mrs. Yang!” as you rip your shoes from your feet.

Shaking your backpack off your shoulders, you make a beeline for Jeongin, who puts down his video game controller when you come into view.

“I made it, Jeongin!” you grin from ear to ear, tossing your backpack aside.

“Yay!” he breaks out into a grin and scoots over.

You plop down at the spot next to him, grabbing the spare controller as you watch the mustached man on screen walk right into a brown mushroom and die. And in World 1-1, you may add.

“Let me on! Let’s get this sleepover started!” you mash the ‘A’ button repeatedly, hoping it somehow speeds up Jeongin getting back to the main menu. Oh, were you ready to kick his sorry butt.

Suddenly, you hear bouts of laughter echo from the hallway. You tear your eyes off the screen, finding your and Jeongin’s parents entering the living room. If it weren’t for the wall that your father leaned against, he would have collapsed to the floor from how hard he was laughing.

“Jeongin, you told Y/N there was a sleepover?!” Jeongin’s mother exclaims in between giggles.

Jeongin looks up from his game, his eyebrows drawn together. “Yeah?” He blinks, his voice laced with confusion. “That’s what you said to ask?”

His mom laughs even harder at his reply, her hand over her mouth. “Honey sweet, no!”

Jeongin‘s mouth twists into a frown. He opens his mouth to speak, only to close it again.

Mrs. Yang takes a minute to regain her composure before explaining to the boy, “I meant to ask her to stay for the evening, not the whole night.” She tries to keep a straight face, but another giggle slips out. “There’s no sleepover.”

Jeongin looks down, avoiding eye contact with the four adults laughing at his mix-up as heat rises to his cheeks. Dropping his game controller on his lap, he covers his face with his hands, and lets out a nervous chuckle as his face slowly turns red.

You would’ve been lying if you said you weren’t disappointed that you couldn’t try to see Santa with Jeongin, after all. Despite this loss, you try your best not to laugh at your friend, covering up your giggles with awkward coughs to save Jeongin from more embarrassment. You know both his and your parents will never let him live this down.

And frankly, neither will you.

11 years old.

“You son of a nutcracker!” You cry in unison with Buddy the Elf, your mouth stuffed with an audaciously big chunk of cookie. Maybe you got a bit carried away, but you couldn’t help it if someone was kind enough to bring a platter of fresh-baked cookies to the annual neighborhood Christmas party. It might have been the Choi family—the one with the son your age—which makes sense since they’re hosting the party this year.

Looking up from the gingerbread house he was carefully decorating, Jeongin stares at you with a disgusted frown as you struggle to break down the cookie. 

You look back at him innocently, trying not to laugh. “Hi,” you wave, your mouth still full.

Jeongin shakes his head at you. “I worry about you sometimes.”

“You should.” You swallow most of the bite, wincing as you feel it go down.

Gulping down the rest of the cookie, you prop your chin in the palm of your hand as you pull your attention away from the tv and watch Jeongin. He bites his bottom lip lightly, glancing back and forth between the gumdrops and peppermints around the island and the gingerbread house. He squeezes out some icing, poking his tongue out in concentration, and sticks a peppermint window to the food structure.

Smiling at his little creation in progress, you gently poke one of the small candy canes that stand around the house. Jeongin quickly pushes your hand away, letting out a small whine.

You chuckle at his reaction and do it again, and he swats your hand away once more. “Stop itttt~”

You giggle and hold your hands up. “Okayyy, okay.”

You silently follow his movements with your eyes before they flick down to his sweater. It’s hideous, as most holiday sweaters are. The cartoon reindeer with a head too big for its body taunts you, but at the same time it just screams Jeongin. But there is no trace of that obnoxious shade of purple, and you thank whatever deity is above you for it.

Jeongin studies the gingerbread house for a moment, gently turning the brown building around. He takes a yellow gumdrop in his hand and hovers it over a spot on the roof, squinting ever-so-slightly as he imagined how it would look in the final product, whatever he imagined it to be. You stay quiet and just let him go—you know better than to interrupt Jeongin’s creative process.

“What if you did rows of gumdrops on the roof?” 

Mrs. Choi, on the other hand, doesn’t know better. The one with the son your age, that is—he tagged along with you and Jeongin for lunch a couple times. What was his name again? Beomgyu, right? 

You notice the corners of Jeongin’s mouth twitching downward before he catches himself. “I don’t know,” he says, putting the gumdrop down. “I’ll figure it out.”

Mrs. Choi shrugs and just lingers around, mumbling something about how it reminds her of Hansel and Gretel. You thought she had a point… kind of. You had always heard of the tale of Hansel and Gretel and the house made of candy, but considering it wasn’t much of a Christmas story, you tended to ignore it. 

“Oh, that reminds me…” she says to herself after a minute, walking over to the dining table where all the parents sat around. You lean over in your seat and listen closely. 

“Beomgyu keeps bugging me about having a sleepover with Jeongin,” Mrs. Choi says as she approaches Jeongin’s mom, her voice carrying over the rest of the chatter enough for you to eavesdrop.

Mrs. Yang nods, a small smile playing at her lips. “That'd be fun for them, when can he come over?”

You blink. It’s… it’s that easy for him?

The two mothers begin talking about schedules or appointments or some other boring adult thing. Whatever it is, you tune it out and turn back to Jeongin, who has opted for an array of different colored gumdrops carefully spread across the roof. 

“You’re,” you hesitate, “You’re allowed to sleep over with Beomgyu?” 

“Yeah,” Jeongin hums. ”I’ve slept over at his place and he’s been begging to come to mine.”

He chuckles, gluing on another gumdrop, until his words sink in and he fully processes them. His eyes then widen in realization, and he lets the tube of frosting drop from his hand before marching over to his parents.

“Mom,” Jeongin taps on his mom’s shoulder until she turns to him. “Why does Beomgyu get to sleep over but Y/N doesn't?”

You lean over again, hoping to overhear an explanation from Mrs. Yang. All you hear is laughter.

Laughter? That’s it?

You squint as you lean further in their direction, as if squinting would increase the volume of the conversation. All you could observe was a confused look from Mrs. Choi, and a fit of giggles from Mrs. Yang. How helpful.

“Did I ever tell you what happened last year?!” your mom practically shouts to Mrs. Choi, proving your efforts unnecessary. 

“Oh my god, you have to hear this! It’s a good one, it’s so cute,” Mrs. Yang gushes, glancing at a flustered Jeongin. 

The boy frowns and buries his face in his hands, growing more frustrated. “Mommm!”

A smile tugs at the corner of your lips as your eyes flicker between the now-insanely-embarrassed Jeongin, and his parents’ delight at retelling the account of ‘stay for Christmas’. As Mrs. Yang continued, Jeongin sinks deeper and deeper into himself, and you could practically see a little pinkish-red aura surrounding him. 

“And so he tells her…” Mrs. Yang's voice fades into the background when you look out the window and gasp.

Snow.

Before you can register it, your legs are already pushing yourself off the stool, and then you’re running and shoving past other partygoers as you make your way to Jeongin.

“Jeongin.” You tug on his sleeve as you try to get him to move his hands away from his face. However, he swats your hand away. 

“Shut up,” he whines. 

“No, look,” you try again, tugging more. “It’s snowing!” 

Hands instantly falling from his face, he looks out of the window you were motioning at and gasps as well. “Snow.” 

Quickly, you glance at Mrs. Yang, making sure she’s still in in-depth story mode before you grab onto Jeongin’s hand and pull him outside into the cold. You shiver lightly as the winter air nips at your nose, but welcome it nonetheless.

“Wanna make a snowman?” you suggest.

Jeongin shrugs.

“Suit yourself.”

Humming to yourself, you squat down at an empty spot and begin to pile some snow together. A small smile decorates your face, perfectly pairing with your rosy cheeks.

I mean, how could you not be happy right now? It’s the first snow of winter. It may be your third first winter, but you swear each one gets more magical than the last. You know Jeongin would agree, no matter how cranky he may be right now.

“That’s like the fifth time my mom’s told that story this month,” the boy huffs after a minute, kicking at the snow in front of him. “It's not even funny anymore. I was a stupid ten-year-old.”

Looking up from the small base of the snowman, you let out a laugh. “I mean… you were ten last year.”

“Y/NNN,” Jeongin whines.

“And it was kinda funny—”

“Y/N!”

You feel a sudden blast of cold hit your side and you let out a yelp, shielding your face with your arms. Gasping, you look back up after a second to Jeongin preparing more ammunition. Suddenly, you’re in the mood to wipe the shi—sorry, poop-eating grin from your best friend’s face. One nice, cold wipe.

“You ass!” you shriek, gasping and covering your mouth once you realize what you had just said. Thank goodness your mom didn’t hear you or she would’ve brought out the bar of soap.

“That’s what you get!” Jeongin cackles back, hurling another snowball your way. This one also hits your coat, splattering into pieces once it collides with your stomach.

“Oh, it’s on!”

12 years old.

The final bell rings across the school to signal the start of winter break. Students of all types make their way out of the main entrance, leaving you and Jeongin in a rather quiet hallway with your locker still open. 

Whilst you clear it out, the fruitful voice of Jeongin’s new club buddy fills your ears.

“‘Sup, babies.”

You and Jeongin jump at not only the sudden voice, but also the feeling of an arm going around both your shoulders. A year older than you, Jisung, whom Jeongin had met through the middle school’s anime club, sports round glasses that sit on the bridge of his nose. His hair is a chestnut brown, split right down the middle to frame his face. 

Jeongin shrugs Jisung’s arm off of his shoulders, but his other arm stays around you. “How are my favorite underclassmen?” Jisung coos, reaching around to ruffle Jeongin’s hair.

Jeongin jerks his head away from Jisung’s hand, a groan escaping his lips. “You’re never gonna let that go, are you?”

“Nope!” Jisung says, flashing the younger boy a dopey grin.

Chuckling, you duck under Jisung’s arm to grab your backpack as Jeongin scrambles to fix his messy hair. You aren’t sure when or why Jisung started referring to you two as ‘babies' when he was only a year older. He once said something about “taking Jeonginnie under his wing” when you first met him, but that’s the closest thing to an explanation that you got.

Once Jeongin manages to tame his hair, he looks at Jisung with a shimmer in his eye. “Did you pick what we’re going to watch next?” he asks, referring to the next club meeting. It wouldn’t be until after New Year’s, but you figured they’d want to plan ahead now while they’re technically still in school.

“Not yet, but I was thinking of going with a classic,” Jisung muses before turning to you. “You should really join us, Y/N.” 

You hum in response, pushing your lips into a line as you ponder it. Of course Jeongin had tried to get you to watch anime with him before, but it was just something you found difficult to get into. “Maybe,” is all you say, mostly to make Jisung happy. 

“Yeah! Anyway,” Jisung quickly moves the conversation along, slinging his arms around both your shoulders again and pulling you two closer to him. “What are you guys doing for Christmas? We should do something!” He gleams, glancing back and forth between you two. “With our parents’ permission, of course.” 

As Jisung gazes longingly at a dog passing by, yours moves to Jeongin and you giggle at the sight of his cheeks tinting pink. He says nothing, but when he looks up and notices you staring at him, he rolls his eyes.

At the silence, Jisung finally tears his eyes away from the dog, who stops at a street pole for a sniff, and looks between you and Jeongin again. “What's up with you two?” he gulps. “You’re acting weird.”

Jeongin makes a sour face. “You’re acting weird,” he tries to rebut, but he only proves Jisung’s point. 

Jisung stops suddenly on the sidewalk. He tilts his head at Jeongin and squints, searching the younger’s face. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Jeongin deadpans, turning his heel to continue the walk home.

“Noooo.” The older boy pulls him back by the hoodie before he can walk away. He gets all up in Jeongin’s face, crossing his arms and furrowing his brows suspiciously. “There’s something going on, isn’t there?”

Nosily, you watch as Jeongin opens his mouth to speak before quickly closing it again. He seems to want to shrink into himself, and you both know why. To his dismay, you find it wholly amusing.

“Baby, come onnnn,” Jisung bounces in place as he chants, “Tell me, tell me, tell me…”

Deciding to ignore the boys’ shenanigans, you look up at the clouds and begin to think about your own plans for Christmas, a small smile forming on your lips.

You’ve always loved the holidays, but after settling into your new neighborhood, it grew on you and swept you off your feet like never before. It’s way more than just the snow—it’s the joy swirling in the air when Christmas music finally begins to play on the radio. It’s the sparkle in the night sky when the whole town shows off their colorful lights. Maybe it’s also the inhuman amount of hot chocolate and sugar cookies coursing through your veins. You’re not hyped up on sugar right now, but Jeongin would be hopelessly shaking his head at you if you were.

It’s way more than just beautiful snow, but it seemed to add a magical touch to Christmas that you never felt in your old neighborhood.

It came like clockwork, too, just like the Christmas party, and you’re eagerly counting the days until both come to life for the first time this season. Especially the Christmas party. Your and Jeongin’s schedules only matched up for lunch this year, and you’re in dire need of some quality time with your best friend.

“Y/N?” Jisung gently shakes your shoulder, interrupting your train of thought.

You blink a few times. “Huh? Yeah?”

“What are your plans for Christmas?”

You look back up at the sky, your lips curving upward again. “I’ll be with my family on Christmas. I'm not doing anything much for Christmas Eve, though,” you say with a giggle, emphasizing the ‘eve’. “It depends.” 

Jisung continues to look at you—and Jeongin—with an eyebrow raised. “On what?” 

You have to take a breath to try and compose yourself before you continue.

“On—” 

“Can’t you let it go?” Jeongin cuts you off with a whine. “It was basically two years ago!”

“‘Cause it was two years ago,” you continue to giggle. 

Jisung blinks, trying to figure out this inside joke you two are bickering over, but the poor boy is just as confused as when the conversation started. “What was two years ago?”

“Oh my god, Y/N,” Jeongin grumbles, but it’s hard to take him seriously when he’s failing miserably trying to hide a smile. You just flash your brows at him, and he slides out from under Jisung’s arm and heads straight for you. 

A teasing grin grazes your lips, and you gently push Jisung’s arm off of you so you can run away. 

“You do this every year!” Jeongin cries out, attempting to reach for your backpack.

“‘Cause it’s funny!” you shout back.

You can feel Jeongin’s fingers brush your shoulders every now and then as he chases after you. Giggles bubble from your throat as you try to make a break for it, tricking him by going the opposite way to where he is. However, he catches on to your attempt to escape and grabs you quickly. His arms wrap securely around you and pull you back as he hugs you, his laughter loud in your ears. 

You let out a surprised squeak as you try to wriggle your way out of Jeongin’s grip. “Jeongin, I was kidding, I was kidding!” you cry out in between giggles.

“You always do this!” he giggles too, refusing to let you go.

“I'm sorry! I'm sorry!” you squeal. Tears start to prick your eyes from how hard you’re laughing. 

Jeongin lets his arms fall and his lip juts out into a pout. You turn to him and quickly match it. 

“Sure, you are,” he mutters, enhancing his frown. 

“I mean it, Jeonginnieee.” You lean closer and let your arms slip around him. “I'm sorry.” 

He stays stiff for a second before he wraps his arms back around you and smiles. “It's okay.” 

A high-pitched squeal from Jisung makes you both jump in surprise and let go of each other. You both stare back at Jisung, who wears a giddy grin stretching from ear to ear. His hands are balled up in tiny fists together, flying up to his mouth as he bounces a little in place.

You blink a few times, stunned to silence for a few seconds before finally speaking. “You okay, Jisung?” 

“Y-You… the…” Jisung stammers excitedly before trailing off.

He points between the two of you, then to the sky, and as you both follow his finger, a cold wet drop lands on your cheek, and another on your nose. Jeongin lets out a squeak at one hitting him in the eye, and he scrunches up his face at the impact.

You looked back at Jisung, gesturing upward. “The snow?” you finish his sentence.

The older boy nods eagerly. “Yeah, yeah, the snow!”

You want to smile, you really do—it is the first snow of winter, after all. But it seems like he has a different reason for his exuberance than you do.

You exchange a glance with Jeongin, and he seems just as lost as you are. At this point, you might as well just ask. “What about it?”

Was it because the snow was pretty as it dotted the earth below you? Was it because it marked the start of only the most beautiful time of the year? This could really go any direction.

“You know, like the movies?” He rambles. “When the boy and the girl witness the first snowfall together and…”

Oh no, no, no. Not that direction.

Briskly stepping away from each other, you both frantically shake your heads, the tips of your ears glowing red. Jeongin argues back with a string of flustered protests that you could only nod along to, as you were at a loss for words yourself.

You wonder what was in the snow that had fallen on Jisung to make him think this way. It was insane, he was insane. You and Jeongin? Jisung must’ve gone mad.

Jisung deflates a little, a pout pulling his lips downward. “Aww. That would’ve been cute though.”

You force out a chuckle before continuing your route home. Jisung parts ways somewhere halfway through, but an icky feeling persists in your stomach for the rest of the walk.

It truly baffles you how he saw you and Jeongin having an inside joke, you know, like best friends do, and somehow morphed it into some coupley thing all because of a little snow. The snow is beautiful, of course, but throwing that sappy stuff on top of it? Jisung’s watched way too many movies. And anime. An alarming amount of anime. 

“I’ll, um,” Jeongin clears his throat as you both approach your front door. “I’ll see you at the party next week.”

An awkward tension still hangs above you from earlier, but you manage to muster a small smile. “Yeah. See you then.”

He smiles back and gives you a little wave before he begins the five-minute walk to his house. But before you knock on your door…

“Wait!” you blurt and reach out for him. You wrap your fingers around Jeongin’s wrist, prompting him to turn around.

“Yeah?”

“That, um, that thing Jisung was saying,” you hesitate, stumbling over your words. You force out another chuckle in hopes to relieve the tension that’s making your stomach twist into knots. “That’s— that’s not gonna happen to us… right?”

Jeongin lets out a scoff, waving you off reassuringly. “Of course not, Jisung’s just being Jisung.” He smiles a little. “We’re best friends, remember?”

His words fill you with relief, and you smile back. “Yeah. The bestest of friends.”

“That’s not a word.”

“You know what I mean, Jeongin.” You chuckle genuinely this time as you roll your eyes, turning back to your front door. “I’ll see you at the party.”

It’s ridiculous that you have to even ask, but apparently it’s necessary. You’re just lucky Jisung listened to Jeongin in the end, or this whole shipping fiasco would’ve been much more difficult than it needed to be.

Especially since several of your classmates who witnessed the interaction in front of the school parking lot actually seemed to believe it. 

13 years old.

You nibble at your bottom lip and run one hand up and down your forearm. Jisung has been glaring rather unamused daggers at you for five minutes now, his round eyes perpetually locked on you as you try to focus on the TV. It makes you feel like there was something crawling all over you, and you have the overwhelming urge to itch every bit of exposed skin you had—which isn’t a lot, but still. 

Part of you was tempted to turn to Jisung just to try and poke his eyes out. You wouldn’t actually do it, but with his eyes boring into your head like this, it’s hard not to think about it. You just wanted to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas in peace.

“...Are you gonna talk to him? Like, at all?” Jisung speaks. 

A small pout plays at your lips and you cross your arms over your chest. “How can I?” you start. “He hasn’t spoken to me since the start of the year.” 

The older boy lets out a sigh. “Have you tried to speak to him?” 

You nod once. Finally, something he can’t get on your case for.

Jisung blinks. “…Besides at lunch back in April?”

You huff, looking down at your lap. Your knuckles turn white as you ball the fabric of your sweater in your fists. "Well, it was kinda hard to do when he’s always with Beomgyu.”

Jisung leans forward to get a better look at you, whilst he rests his chin on his palm. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you sound jealous."

You can’t tell if you want to scoff or to laugh. Jealous? You? Of course not. You just wanted to be around your best friend again. To be able to hang out with your best friend of three years without some stupid kid in your grade teasing you about dating or about how ‘oOOoH, yOu’RE sO iN lOvE’. Ever since winter break ended, it was all you ever heard when you were around him.

"I’m not jealous." You raise your voice slightly, pushing him away without moving your gaze away from the cartoon. "He was my best friend first."

"Can you hear yourself when you speak?"

“Can you hear how annoying you are right now?”

Jisung blinks at you again. He pushes himself off the couch and stands in front of you, his gaze more gentle this time. “You know he asks me about you too, right?”

You sigh. It’s probably the fifth time this week that Jisung has reminded you of this. It’s not that you don’t want to believe him, but with the way Jeongin stared at you with hollow eyes the last time you tried to talk to him in the cafeteria eight months ago, you’re not sure if you can.

“Plus, he’s literally…” Jisung continues, spinning you around to where Jeongin sat in the kitchen with Beomgyu. Right where you two sat at the Christmas party two years ago. “…right there.”

“I know,” you huff.

Of course you knew that, and you knew he knew you knew. Jeongin was the first one you recognized when you stepped foot in the Choi house for the party. Sure, part of it was because Jisung frantically shook your arm and pointed him out, but even if he wasn’t there you would’ve spotted the top of his head from a mile away. You would’ve known he hadn’t left his gingerbread house in the kitchen all afternoon, whether or not the coconut-haired boy was there to pester you about it.

”Then gooo,” Jisung chides, pushing you to the kitchen island by the shoulders. “Talk. To him.”

Oddly enough, talking to him is the last thing you want to do. At least, not here. Not when there’s a bunch of adults that, frankly, are nosier than your typical middle schooler. Luckily, the only adult there when you approach the kitchen island only glances at you for a second before stepping past you. No one else is watching, but it still feels like a hundred pairs of eyes are piercing into your skull.

You suck in a deep breath. Here goes nothing.

“Hey.”

Jeongin pushes his lips into a thin line when he looks up at you. “Hi.”

From the corner of your eye, you can see Beomgyu raise his head and look at you both before going back to what he was doing. Rocking on the balls of your feet, you take another deep breath. “How’ve you been? It’s been a while.”

You’re not sure how long Jeongin goes quiet for, but every second of silence makes you feel like your insides are trying to escape from you. You purse your lips as your gaze casts down to your feet, unable to look him in the eye. Why did the friendship between you and Jeongin have to change? Why couldn’t people just keep their mouths shut?

“I’ve been okay,” he mumbles. “Just busy, you know?” 

You hum in response. He was right; this year had been a lot school-wise, especially when you counted how everyone watched you like hawks, ready to strike at the first opportunity for a ‘ship moment’, as some people had started to call it. 

“Yeah.” You try to laugh, but anyone can tell it’s fake. “Me too.”  

Jeongin stays silent again, just nodding at your words. You weren’t sure what heartbreak was and of course, you weren’t in love with him. He is—was—your best friend. But if you had to guess, heartbreak probably feels something close to what you’re feeling right now.

You gulp, and take one more shaky breath. Your bottom lip wavers as you try to get your next words out.

“I…” miss you. 

You want to say it so bad, but you stopped yourself as soon as you started. When Jeongin doesn’t turn his head, you feel your heart sink to your stomach, or whatever the equivalent of that was when your best friend completely ignores you, effectively declaring the end of your best-friendship. 

You hate this so much. Screw the other kids for getting in the way of your friendship, screw Jeongin for letting them, screw yourself for not doing more to stop it, and screw Jisung for pushing you over to talk to him. 

You don’t say anything more as you turn away and solemnly make your way back over to where Jisung is still standing. When you feel tears pool in your eyes, you make a sharp turn for the bathroom, and the older boy worriedly trails after you.

“Baby…” he calls as he follows, quickening his pace to catch up to you. “Surely it wasn’t that bad.” 

You stop in your tracks, suddenly causing Jisung to bump into you. He leans forward and around your shoulder before taking a step into your view, instantly frowning when he sees the sadness apparent on your face. “Baby…” 

“It’s over, Jisung.” You blink rapidly. “We’re never going to be friends again, not after this.” 

Furrowing his eyebrows together, Jisung sighs. He places his hands on your shoulders to try and get you to look at him. “Don’t say that, you guys will get past this. You guys are best friends for a reason.” 

“No, we won’t.” Your voice shakes as you speak. “You saw how awkward it was back there! There’s no way he wants to be friends anymore… let alone best friends.”

You continue to blink your tears away, but one manages to slide down your cheek. Your breathing becomes ragged as your world feels like it’s crashing down on you, and all you can do is helplessly step closer to Jisung as you hiccup.

“I just want my best friend back.” 

Pulling you in, Jisung wraps his arms around you in his attempt to comfort you. He sighs quietly, his own frown on his lips as you choke out a sob.

“I know you do.” 

14 years old.

Well, your last year of middle school was off to a surprisingly pleasant start.

After years of being told where in the classroom you could sit, your 1st period teacher nearly had you jumping for joy when she said you were free to pick your seat for the year. It was such a minute detail to be in control of, but it felt so freeing to your adolescent self.

The only problem: you don’t know anyone in this class. You vaguely recognize two or three faces from last school year, but even they had gravitated to other students in the class, clustering into their already-established friend groups. It’s like the galaxies in the night sky that you learned about last year, and you’re a lone star, floating around in the abyss called your new English classroom. 

Shrugging to yourself, you scoot past some students in the aisles and pick a seat in the middle of the room in between two other empty desks. You had counted ten or so desks that had yet to be filled, so you figured you should take your chances. You don’t know anyone… at least, for now. Maybe someone will show up later.

Sliding your phone out of your pocket, you plug your headphones into your ears and listen to music for the last few minutes of passing period to relax a little. It quickly feels pointless, though, as the chatter in the classroom overpowers the song blasting right by your eardrums. 

However, one voice seems to ring above all the others.

“Um… is this seat taken?”

You take an earbud out, lifting your head to find the source of the voice. Jeongin stands over the chair to your left, adorning a god-awful purple sweater that reminds you of the one he wore when you first met. It almost brings a smile to your face… almost. It probably would have if things had ended differently between you two.

This is the first time you have spoken to him since The Most Awkward Conversation Of Your Life™. Maybe you were being slightly dramatic, or at least that’s what Jisung had told you for weeks after the incident, but you still stood by what you felt. You weren't sure if you and Jeongin could ever get back to the way you were—not having spoken since that moment kind of proved to you that you couldn’t.

Yet here you are. You’re not sure if this will just be a one-off conversation or a second chance of sorts. But after a moment, you decide to take that chance.

“Go for it.” You gesture to the seat.

Jeongin smiles awkwardly, the tips of his ears pink as he sets his backpack down on the floor. He doesn’t move to get any of his things out of his bag, and just sits there with laser-focus on his hands that rest on top of his desk.

You’re not sure how long you two sat in silence, but thankfully, it feels nothing like the last time. It actually feels…. comfortable. Welcoming, even. Almost like when you first met him at the monkey bars.

Jeongin looks over at you after a few moments, still rubbing his thumb over the back of his hand. “So… how are you?” he finally speaks.

It’s then that you notice just how much deeper Jeongin’s voice has gotten since the last time you spoke. You figure it would make sense; you hadn’t seen each other in almost a year, and a lot can happen in said year. It’s still odd, however—seeing him change, but not being there to experience it with him.

You nod, looking down at your own hands, but you let a small smile slip out. “I’m okay.”

You are okay, really, at least for the moment. But now you knew you would be, for sure.

…

“Who wants the last cookie—” Mrs. Yang calls from the kitchen, but she’s quickly cut short.

“ME!”

You and Jeongin spring up from the couch at the same time, giggling as you push past each other and race to the kitchen. At the last second, Jeongin sticks his arm in front of you just as you come in reach of the cookie, barring you from the baked treat as he swipes it with his free hand.

“Hey!” You cross your arms, biting your lip to stifle more giggles from coming out. “You cheated!”

Jeongin doesn’t even try to hide the cocky smirk on his face. “Oh, you love me anyway.”

You narrow your eyes at the boy. “Do I? Do I really?”

Jeongin only stares back at you, blinking a few times before he bites into the cookie. Right. In. Front of you.

Your jaw drops in betrayal. What an asshole, he knew you loved those cookies more than life itself! If you had to choose, though, you highly preferred this over where you two were a year ago. He may be stealing your cookies like the pubescent raven-haired crook he is, but since it comes with being best friends again, you’ll learn to live with it.

You keep your eyes trained on him as you calculate your next move. You know exactly how to get him back for this, but is it worth it? Was waiting only a few months after recovering your friendship enough time?

Oh, who are you kidding—of course it was.

“Two can play that game,” you state, taking a piece of cookie from his hand.

The boy scoffs. “Oh, really?”

Your eyes widening ever-so-slightly, you bite into the cookie. You keep your gaze on him as you chew, not looking away even for a second, and you say the three magic words—even more magic than ‘please.’

“Stay for Christmas?”

His smirk immediately drops, and one of your own plays at your lips. You know you got him.

“You’re never gonna let that go, are you?” he grumbles.

You just swipe another piece of cookie from his hand, still grinning triumphantly. “To be fair,” you swirl the cookie in your hand for emphasis, “you walked right into it.”

Jeongin sighs, watching you toss the last bit of the cookie into your mouth. “There's nothing I can do to make you forget it, huh?’

“Nope,” you say with your mouth full. “Not unless you do something more quote-worthy.”

“Fine, then stay.”

You freeze, your cheeks still full of chewed-up cookie. “What?”

“You heard me, Y/N.” Jeongin steps closer, not breaking eye contact. “Just stay for Christmas. It’d be fun, and at least then, you’d have nothing to try and tease me with.”

You swallow the dessert in your mouth and stare at him, speechless. All this time, you had been just playing along with the line as a joke. Was it actually possible to have a sleepover with him? You almost smile as you ponder it over in your head. Being all cooped up in his room and kicking his ass at Mario Kart, then scrambling to be in bed by midnight as if Santa would actually appear the second the clock strikes twelve? You don’t have to think twice.

“Honey sweet, you and Y/N are still on that?” Mrs. Yang says, turning her head to look at you two from the sink.

Jeongin groans. “Yeah, mom, and why do you still call me that?!”

His mother just chuckles and turns back to the dishes she’s rinsing. From what you could gather, she doesn’t seem opposed to you sleeping over. It wasn’t a yes, but it certainly wasn’t a resounding no, so you jump to make a beeline for your parents and beg them to let you stay overnight.

Unfortunately, your parents have a more straightforward answer for you. Not even the growing piles of snow outside could save you from going back home at the end of the night.

You also receive quite the lecture about “the dangers of staying over at boys’ houses” on the way home. Their words fly in one ear and the other for you. If this was anyone else, it’d be different, but this is your best friend that they’re talking about.

The only time Jeongin ever laid a hand on you was during the grand battle of Rainbow Road when you were eleven. In his defense, he didn’t mean to push you so hard that you fell off the bed and nearly dislocated your shoulder, but that’s what happens when two of the most competitive people you know go head-to-head in a battle of Mario Kart.

You huff. At least you know actually staying for Christmas might be an option one day.

15 years old.

You peek around the edge of your locker door every so often as you shove various notebooks into your bag. Even when you finished packing up, you busy yourself with pretending to wipe specks of dust off your binder, and checking that you chose the correct textbooks to bring home with you for the fifth time in three minutes.

Another minute or so passes and you check the clock on your phone, then you look past your locker door one more time, slowly leaning over until one eye peeps past the edge. You find Jeongin speaking to one of his teachers as they exited their classroom, waving goodbye as he heads closer to you. 

You smile to yourself, then scan the area around you one more time. The coast seems clear, but you decide to give it one more minute before going over to him, just to be safe.

“You’re doing that again?”

You jump and turn on your heel, nearly hitting your head against your locker door. Jisung stands behind you as he watches you incredulously, backpack slung over one shoulder as he leans against the wall of lockers. His arms are crossed as he raises an eyebrow at you, and his features are twisted into an odd mixture of concern and confusion.

You look back at the main hallway, then back at Jisung. “Um… yeah,” you state, as if it’s the most obvious thing ever. “Is there a problem?”

Jisung just snickers at your confidence. “Babe, honey, sweetie,” he says. You roll your eyes at the endless string of nicknames. “You look ridiculous.”

“I do not!” you scoff defensively.

He leans closer to you, his wide eyes boring into yours. “Is this about a booooy?” he teases jokingly.

You grimace in his direction, delivering a flick to his forehead as you pretend to rummage through your locker again. “You know what it’s about, Ji,” you grumble.

He’s technically not wrong. It is about a boy, but it’s not about a boy. There’s a huge difference—especially when the boy in question was Jeongin.

“You still look ridiculous.” He props an arm against the locker wall. “It’s like you want people to think you’re dating.”

You sigh, slamming your locker shut. “You don’t get it, people will stare if we don’t do this. Plus, our system’s worked for almost a semester already.”

“Y/N, this almost looks more suspicious than if you two just acted normally.” Reaching out a hand, he turns you by the shoulders to face him. “Is this peeking thing really necessary?”

You let out an agitated huff at his constant questioning. The nearly-unreadable grimace makes a return to Jisung’s face, and you know it is there to stay until you explain yourself. It seems pretty simple to you, though. 

You see, once middle school came to a close, you saw a window for a fresh start in high school. Any indications of The Incident™ (the former name had become a mouthful for you to repeat every time) were to die with the remnants of your braces phase and short-lived obsession with rainbow loom bracelets and 5 Seconds of Summer, as far as you were concerned. So, accordingly, you and Jeongin had devised a plan to prevent those dreaded “ship moments” from repeating themselves in high school.

Since most of your time together at school wasn’t in actual classes, you and Jeongin agreed to sit separately for bus rides to and from school, sometimes even opposite ends of the bus if necessary. On the way to school in the mornings, you two figured it was safe to walk together to the bus most days. Your neighborhood was one of the first stops and the few kids on the bus when you get on are usually snoring in the back. As long as you and Jeongin sat across from each other near the front and didn’t wake them up, you figured you’d be fine.

However, after school, you had to be fast. Ideally, you’d meet up with Jeongin when the hallways were less crowded than right when the final bell sounds, but when enough students were still hanging around the corridors that it wouldn't raise eyebrows with the school staff. You’d meet, speed-walk to the buses together, and enter separately. Once you pulled up at your stop, you two would depart and walk separately—until your bus turned the corner, then you’d walk each other home. It sounded like a lot, yeah, but after a while you get used to it.

After months of practice, you found that the most optimal time to pull this off was around five to eight minutes after the bell. Eight minutes was pushing it, but as long as you and Jeongin made a run for it, you wouldn’t miss your ride home. You had it down to a science. Jisung had no reason to worry, but he always seemed to find one.

Despite this, you don’t want to bother explaining the system you and Jeongin had perfected over the semester, again—the last time you did, it only raised more questions. So this time, you simply wave a hand in dismissal. “Yes, it’s necessary,” you deadpan, “you wouldn’t understand.”

Jisung blinks, then lets out an exhausted sigh. “If you insist…”

The older boy trails off, just in time for the younger one to appear at your side. “Hey, guys,” Jeongin chirps, waving at you both.

You smile at him briefly before turning to Jisung. “Do you have any other questions before we go?” you ask, your voice dripping in (mostly) feigned annoyance.

“No, but I probably will later.” The older brunet waves at one of his friends from anime club before looking back at the two of you one more time. “You two should go catch your bus, get home safe, yeah?”

You both nod, giving him a thumbs up as he jogs over to his friend, and you and Jeongin make your own jog for the front doors of the school.

You’re immediately greeted with a gray cloudy sky and you instantly feel the cold swirl around you. There are crowds of people littered around each section, waiting for their own respective buses. It doesn’t faze you in the least, though.

You had months of practice under your belt—years, actually, if you included shoving past couples in the school hallways who seemed to walk like they were floating on the moon. To this day, you never understood the appeal of holding up foot traffic for your fifth kiss goodbye of the hour, but whatever. Just like how other teenagers always mysteriously seemed to stop right in front of you just as you were dashing full speed for math class, you always seemed to find a way through the crowd.

It was simple, really. Like, actually simple compared to your aforementioned plan. Just keep your eyes straight ahead, and somehow, people always seem to clear a path for you. Despite your current plight, you and Jeongin have yet to miss your bus since the start of high school.

And that’s what you do. You take the lead in pushing through the masse of students, most of which are chatting amongst their friends as they meander to their ride home. Normally, you and Jeongin would talk a bit on the way, too, but you had hit the eight-minute mark thanks to your encounter with Jisung, so you had to book it. 

You keep your gaze locked in front of you, only turning back occasionally to make sure you didn’t lose Jeongin in the crowd. As predicted, students who aren’t otherwise in a hurry move out of your way. You let out a small sigh of relief at this; it’s one less thing you needed to worry about as you got closer to your bus.

Next: enter separately.

By the time you and Jeongin navigate your way out of the crowd and to bus #143, you find a line of students waiting to board that stretches the length of the bus itself. You groan, but at least you wouldn’t be stranded at school, so you consider this a win.

But still, you keep your unwritten pact in mind and you gesture for Jeongin to line up. “You go first,” you mumble, gently pushing him to the end of the line and you step back to wait another minute.

Jeongin turns back to you. “Aren’t you gonna get in line too?”

You stuff your hands in your pockets and quickly scan the line. You recognize the girl in front of him from math class, and two kids from the group of boys that just got behind Jeongin used to tease you two in middle school. “Not yet,” you shake your head. “It’s not safe.”

He furrows his brows together, his lips pulling downward. “You’re shivering,” he deadpans.

Now that he mentioned it, you realize you’re jumping in place in an attempt to warm up. It’s cold outside and you’re eager to leave, but you don’t mind waiting a little longer.

After moments of hesitation, Jeongin removes a hand from his hoodie pocket and grabs your forearm, making sure your hands stay in your own pockets as he pulls you to him. “Just get in line, Y/N,” he mumbles, “the sooner you get in line, the sooner we can get out of the cold.”

With wide eyes, you immediately step back. “Are you crazy?!” you hiss. “People are gonna talk!”

“So? Let them.”

Jeongin’s words ring in your head as he pulls you back towards him one more time.

You let out a gasp when you feel your body collide with his. You blink a few times to recompose yourself and stare up at him, your mouth agape. “What’s gotten into you?” Jeongin makes a face to himself as he responds, “What’s gotten into you?” 

“You know what got into me.” You give him a dubious look. “The agreement, the one we both agreed on?” 

Jeongin hums, shrugging his shoulders. His eyes linger on you for a moment before he looks back over to watch the line. “Who cares?”

“I thought you did…” 

His gaze burning into your skin makes you want to shrink away. Only a few months ago, he was dead set on this agreement, but now? What changed and so suddenly, at that? 

“Why should we let them try to ruin our friendship?” Jeongin asks after a beat of silence. “They already tried once, and look what happened. We shouldn’t let them again.” 

You freeze yet again at his words, so much that the boy has to drag you onto the bus with him. His hand on your forearm is enough to snap you out of your haze, and for some reason, it’s all you can focus on. 

You feel him let your arm go after a minute, and you look over at him. He slings his backpack off his shoulders and places it by his feet as he settles into the window seat, then looks back at you. “Aren’t you gonna sit down?” he says in a similar tone as earlier, patting the empty spot next to him.

“Um…”

Jeongin looks at you expectantly. It was tempting. it really was. But you catch a familiar wisp of curly hair as the group of boys from behind you two turn the corner and strut down the aisle.

You hesitate, before sharply turning on your heel. “I’ll just sit a few rows back,” you mumble.

“Oh my god, Y/N.”

Another surprised yelp leaves your lips as Jeongin pulls you out of the aisle. He tugs you by your hoodie sleeve this time, and when the group of boys walk past you, he lets his grip loosen and you feel his palm rest on your forearm again. It’s warm against your skin and you almost don’t want him to move it, but you wouldn’t dare say it out loud.

The boy glances at the seat next to him, then back at you, his eyes almost weary. “Just sit, please.”

You peer over your shoulder as the group of boys collectively take their seats in the last two rows of the bus. Sighing, you supposed that it’s far enough that you would be safe, and allow yourself to plop on the torn blue leather.

“See, it’s not so bad, is it?” Jeongin smiles at you reassuringly. “No one’s gonna talk, we’ll be fine.”

He pats your forearm twice before bringing his hand back onto his lap. You almost frown at the move.

The last of the students file in after a couple more minutes and the bus slowly pulls onto the road. Jeongin leans his head against the dirty window as he plays Doodle Jump on his phone, and you mindlessly watch him try to beat his high score. 

You don’t know how much time passed when the bus abruptly stops, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. The two of you are thrown forward as the driver suddenly slams the brakes, and Jeongin instinctively grabs your arm to keep you from falling. You don’t, luckily, but you do bump into him.

“Ahh, sorry!” you exclaim.

Jeongin shakes his head, as if to say it’s okay. “Are you okay?”

He gives your forearm a gentle squeeze before letting go. You follow his hand as it falls back on his lap, before meeting his gaze and nodding slightly. “Yeah–” you hesitate for a second, looking down at his hand again then back at him. “Yeah, I’m fine. Are you?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

You nod once, giving him a tight smile before settling down properly. That is, until you catch white flecks falling outside from the corner of your eye. It takes a second to click, but once it does, you turn to the window in a flash, eyes sparkling at the view outside.

“Jeongin,” you squeal, shaking him by the shoulder and you point to his right. “Look!”

The boy slides his phone in his pocket and a grin of his own appears as he looks out the window, seeing the snowflakes blanket the outside world for the first time this winter. Leaning past Jeongin to peer outside, your smile grows even more cheerful. All you need now is a mug of hot chocolate filled to the brim with whipped cream as you curl up on the couch and put on one of your beloved Christmas movies. Unfortunately, you wouldn’t be home for a while, so this would have to do for now.

“I’m not sure if you’ve ever noticed, but,” Jeongin starts after a minute, a chuckle escaping his lips, “the snow always starts when we’re together.”

“Really?” you question. 

He nods, his eyes focused on what seemed to be the most interesting bush in the world to him, and he smiles. “Yeah.”

You’re not sure if it was instinct or the cold that made you want to sit closer to Jeongin. You try not to think about it. 

“It's just a coincidence,” you attempt to laugh. “You can’t really predict the weather.” 

“I don’t know,” Jeongin muses, clicking his tongue. “If Jisung was here right now, he’d be losing his mind.”

You can’t help but roll your eyes. “That boy lost his mind ages ago. We just spend a lot of time together, of course we’re gonna see the first snow together at least once.”

Jeongin shrugs his shoulders beside you, then it goes silent. You aren’t sure how long for, and you just quietly watch the white crystals of snow hit the glass window. 

You feel Jeongin lean into you slightly after another moment. “That reminds me…”

You hum, looking over at him.

His smile curls into a playful smirk. “Stay for Christmas?”

You gape at him with an amused grin. Jeongin? Saying the line himself, unprompted? Who was this boy in front of you? “I thought you hated that line.”

Jeongin shrugs again, a smile still playing on his lips. “Eh, it kinda grew on me.” He pauses for a moment then speaks again. “But seriously, do you want to?”

Your brain goes static for a second. “As in, stay for Christmas? Like, for real?” He nods, and you deflate, slumping in your seat. “You know they’ll just say no.”

The hopeful smile on Jeongin’s face also fades, recalling your failed attempt last year. “I know,” he said, “but maybe it’s worth another try?”

You press your lips into a thin line, keeping your gaze down as you shrug. “We can if you want.”

Once the bus pulls up at your stop, Jeongin walks you home, but not without going inside with you to find your parents. With a reassuring hand on your back, he helps you plead your case to your parents, but as you feared, they shut you down quicker than last time.

Jeongin sends you a sad smile as he heads home that day, leaving you to mentally prepare for the hell you’re about to receive from your mother the minute the door clicks shut behind him. 

16 years old.

“One, two…” your mother counts slowly as she tries her best to fit the both of you on her screen. “Get a bit closer together, guys,” she ushers you with one hand. 

You huff but follow her order, and step closer to the boy next to you. “Mom, don’t you have enough photos?”

A chuckle leaves your mom's lips as she continues to take more, now at different angles. “There’s never enough photos, sugarplum!”

Jisung snorts from beside you at the nickname and you send your elbow right into his ribs to get him to shut up.

“Y/N!” your mother scolds. “Don’t be so mean, he’s being nice and taking you! Heaven knows he didn’t need to.” 

“Mom!” you gasp in surprise.

“Yeah, sugarplum,” Jisung says mockingly, faking a pout as he looks down at you. 

You glare up at the older boy and silently hiss. You knew this would be a bad idea, but this is still better than what you were originally going to do: go to winter formal on your own. Especially since Jeongin had his own date. 

“Okay, okay,” your mother says as her gaze focuses back onto her phone. “Last ones.” 

“You have plenty,” you mutter through gritted teeth.

Your mother finally lowers her phone and slips it into her oversized cardigan pocket. “Bring her home by midnight, okay? No funny business!” She borderline-chastises Jisung, and you give her a look. She’s known Jisung for years at this point, it was almost as bad as if she lectured Jeongin himself.

Luckily for you, Jisung plays along, drawing two fingers to his brow and flicking his wrist to salute. “Yes, ma’am!”

“Okay,” you start quickly as you hastily grab Jisung’s wrist. “We gotta go, bye!” 

With that, you drag Jisung out of the door and to his car before your mother can get another word in.

“Whoa there, sugarplum, calm down,” Jisung sings, “we have all the time in the world.”

“Would you let that nickname go, please?” you groan. 

Jisung unlocks his car as he walks around to the driver's seat, laughing loudly. “Never, baby.” With the car open, he stares at you and taps his temple. “That puppy is locked into the memory banks for life.” 

You roll your eyes for the nth time, open the door, and let it slam behind you as you plop onto your seat with crossed arms, Jisung’s laughter filling your ears as he follows your actions. Igniting the engine, he turns the heaters to full blast and rubs his hands together to try and gain some heat. 

“You good?” you ask, watching him blow hot air onto his hands. 

He hums and nods his head, and turns the heaters down shortly after. “I like the car to be toasty, okay? I want to feel like a marshmallow.” 

“...A marshmallow?” 

Jisung nods again affirmingly. “A marshmallow.” 

“I don’t even want to know,” you shake your head in amazement and look away from him. 

“We’re picking Innie up first, right?” Jisung asks, his attention now on the road as he backs the car out of your driveway.

“Yeah,” you hum. “His date is meeting him there.” 

After that it goes silent, partly because Jisung needs his full attention to drive, but also because there just isn’t much to say. You’re surprised Jisung hasn’t taken this time alone with you to grill and interrogate you, but maybe he had turned over a new leaf, changed his ways.

It seems more likely, however, that you just thought too highly of him, especially when he asks you about it in the next moment.

“So, how do you feel about Jeongin having his own date?” 

You turn your head to look at him. “Don’t you have the road to focus on?”

“Don’t deflect, baby,” he hums. “You can’t answer a question with a question.” 

“You can’t answer a question with a question,” you mimic, tightening your arms around your chest. 

“Now you’re just being obnoxious,” he says, which causes you to whine and throw your head back.

“Why are you even asking me? It’s fine, so what if he has his own date? I don’t care.” 

“Kinda seems like you do,” Jisung sings. 

“I don’t,” you spit back a second too quickly. 

“Look at my face.” Jisung takes one hand, motions around his face, and sends a look towards you before focusing back on the road. “Does this face look like one that would believe your bullshit?” 

“Your face looks dumb and like you’d believe any type of bullshit,” you mutter, your arms still crossed. 

“Now, I know you’re only saying that because you’re annoyed at me for pointing out the obvious.” Jisung laughs. “It's okay, I forgive you and I know I’m the most handsome guy you’ve ever laid your eyes on.” 

“You need to get your ego checked.”

Pulling up at the corner of Jeongin’s street, Jisung places the car in park. “The things I do for this friendship,” he sighs dramatically as he pulls out his phone to text Jeongin.

You shake your head, keeping your gaze out the window. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I think you misspelled the word ‘genius’, sugarplum.”

You side-eye the older boy, whose smug smile is illuminated by the light emitting from his phone. “I wasn’t spelling anything.”

“Misspoke, then.” Jisung locks his phone and looks at you innocently. “Same thing. Jeongin’s on his way.” 

“Not the same thing,” you mumble before you nod your head. “Okay, but how is he going to sneak out in a suit?” 

The sudden thought came to your mind. Jeongin had family come in from out of town for this large family party, which admittedly, he didn’t want to be there for. However, his family would definitely notice if he just walked out of the house in a tux. 

“That's where my genius comes in,” Jisung smirks and points to the back seat. “Emergency tux.” 

You look back and there is, in fact, a tuxedo folded neatly on the middle seat along with a belt to match, ready for Jeongin to wear for the formal. You stare at it for a moment too long before your gaze settles on Jisung. “What emergency is there where you need a tux?” 

The older boy shrugs and makes a face. “A fancy one?” 

You blink as you look at him, but you couldn’t stop the side of your lips turning up into a smile. “I really don’t get you sometimes.” 

His confident grin makes your own grow wider. He leans forward slightly and ruffles your hair with one hand, causing you to groan before flipping down the sun visor and looking in the tiny mirror on the back of it as you try to fix it.

Jisung laughs as he watches you. “It's okay, you can say how amazing I am and how much you love me, you don’t have to pretend.” 

Whilst fixing your hair in the mirror, your mouth twists into a disgusted frown and you send him a glare. “I repeat what I said earlier, you need your ego checked.” 

“You’ll admit it one day,” he jokes.

You close the visor back up. “Not gonna happen.” 

Before Jisung has the chance to say anything else, the right back door opens up. Jeongin throws himself in and sighs contentedly at the warmth that surrounds him. After a moment, he opens his eyes and smiles at the both of you sitting in the front. “Hey, guys!” 

“Hi,” you smile. 

Jisung smiles too and points to the suit behind him, which makes Jeongin clap his hands in delight. “Emergency tux?” he says.

Jisung clicks his tongue, sending a wink and a finger gun the younger boy’s way. “Emergency tux, baby.” 

With furrowed eyebrows, you blink at the boys. “What is it with you and emergency tuxes? Seriously, what would you even need an emergency tux for?” 

“A fancy emergency,” Jeongin answers matter-of-factly, which causes Jisung to point at him and nod.

“See, he gets it!” he agrees. “Hey, without that emergency tux, Innie would be going in sweats to the formal. Wouldn’t want that, now, would we?” 

You roll your eyes and look away from them. “Guess not.” 

“See, Y/N?” Jisung reaches over to ruffle your hair again, and you successfully duck your head away this time. He chuckles and draws his hand back, shifting the gear to drive and bringing his attention back to the road. “There's a method to my madness.”

You just huff, slumping back in your seat in defeat as he turned the car around. 

“Wait,” Jeongin pipes up as Jisung straightens out the wheel, “how am I supposed to change?”

“As I said, there’s a method to my madness.,” Jisung says, perhaps a bit too confidently as he pulls out of the street. “Just give me a minute.”

You narrow your eyes at Jisung, who keeps a straight face as he drives. You almost hate it more than his smug smile from a few minutes ago. At least then, you had the slightest clue to what he was thinking. The fact that the car is silent, save for the quiet Christmas music on the radio, does nothing to calm your worries.

Unfortunately, it looks like your gut feeling was right as you realize Jisung is pulling into a stop just right outside your neighborhood. 

“Here you go,” Jisung announces proudly, placing the car in park again. “Changing time!”

Your eyes bulging out of your head, you snap your head to Jisung. “Are you insane?!” you hiss. “We’re in public!”

The older—but you were very hesitant to say wiser—boy shrugs. “He’s gotta do it somewhere! It’s either here or the school parking lot.”

“You didn’t think about a gas station?!”

“Guys, it’s fine,” Jeongin says, his voice wavering slightly as he unbuckles his seatbelt. “Just... just don’t look, please.”

You cover the sides of your eyes as you keep your gaze out the window. Every now and then, you hear Jeongin hit something in the back, causing him to groan in pain and Jisung to holler at his misery. 

This goes on for almost a minute before you hear the gear shift click. Keeping your hands around the sides of your eyes, you glower at Jisung, who smirks deviously as he pulls the lever to drive. “Don’t. You. Dare,” you grumble.

“Oh, watch me,” Jisung snickers, tapping his foot on the gas.

“Hey! I’m not done yet!” Jeongin shouts as the car inches forward, sending Jisung into another fit of laughter.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!”

Jisung abruptly hits the brake, causing Jeongin to shriek as he thuds against the back of your seat. The older boy lets out another cackle at this, clapping his hands as he throws his head back. He glances at you in hopes that you’re just as amused, but you only glare at him.

He lets out a drawn-out but satisfied sigh, and puts the car in park again. “Ahhh, that was fun.” 

You stay silent, maintaining your pointed stare.

“Chillax, Y/N.” He nudges your shoulder, but remains overly cheerful even though you don't budge. “Ooh, look! Snow!“

You blink. As tempting as it is to take your eyes off of him, something in your gut begs you not to.

“I’m serious!” Jisung cries again, pointing fervently in front of him. 

You sigh and turn your head slightly. At least he wasn’t lying about the snow, although it does seem lighter this year. A few snowflakes trickle down here and there, but it’s nowhere near enough to obstruct the view outside. And it definitely isn’t enough to keep Jisung from starting and stopping the car one more time, sending Jeongin crashing into the back of your seat again and proving your worries correct.

“I’m gonna kill you,” the younger boy scowls, and you lean over to flick the older one on the forehead.

“Agh!” Jisung slaps your hand away, stifling a giggle. “Okay, okay! I'm done now!”

“You better be,” Jeongin grumbles. 

After a few minutes, he gasps. “Done,” he says, and you drop your hands from either side of your eyes. 

You look in the rearview mirror, Jeongin in full view as he adjusts his tie. Sure, the suit was a size too big, and the jacket almost slipped off the ends of his shoulders, but he somehow seemed to make it work. You couldn’t explain how, it just has this charm that perfectly complements the sweet but awkward boy you’ve grown so fond of. It’s so incredibly Jeongin, and it makes you smile like a dope.

But as he runs his hands through his hair, in desperate attempts to fix it, you feel your breath hitch in your throat. That… was new. And different. By now, one would look away, but for some reason, you can’t.

That is, however, when you notice Jisung’s eyes are locked on you, his eyebrows ever-so-slightly raised in amusement. You look down at your hands as you feel your cheeks get hot. Now that was another thing you’d have to explain to the older fool. Great.

Snow continues to fall from the sky as Jisung resumes the drive to school, but it never goes past a light sprinkle. It wasn’t even enough to coat the ground in that fluffy, white blanket you had grown accustomed to in the last few years. Every so often, the older boy glances over at you, catching you lingering at the rearview mirror as Jeongin uses his phone camera to fix his hair. It only makes you sink lower and lower into your chair, and you resort to keeping your eyes on your lap for the rest of the ride.

You don’t look up again until you feel the car stop and hear the gear shift click back into park.

“We’re here,” Jisung announces in a singsong voice.

“I can tell,” you grumble, recognizing the dimly lit courtyard in front of you.

“There she is!” Jeongin seems to have spotted his date and he squeaks, checking himself in the rearview mirror one last time. “Do I look okay?” he asks, a hopeful smile on his face.

You both turn back to look at him. You open your mouth to speak but can’t get anything out, and you find yourself stupidly staring at him again.

“You look great, Jeongin.” Jisung smiles over his shoulder. He glances at you for a second, flashing his eyebrows at you, and you turn back around in embarrassment. “Now gooo, she”s waiting!” He winks at the younger boy, ushering him out of the car.

Jeongin chuckles, smoothing out his oversized suit once more before he leaves. You keep your gaze out the windshield the whole time, staring at nothing in particular, but you notice that the snow stops entirely once Jeongin wraps his arms around his date and escorts her inside.

You feel your breath get caught in your throat again. “We–” you start, then pause to clear your throat. “Yeah, we should get going, too.” 

Keeping your eyes locked in place, you blindly reach down to unbuckle your seatbelt. You’ve never felt more suffocated in a vehicle in your life and everything inside you was screaming at you to get out.

But Jisung, ever-persistent, seemed to be working against you all evening. He reaches over, gently grabbing your arm before you can touch the door handle. “Uh, uh, uh, you’re not going anywhere.”

You silently groan in your mind as you turn to face him with a sour look. “What do you want?” 

His mouth curls up into a smirk. “What was that just now?” 

“What was what just now?”

You tilt your head, your eyebrows furrowed with your lips pursed together. No matter how hard you try to keep a straight face, it only seems to egg him on more. 

“You know what I’m talking about.” Jisung nudges you repeatedly, his smirk growing wider. “That whole staring at Innie thing! It’s almost like you just realized how in love you are with him.” 

A scoff escapes your lips almost instantly. Seeing Jeongin in that suit was… an experience, to say the least, but to go as far as to say you were in love with him?

That said, it doesn’t surprise you that this all came from the guy who genuinely believed his crush would ask him out at midnight if he made a wish and forwarded a poorly-formatted copypasta to seventeen people. Bless his heart, but you’re smarter than that.

Really, you couldn’t pinpoint what sucked the breath out of your lungs when you laid eyes on Jeongin in the rearview mirror. All you could caulk it up to was some ill-timed coming-of-age epiphany: you two were sixteen now, and you could do things the sixteen-year-olds in movies do all the time. It’s a strange pill to swallow, but unlike Jeongin, it didn’t even occur to you that you could’ve asked someone out to winter formal. Everyone else your age seemed to jump at the chance, but a small part of you figured you and Jeongin would’ve gone together—as friends, of course.

Of course, you know Jisung wouldn’t buy that answer, so you had to think of something else. Something more his style.

“That’s— that’s not what happened.” You take a breath then wave him off with your hand as you continue. “It's just the tuxedo effect, it’ll be gone in the morning.”

You turn to get out of the car (again), hoping Jisung would leave it at that, but he leans over (again), grabbing your hand this time. 

“No, no, no, sugarplum, you aren’t getting away that easily.”

You want to scream. Praying for the earth to swallow you whole sounds good, too. Anything over facing Jisung, whose eyebrows are raised as he nosily rests his chin on his palm.

“Spill.” 

You lightly push him away from you as you sigh. “What is there to spill? It’s…” You pause, before continuing in a rushed mumble. “It's when you find someone attractive because of the fact that they’re wearing a suit.” 

Jisung blinks a number of times before he bursts into laughter.

“That’s so bullshit! Finding someone attractive just because they’re wearing a suit?” He shakes his head in disbelief. “That's insane.” 

“Oh, so magical snow makes complete sense, but finding someone attractive because of a suit doesn’t?” 

“It’s not magical snow, it’s fate and romance all twisted into one!” 

“Whatever, you’re hopeless.” You throw your hands up in defeat. “My point still stands: it’ll be gone by tomorrow.” 

The main doors capture your attention and your eyes linger on it as multiple other students filter in and out of the formal. Your shoulders tighten and an unexplainable uneasy feeling makes a home for itself in your chest. 

“I thought this was what you wanted…” Jisung starts, his gaze following yours, “for people to not think you guys were dating.” 

“It’s not that,” you respond quietly. 

“Then what is it?” he asks, matching your tone.

“It’s just…” you begin. “It’s weird to think he’s at the age where he’s actually thinking about liking someone and dating people.” 

“But you know what that means?” Jisung asks, prompting you to break your staring contest with the school doors and look at him. “It also means you’re old enough to do the same thing: date and move on.” 

You scoff, open the car door, and put one foot out, ready to leave. “I don’t know what you’re on about, shut up.” You get up and let the door swing closed behind you. 

Jisung quickly follows suit and makes his way around the front of his car and over to you. He places one hand on one of your shoulders, as the other delicately moves some of the hair that had fallen in your face behind your ear. 

“I’ll stop bothering you about this, yeah?” he says, his voice more gentle than teasing this time. You could count the number of times he’s spoken to you like this on one hand. “At least, I’ll stop for now. And if Jeongin won’t tell you, then I will—you look absolutely beautiful.” 

Gently lifting your chin with two fingers, Jisung leans over and places a light kiss upon your forehead. You swear that for a minute, your heart stopped beating. Even with all of the overly sweet nicknames and the babying, Jisung had never gone so far as to do something so physically affectionate with you as this. However, you like it. You like it a lot more than you thought you would. 

His lips linger there for a moment longer before he pulls away with a smile. “You’re more than capable of going after what you want. But don’t let him cloud your judgment tonight. Have fun, make memories.”

The older boy steps back from you, but offers an arm for you to take. Once you do, he leans in slightly and chuckles. “And try not to let this so-called tuxedo effect get to you too much,” Jisung adds as an afterthought. “You might fall in love with me by the end of the night.”

Using the arm linked around his, you deliver a light smack to his chest.

“In your dreams, asshole.”

…

Spending the night with Jisung as your quote-unquote “date” was more of a blast than you thought it would be. From the flavorful fruit punch and the obviously bulk-bought snacks, it truly was a night to remember. 

You made sure to catch plenty of Jisung’s dad-dancing on your phone—for blackmail purposes, of course. And when it got to that normally awkward slow dance section of the night, Jisung did what he did best and made it anything but that. Sure, you stood on his toes once or twice, but he didn’t complain, at least verbally, and all-in-all, the night seemed to be a success.

From the few glances you stole during the night, Jeongin also seemed to enjoy his time with his date. The feverish look he had in his eyes when he hopped in the back of Jisung’s car paired with the hint of lipstick on his cheek confirmed it for you. You decide not to dwell too much on it, taking Jisung’s advice, and just hand Jeongin a makeup wipe before he could stroll home with crystal clear evidence on his face that he was ever gone.

The car might as well have been a fridge as you’re sitting there, hands rubbing together so quickly you could start a fire in your attempt to gain warmth. Jisung had started the car already, but his heaters are taking much longer to kick in compared to earlier. Jeongin, now laid out across the back seat, gushes about how the night was and how breathtaking his date seemed to be in her off-white dress. (You don’t know who would wear white to a school dance, but you try your best not to judge.) 

His rambles, however, are soon cut short by Jisung, who looks at him through his rearview mirror. “Sorry, buddy, but you need to change before you get home, remember?” 

Jeongin huffs as he pulls himself up into a sitting position and nods his head. He looks at you, to Jisung, back to you, then Jisung again. “You’re not going to do that stop-start thing again, are you?” 

“Nah.” Jisung waves him off with one hand. “Wouldn’t be as funny the second time. Plus, I feel like sugarplum here would kill me.” 

Jeongin’s eyebrows furrow together slightly. “‘Sugarplum?’” 

“Don’t ask,” you say hollowly, and send Jisung a stern look to not answer Jeongin either. But in all honesty, if ‘sugarplum’ was the main thing the older boy took from tonight, you’d be completely fine with that.

“Just hurry up and change, nimrod,” Jisung says as he once again looks in the mirror.

You stare at him blankly. “What the heck is this? The eighties?” 

“Just say you’re jealous and go, okay, sugarplum?” Jisung makes a face, and you throw your hands up dismissively. 

“Did someone spike the punch?” Jeongin asks. “You’re both acting weird tonight.” Every now and then, you hear bumps and noises as he attempts to get back into his sweats in an orderly fashion. 

“We’re not being weird,” you respond flatly, your eyes locked on a shallow puddle on the sidewalk from the snowfall, if you could even call it that. You try your best to change the subject and keep Jeongin from questioning you more. “Are you done yet? Can we go?” 

With one last grunt, Jeongin succeeds in getting his head through the hole of his sweatshirt. “Yep, you can drive, Jisung.” 

That was enough for Jisung to pull the car into drive and to get on the way. 

You drum your fingers against the dashboard as Jisung drives, using everything in you to not pluck off the acrylic nails that took you an hour to stick on. You’re pleasantly surprised with how little this whole operation had gone wrong, and you could only hope that the rest of the trip would stay this way.

You don’t even allow yourself to relax into your chair until you three pull to the corner of Jeongin’s street for the second time. Jisung nearly laughs at you for this, but you quickly silence him with another smack to the chest.

“Owie! Looks like sugarplum’s feisty tonight,” Jisung cries, flashing you a fake frown.

You wince at the nickname and turn around, ignoring him. “Jeongin, do you have everything?”

Jeongin haphazardly tosses the bunched-up tuxedo on the seat beside him as he nods. He slides across the back seat and reaches for the door handle before you stop him in his tracks. 

“Wait.” You lean over the back seat and quickly wipe at his cheek, and he attempts to back away. “You missed a bit of lipstick, idiot,” you state flatly, ignoring the sudden heat you feel creeping up your neck. “You’re basically asking to get caught.” 

Jisung sits and stares as he watches you wipe away the little remnants of lipstick on Jeongin’s cheek, and he doesn’t fail to notice the way the tips of Jeongin’s ears turn a subtle pink color at your touch. 

“Ah,” Jeongin chuckles awkwardly, “thanks.”

It is when Jeongin exits the vehicle that you finally take a closer look at what he was wearing. He wasn’t just wearing any sweatshirt—it was purple. Suddenly you remember your plight from earlier and your breath catches in your throat for the third time tonight.

“Wait, Y/N.” You hear Jeongin knock on your window, snapping you out of your daze. 

You turn over and lower the glass, Jisung snickering under his breath all the while. “Yeah?”

A stupid grin comes over Jeongin’s face as he utters his next words.

“Stay for Christmas?”

You scoff and suppress a laugh. Maybe if he wasn’t still on a high from the formal, you would've considered asking your parents again this year. But what’s the point if they’ll just say no?

“Not a chance, now go home.”

After making sure Jeongin climbed into his bedroom window, Jisung turns the car around and takes you home. As he pulls into your driveway, you quickly notice how all of the lights are off in your house, minus the porch light. You let out a sigh of relief—your parents must be asleep. 

You unbuckle your seatbelt and turn to Jisung with a smile. “Thank you, Jisung,” you hum. “Tonight was fun.” 

“That's alright, sugarplum, glad to be of service,” he shoots you a toothy grin and salutes. 

You once again wince at the nickname, but decide to let it go this time. You quickly lean across the dashboard and place a kiss on Jisung’s cheek. “And thank you for what you said earlier, it meant a lot.” 

Jisung chuckles as you pull away. “You’re not falling for me, now, are you?” he quips.

“Don’t ruin the moment.” You slap him on the arm, and pause for a moment before opening the car door. “Just, thank you for tonight, seriously.” 

“Y/N, it’s fine, I had fun too.” Jisung smiles. “Just make sure to get inside, it’s cold.” 

You smile back and hum once more. Shutting the car door behind you, you rush your way up to your front porch before turning back to Jisung with a final wave. Then, you’re met with warmth, welcoming you after a long trip away as you get ready for bed.

The next morning, however, you’re greeted by two very angry parents.

By the time you got home last night, both your parents were already asleep, so you thought you had successfully gotten away with everything. Even if they were awake, they had no way to know what you did. But it turns out Jeongin’s cousin, Jungwon, caught him sneaking in and immediately snitched to his parents, who, in turn, texted yours, and probably Jisung’s as well.

Let's just say that you are now grounded well into the new year. No going out for a whole month, except maybe the Christmas party next week, if your parents are feeling generous.

You know it’s going to suck being confined to your house for the entirety of winter break, but you suppose that’s the price you pay for being a loyal best friend. If anyone was going to help Jeongin sneak out to a school dance, it’s you—even if you wouldn’t be the one to go with him in the end.

You’d do it again in a heartbeat.

17 years old.

“Can I open my eyes now?” you whine.

“Nooo,” Jeongin drones from behind you, “just be patient. It’ll be worth it, I promise.”

You sigh impatiently as he guides you by the shoulders to… somewhere. The December cold swirls around you, biting at your cheeks as you attempt to swivel your head and look around. You don’t know why you even bothered trying, though, as Jeongin had tied a black cloth over your eyes before he drove you off to this mystery location. 

Despite this, he still instructed you to keep your eyes shut. It felt excessive, but you obliged to make him happy.

“Fine, but do I really need the blindfold?” You bend your head up and over, looking to your best guess as to where Jeongin is. You can feel his hands on your shoulders, so wherever you’re staring couldn’t have been far off.

“Yes— well, not really.” Jeongin laughs sheepishly and he helps you onto what you assume is a crosswalk. “It was Jisung’s idea.”

You snort, shaking your head to yourself as you try your best to walk in a straight line. “Of course it was.”

Upbeat chatter and Christmas music dances around your ears as you near the still-unknown location. You can’t see a thing, but you can already feel the aura of holiday cheer everywhere around you, just waiting to sweep you off your feet. It is just a week shy of Christmas, after all.

Soon Jeongin comes to a stopping point, and you feel his hands leave your shoulders. “Can I take off the blindfold now?” you frown, bouncing on the balls of your feet.

“Yah, just wait!” Jeongin scolds, but you hear a light chuckle quickly follow. “Patience, Y/N.”

You feel his fingers gently graze your hair after a moment, finding its way to the knot on the back of your head. He gets it undone quickly, but holds the cloth around your head as he counts down.

“Three… two… one…” he says softly, slowly removing the blindfold from your eyes and unveiling the scene in front of you.

The glinting lights make you wince for a moment before your eyes get used to the new sudden brightness. You gasp at the sight in front of you, almost jumping out of your shoes in joy. Thousands of Christmas lights are hung up around trees, swirled around lamp posts, and hung overhead for people to walk under. It is breathtaking, truly breathtaking. 

You spin around to face Jeongin in an instant. His smile almost puts the lights out of business. “You brought me to the lights?” 

“No, I brought you to the desert.” The boy rolls his eyes, his words coated with sarcasm—but still, he smiles. “Yes, I brought you to the lights, dummy.” 

His warmth soon overtakes yours as you wrap your arms around his neck and pull him in close. He freezes for a moment, but soon lets his arms wrap around your waist. He squeezes you tight one final time before he pulls away, looking at you with a tender smile. 

“We should go, don’t want to miss out on the lights, do you?” 

You aren’t sure if he meant to grab your hand as he drags you away, but you don’t do anything to let go, either. You just stare down at your enjoined hands as you follow him, the background noise blurring away into nothing, overtaken by your heartbeat ringing in your ears. 

Minutes seem to tick by before you can bring yourself to look up again. Your gaze lands on the back of Jeongin’s head, and it only seems to intensify when he swiftly turns his head. Something about the way his hair flowed with the quick action almost makes you dizzy, and you have to look back down to shake yourself out of it. 

You finally have the courage to let your eyes trail back up again a moment later. Immediately, something in the air feels different. Jeongin had turned back to check on you, and a cluster of yellow and white lights seemed to give him a halo-like ring above his head. The music and chatter blurs around you once again, fading into a quiet buzz as your body stiffens and you nearly lose your breath. It’s like you’re the main character of one of those animes Jeongin tried to get you to watch, like the one where the boy and the girl stumble upon a field of fireflies together in the middle of the night. Here you two are, a mere speck amongst the thousands of lights, yet the boy in front of you seems to shine brighter than them all.

It’s strange to think about. You are here for the Christmas lights—no, Jeongin brought you here for the Christmas lights—but all you can focus on is him.

“Are you okay?”

The three words and a light squeeze of your hand pull you back down to earth. You didn’t realize Jeongin stepped closer to you, and you feel yourself exhale shakily, your hand slowly slipping from his grasp.

You stare back with wide eyes, and something inside you compels you to step closer to him. “Y-Yeah,” is all you manage to get out.

The colorful lights seem to flicker as you look around. For a second, they do feel like little fireflies, floating around you as they emit their warmth. And when your gaze lands back on the boy in front of you, the warmth seems to encircle you even more. You nearly forget about the cold nipping at your cheeks, and a rosy glow fills them instead. 

“It’s just… I…”

As your eyes meet Jeongin’s once again, you can’t help but notice a slight redness in his cheeks as well.  His lips curve upward slightly, and he gently takes your hands in his.

“I know. It’s beautiful.”

You smile up at Jeongin and notice something moving behind him. You squint, looking past his ear, and find those all-too-familiar fluffy crystals fluttering down. Immediately, your jaw drops and your smile grows wider. 

“Jeongin, look!” You let go of one of his hands and point to the snow surrounding you. 

The scene unfolding around you leaves you awestruck. The colors from the lights bounce off the falling snowflakes, and the music seems to chime more vividly as the snow whisks around, making everything feel brighter and more alive. You feel like your head is spinning as you swivel around, sparkles in your eyes that could rival the spectacle in front of you.

A shaky breath leaves your lips as you take one more step towards Jeongin. Your hands slowly find their way up his shoulders and around his neck, and you let his body heat swaddle you, wrapping you up in a wintry glow as you take it all in. It truly feels like you’re in a dream.

Jeongin follows your gaze and chuckles, a fond smile on his face as he gently pulls you closer. “Yes, Y/N, I know what snow is. Is snow bad?”

You look at him again, your wide, shimmering eyes meeting his warm ones. In that moment, nothing else mattered: just you, the snow, and the boy in front of you.

“It's perfect.”

And like the blonde girl in the firefly scene, you’d give anything for the moment to last forever.

…

“Where were you?”

Your mother’s words nearly make you jump out of your skin the second you step in the house, and you hiss to yourself. Your time with Jeongin at the light festival had swept you off your feet so much that you forgot you weren’t even supposed to be there.

After the events from last year, your parents had grounded you for a whole month, effectively barring you from even stepping foot outside of the house unless it was to school and back. Even worse, they grew so concerned about your so-called “excessive time with this boy” that they placed a strict curfew on you once your grounding sentence was lifted. No seeing friends—read: no seeing Jeongin—after 8pm, lest unspeakable things happen to you. It was ridiculous, not only because you’re seventeen, but because, somehow, your best friend since you were nine was now this supposed threat.

The only way you had been able to skirt around this was to lie, usually about studying at a coffee shop with an unnamed friend. You can’t remember what excuse you gave this time, but at this point, it didn’t matter much.

Your mother crosses her arms, a look of disapproval etched on her features. “Where were you, really? And don’t say the school library this time.”

You curse to yourself, your mistake dawning on you. Why'd you pick a Saturday night to say you were meeting up with some friends at the school library? Did your excitement over Jeongin and his ‘mystery surprise’ really mess with your head that much? It couldn’t have been him… could it?

After a minute, you conclude that you just slipped up after exhausting your list of excuses over the course of the year. It was bound to happen.

“Well?” your mother says expectantly.

You just sigh, throwing up your hands in defeat. “I was with Jeongin.” 

Your eyes flick up, waiting for her next frustrated ramble about how you’ve been spending too much time with him. Instead, you get a throaty chuckle as she shakes her head at you, a smirk taking the place of her frown.

“Of course you were.”

Blinking, you stare at her in shock. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing! It means nothing.” She turns around, busying herself with wiping some crumbs off the dining table. However, after closer inspection, you see that the table is spotless.

“No, it means something,” you protest. What happened to all her complaints about how much time you’ve spent with Jeongin? Why the sudden change of heart?

“I didn’t say anything, sweetheart,” your mom says. “But did he?”

“Did he what?”

“You know, the three words,” she looks up, sending you a wink and imitating Jeongin, “‘Stay for Christmas?’” 

Mortified, you feel heat rush up to your ears as your mother lets out another laugh. “Mom!”

You refuse to admit it to her, but you actually said it first this year.

It was just half an hour ago. Jeongin walked you to your car, a gentle hand on the small of your back as he followed you down his driveway. He wrapped you up in a strong embrace before you could even unlock your car, and you looped your arms around his neck in return, smiling into his shoulder.

The hug was sweet—Jeongin’s hugs, which seemed to increase in frequency lately, always were. But he held you for a second longer than normal in this one, and when you tried to let go, he let out a small whine and held you closer to him for one more moment. The move took you by surprise, but you hugged him back nonetheless.

You let your eyes flutter shut as you melted into his hold, letting your head fall against his chest. The sound of his heartbeat could’ve lulled you to sleep if you let it, and the light snowfall twirling around you two certainly didn’t help matters. Gradually, you relaxed your arms, letting them hang loosely around his neck, and you let out a contented sigh. You truly never felt more at peace.

Maybe it was safe to say something in the air shifted while you were wrapped up in each other’s arms. Usually, he’d give you a fond chuckle and a curt pat on the back right before he pulled away and took off. But when the two of you finally let go, you opened your eyes to find him smiling down at you. Something akin to affection swam in his soft irises as he slowly pulled back, his hands gently resting on your waist. It was… different, for sure, especially coming from him. 

You smiled back warmly, linking your hands together behind his neck. “Are you okay?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

Jeongin nodded his head, an adoring smile still tugging at his lips. “Just… got a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

Something seemed to swirl in his features that you couldn’t quite pick up. You registered the return of the light pink on his cheeks and the tips of his ears as you stood under the streetlight together, but nothing else. It was probably just the cold that stirred this up, so you decided not to ask.

You could only stare back at him as you tried to think of something else to say. Something about the position you two were in—arms wrapped around each other under the moonlight—felt too close to lovers in the movies. You couldn’t explain why, but it made your brain go static. And in your attempt to relieve the tension, you gulped once and spat out the first stupid one-liner that came to mind.

“By any chance, are any of those things ‘Stay for Christmas’?”

Of course it had to be that.

Jeongin let out a light scoff, rolling his eyes playfully as he dropped his hands from your waist. You giggled at his disappointment, but you instantly missed the warmth that radiated from him. Luckily, you had half a mind not to say that out loud.

“Okay, moment over,” he mumbled, gently pushing you towards your car. “Get home safe, Y/N.”

“I’m just kidding!” your mother cries in exasperation, bringing your focus back to her. “I know I can’t stop you from seeing him. He is your,” she pauses to make air quotes, “‘best friend’, after all.”

You narrow your eyes at her. “He’s my best friend. No air quotes needed.”

Your mother nods, clearly not believing you. “Right… for now.”

Feeling more blood rush to your face, you roll your eyes and unceremoniously march upstairs. “Goodnight, mom.”

She’s crazy, right? Absolutely. You know yourself and you know your friendships better than anyone. You and Jeongin are best friends for a reason—nothing more, and certainly nothing less. The way you felt like you were on cloud nine just hours ago? It was a one-time thing, you were just fascinated by the lights.

Jeongin had nothing to do with it.

18 years old.

Your scarf is wrapped tightly around your neck and face in attempts to shield yourself from the cold. You jump on the balls of your feet in place as you wait for one of the Yang family to open the door and invite you into the familiar warmth. It’s pretty much tradition at this point to spend at least part of Christmas Eve with the Yangs, but they’re hosting the Christmas party this year so it’s just another reason to stop by.

Shoving your hands into your coat pockets, your eyes brighten when you see movement through the front door window. Soon enough, Mrs Yang opens up the door with a smile of her own. 

"Y/N!" She sings, ushering you in before she pulls you into a hug. "I think Jeongin's still asleep, so you can do those honors?" She chuckles. 

You pull away, slip off your coat and scarf, and hang them up before you rush up the stairs. "Leave it to me, Mrs. Yang!" 

Once you’re up the top of the stairs, you creep down the hallway and knock on the door. When you get no response, you just let yourself in.

The scene in front of you is something you expect, but it brings a fond smile to your face nonetheless. Jeongin is spread out across his bed, his blanket bunched up around his chin. His hair is all fluffy from a good night’s sleep and his face looks peaceful as he snores lightly, like nothing in the world could ever hurt him. 

Going over to his bed, you let yourself fall onto it and your head rest on the pillow next to him. Examining his face, you notice how his eyelashes lay against his cheeks and how his lips part slightly as he breathes.

"I can feel you staring at me," Jeongin says, his eyes still closed.

You clutch your chest in surprise as you roll onto your back. "Oh my god, why do you have to scare me like that?” you cry, staring at the ceiling. "You could have said you were awake." 

"But then you wouldn't get your chance to admire me," he chuckles as he finally opens his eyes. 

"Shut up, no I wasn't!" 

"I don't know, your stare felt pretty heavy to me."

You glare at him, flying up and off of his bed before ripping the blanket off of him.

"Y/N! What the hell?!" Jeongin gasps, shooting up so he’s sitting. "What if I was naked?!" 

"I know you too well, you don't sleep naked." You bend down to stare at him. "You'd be too scared to sleep naked," you add as you throw his blanket back onto his bed. 

Jeongin rolls his eyes, grabbing the blanket before he wraps it around himself like a burrito. "What are you doing here anyway?" he mumbles. He runs one hand through his hair in an attempt to tame it, but all it really did was make it even more fluffy. Something about it makes your heart quicken its pace. 

"Don't you remember what day it is?"

Jeongin blinks slowly, his tiredness showing. "Friday?" 

You groan, sitting down on his bed again before quickly grabbing his pillow to hit him with it. "It's the Christmas," hit, "party,” another hit, “you idiot!"

You attempt to hit him again, but he catches the pillow with his hands and pulls it away from you. 

This only causes you to stumble into him, also making Jeongin fall back in the process. A gasp escapes your lips and you use your hand to stop yourself from head-butting the groggy boy. You blink quickly, his eyes gazing into your own. His nose brushes up against yours ever-so-slightly, and you clear your throat, your cheeks flushing. 

"This is your fault,” you attempt to joke. 

"Me?!" Jeongin scoffs. "You hit me first!" Mimicking his words silently, you roll your eyes. "Uh, but can you move, you're a bit heavy." 

Your eyes widen and you scoot away with lightning speed. "Sorry.” You blink, staring down to play with your fingers in your lap. 

"By the way," Jeongin says, "I didn't forget today was the Christmas party."

“Well, that’s why I’m here early, to help out,” you mutter, your face still down. 

Out of the corner of your eye, you watch as Jeongin gets off of his bed, goes over to his drawers and pulls out the first shirt he finds before pulling his pajama top over his head. You jump and turn in the opposite direction, your cheeks fully flushed.

“Jeongin!” you whine, holding the backs of your hands to your cheeks in an attempt to cool them down. “You could have warned me or told me to leave.” 

“Aww, you blushing?” Jeongin snickers. “Never seen a boy undress before?” 

Without looking back at him, you try your best to chuck his pillow in his direction. You hear it thump against the wall instead.

“You missed~” Jeongin sings, which makes you scoff.

“And I wasn’t blushing, asshole, just didn’t want to get scarred for life.”

Of course you’re blushing. Especially when he nonchalantly stood and started to strip off his top. And of course you had seen men undress before… in the movies. But there’s no way you’d utter a word of it to Jeongin, not when it would send his already-soaring ego to new heights. 

“We both know that your life would actually be improved,” Jeongin chuckles to himself.

He walks across his room and when he comes into your peripheral, you instantly move to cover your eyes. It doesn’t help your reddening cheeks when the sound of Jeongin’s laughter rings out louder.

You feel his fingers wrap themselves around your wrists as you try to fight him from pulling them away from your face. “I’m dressed, idiot, stop being so shy.” 

“Stop making fun of me!” you cry and he guides your hands away from your face. 

Your eyes meet his and you notice the cheeky smile playing at his lips, which only turns yours into a pout. You only wish he’ll soon forget about this and move on to something different to make fun of you with. However, when you note the playful twinkle in his eyes, you know your prayers won’t be answered. 

“Look, you’re blushing so hard!” He continues to smirk. 

“I told you, I’m not blushing!” 

You attempt to hit him, but with his fingers still wrapped around your wrists, you fail to do so. His grin seems to only grow wider as you roll your eyes and try to pull your wrists from his grasp. 

“By the way, Jisung said he was going to stop by later for the party,” you mention.  Jeongin’s smile seems to drop slightly at the sound of the older boy’s name. 

“Why? He doesn’t live in the neighborhood.” 

You shrug as you look at Jeongin with a blank expression. “How am I meant to know how Jisung’s brain works? He's in a world of his own.” 

Jeongin hums, his gaze dropping to the floor. 

“But in all seriousness,” you start, “he said something about missing us, and that, like, his college just isn’t the same without us?” you suggest. “Also, there was something about this girl he really likes and magic snow and shit,” you add, which causes Jeongin to snort.

“Did he actually say this or you making it up?” 

“It’s more like reading between the lines, if you will,” you giggle. 

“So he didn’t say shit, you’re just making it up as you go along.”

Jeongin crosses his arms over his chest as he stares at you, waiting for you to formulate your next response. But when the only one he gets is you playfully hitting his arm, he rolls his eyes for the nth time. 

“Don’t we have to help set up the party or something? Or a movie to watch?” 

“Right, yeah. We should do that.”

Jeongin laughs and as soon as he grabs your hand, flashbacks instantly flare up in your mind from the year before, of the Christmas lights he took you to see—of the way he seemed to shine under them all. You make sure to wish again that he won’t notice the new blush that presented itself as you thought of that time.

You keep quiet, not wanting to give yourself away as Jeongin gently pulls you out with him. You let your eyes gloss over his room once more. You’ve been in here a thousand times before and it seemed to grow with him over the years, and in a way, it grew with you, too. You remember the days when his bed was adorned with Toy Story bedsheets, Woody’s face front and center on his comforter (but you knew Rex was his favorite character). It had long since been traded in for sleek, black sheets—arguably more fitting for someone who is waiting for his first choice university, at the other side of the country, to respond with his admission decision.

And although you’ve been here a thousand times before, something new on his dresser catches your eye.

“Wait, is that…?”

Letting go of his hand, you make your way to the dresser, moving a crumpled up piece of paper out of the way to reveal a photo. It’s from when you were both ten years old; nearly a year after you had first met on the monkey bars, about two weeks before that classroom Christmas party. Mrs. Yang had taken Jeongin to a lights festival one December weekend, like the one you went to last year, and she happened to invite you and your parents along. You and Jeongin stood together in the center of the picture, and a giant Christmas tree towered behind your small frames. The mirthful glow of the tree enveloped the two of you as you posed for the photo, jolly smiles plastered on both of your faces.

Gasping in surprise, your lips part slightly as you take the photo in your hands. “No way…” you murmur softly, and you look up at Jeongin as he makes his way to you. “How… how did you find this?”

Jeongin peers over your shoulder. He gently holds the frame in one hand, his fingers brushing against yours as he smiles fondly. “My mom stumbled across it a couple months ago. She was digging through old photo albums and found this tucked in the back of one of them.” His thumb grazes over the glass. “She framed it and gave it to me, I guess she knew how important it was.”

You blink several times, hoping he doesn't catch the way your eyes briefly well with tears as you take in the details of the picture. You remember that night vividly and all the memories from it seem to come flooding back all at once. 

It was your first ever Christmas lights festival, and it was nothing short of magical. The vibrant holiday lights glistened all around you, rivaling the sparkles in your wide eyes. The bells in the soft Christmas music gently tinkled in your ears, as if Santa himself was reminding you he would be on his way soon. The gooey, fresh-baked (and rather expensive) chocolate chip cookie you had split with Jeongin, paired with the rich (and also questionably pricey) hot chocolate you had begged your mom to buy along with it, brought even more warmth pooling in your belly as you leaped down the lit-up aisles with your best friend. 

Looking back, perhaps that was what sparked your ongoing Christmas obsession. Sure, it didn’t snow that night, but seeing the bright bulbs all around you twinkling like stars in the sky captivated you wholly, wrapping little ten-year-old you in a warm, merry glow. It calmed the impatience for Christmas bubbling inside you by the day, but lit the fire inside you for the awaited day like never before. And best of all, your best friend was right by your side, being pulled into the evening’s embrace with you.

You notice one very important detail in the picture, though, that breaks your bubbling sentimentality, and instead makes you giggle.

“Oh my god, it’s the sweater.”

The fact that the picture was taken at night and the lights added a yellow glare to the photo made it difficult to spot. But one could take a closer look and see that, indeed, Jeongin was sporting that obnoxious purple sweater under his puffy blue coat.

Jeongin lets his hand drop, leaving the frame in yours as he frowns in offense. “Heyyy, it was comfy!”

You stifle another laugh. “Doesn’t change the fact that it was ugly as hell.”

He sneers at you, “Oh please, like you didn’t wear hideous clothes when you were ten!”

You shrug as you pull the frame up to eye level and continue to giggle. “Maybe, but nothing will beat that sweater.” 

You lunge out of the way as Jeongin tries to wrap his arms around you and grab the photo from your grasp. However, a giggle escapes your lips as Jeongin’s fingers graze your side, which causes you to jump away from him. 

A knowing smirk appears on his face. Your eyes widen. 

“Don’t you even think about it.”

Jeongin doesn’t listen to you though, and his hands are already at your sides. Your grip on the photo tightens in an attempt to not drop it as your eyes prickle with tears. Jeongin’s fingers run up and down your sides as he tickles you, and causes a mix of gasps and laughter to escape your throat. 

“Jeongin!” You continue to laugh as you try to step away from him.

Jeongin thinks quicker. Instead of torturing you more, though, you’re surprised that he chooses to pull you closer to him instead, wrapping his arms around your waist.

“I got you now!” His giggle rings in your ears as he wiggles you like a rag doll. You halfheartedly try to push him away, protesting in between your own giggles.

“Stop itttt, you asshole!”

He seems to listen to you this time, too, and lets you go. However, an evil grin lingers on his face.

You inch back cautiously, keeping a careful watch for his next move. He responds by slowly leaning closer, his smile stretching wider and wider. You slowly move your hands up to your sides to protect yourself from another tickle ambush, a nervous giggle slipping out.

He seems to inch closer and closer to you, and he stops right before your noses can touch, a shit-eating grin on his face. Then he mumbles, flashing his eyebrows:

“Stay for Christmas?”

You groan exasperatedly and lightly push the cheeky boy away from you.

“Oh my god, Jeongin!”

Jeongin breaks out into shy giggles as he steps closer to you, poking you playfully. You have to bite the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from doing the same whilst you try and swat his hands away.

“Come baaaack!” He chuckles after a moment, stepping close enough to wrap his arms around you again.

“Get me out!” You cry out as you try to break free. Your giggly demeanor completely breaks, however, when Jeongin just hugs you closer to him, taking you by surprise one more time.

“No,” you feel him hum through your shoulder, tucking his head in it when you try to step away. “Don’t move.” 

You fight and lose to the smile that appears on your face as you wrap your own arms around his shoulders. 

You can’t explain how in moments like this, he easily causes your heart to race by doing the littlest things. It makes you wonder if he can feel your heartbeat right now as you’re pressed up against him. If he can, he doesn’t say anything. 

“Ahem.”

A familiar voice breaks the silence hanging around you two. You both break away from the hug, keeping your gaze cast downwards as you turn to face Jisung. He had swung the door open at some point and was now leaning coolly against the doorframe as he watches you two.

Seeing you both cower under his gaze seems to amuse him greatly, and a smirk makes its way onto his face. “What was that?” he says, failing to hide the chuckle threatening to spill out.

You stuff your hands in your pockets as you sputter. “It– it’s not what it– we were just–“

“We were just reminiscing, Jisung,” Jeongin grumbles from beside you, his arms crossed over his chest. His cheeks seem to burn red as Jisung grins wider.

You simply nod along with Jeongin. “Yeah, reminiscing. What he said,” you murmur.

“Oh, you keep telling yourself that, baby.” He chuckles, running a hand through his hair, which he had seemed to let grow out during his time away.

He lets out a satisfied sigh before he continues. “Ahh, I knew this would happen! It was snowing by the time I got here, so I figured you two were up here together,” he wiggles his eyebrows for emphasis, “alone. And you called me crazy!”

You want to roll your eyes at his antics, but you can only chuckle fondly. Sure, it seems like the now-college boy still believes in magic snow, but you have to admit: you did miss hearing him gush about it all the time.

“Yeah, yeah,” you say, “why’d you come up here anyway?” You seize the opportunity to wiggle your eyebrows back at him. “Did you miss us?”

It’s now Jisung’s turn to roll his eyes at you. “Mrs. Yang was looking for you two so she sent me up here,” he says, dodging your question.'' You know the party started already, right?”

Your eyes widen, and you and Jeongin flush in embarrassment again.

“Oh, right,” Jeongin mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly as he exits the room. “The party.”

You place the framed photo of you two on the foot of Jeongin’s bed before following him out. Jisung holds the door open for you two, his smirk getting cockier by the minute.

The older boy pokes both your and Jeongin’s cheeks as you step out of Jeongin’s room. “For the record, I did miss you two.”

You snort, reaching a hand up to ruffle his hair before the three of you make your way downstairs. “I know.”

19 years old.

“You’re cheating!”

Hyunjin’s voice nearly makes your ears ring. He really has no need to be speaking so loud, as you’re literally right next to him.

You grip your controller tighter as he tries to swipe it from you with his hand, and you lean away from him. 

“Am not!” You yell back, your eyes focused on the tiny Nintendo Switch screen. “You just suck at this game.” 

At the same time as Hyunjin gasps, Felix and Seungmin burst into laughter at your response from the other end of Jisung’s bed. At the corner of your eye, you notice Felix fall to the ground amidst his fit of giggles.

“Just get better, Jinnie,” you quip, a confident smirk tugging at your lips.

Even with Hyunjin trying to swat you like a bug, you still manage to keep your eyes locked on the game. Your chosen character, Toad, remained in first place, and after getting a green shell from a lucky box, you send it backwards, causing Hyunjin’s Princess Daisy to spin out. 

He gets passed by multiple NPCs, landing him in 10th place with one lap to go. The way he grumbles and glares at the screen only increases yours and the other two boys’ laughter. 

You’ve successfully maintained your first place title as you raced around Moo Moo Meadows. That is, until halfway through the last lap, when a voice pulls your attention from the game. 

“Why are only two of you playing?” Jeongin says, entering the room with a bowl of popcorn in his hands. At the sound of his voice, you shoot up out of your seat and look at him with a smile. 

“Jisung only has two controllers and Felix was dumb and forgot his,” Seungmin snorts, which causes the blonde boy to pout. 

“Hey!” 

Hyunjin goes silent, his own eyes narrowed on his half of the screen as he slowly creeps up the positions. 

“About time you showed up,” you giggle, “thought you weren’t going to come.” 

Jeongin laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry, had a few things to do first, but I’m here now.” 

Gasps erupt from Seungmin and Felix, and Hyunjin cries in triumph as he throws his hands and the controller into the air. Your head snaps to the game and your mouth falls open as you find Princess Daisy listed as first place, dancing in her car as she continued around the track—whereas Toad, in your distracted state, had been passed by all of the NPCs and was in dead last, “DNF” flashing on your half of the screen and on your 12th place ranking in the middle. 

“You cheated!” You gasp at Hyunjin, throwing yourself back down onto the couch as you mash the ’A’ button. 

“Just get better Y/Nie,” Hyunjin remarks as he grins mockingly, using your own words against you. 

“You guys did this on purpose,” you huff, glaring at the boy who just ruined your five-game-win streak. “Rematch, now.” 

“But it was meant to be our go next!” Felix cries, his pout exaggerated. 

“Maybe Hyunjin shouldn’t have cheated!” 

“Maybe you should have stayed focused!” Hyunjin fights back. 

“Where's Jisung?” Jeongin asks out of the blue, and you motion to the door without saying a word. Jeongin snorts, nodding his head. “Thanks.” 

He leaves the four of you in the tiny dorm room to join Jisung wherever he was outside—you assumed the convenience store by the dorm lobby. Your attention gets caught once again when your phone lights up, a message notification greeting you on your lockscreen.

baby: outside :)

you: be right there :)

You chuck the controller to Felix, and he jumps in surprise. “You can play now, I need to go get someone,” you state simply, but the grin on your face seems to give you away.

A single “huh?” escapes Felix’s mouth as the other two boys watch you with curious eyes. Not letting their gaze disturb you, you head to Jisung’s front door. 

You open it swiftly to be met with your fairly new boyfriend, Heeseung. you met him after starting college this past semester through a mutual friend, and have been dating for around two months now. you don’t remember what drew you to him in the first place, but one thing is clear—he’s so damn cute.

Your cheeks heat up quickly at the sight of him. His fluffy brown hair was hidden underneath a hat and the bits of his fringe that did stick out fell against his forehead. 

“Hey.” you smile, taking a step towards him.

“Hi,” he responds, wrapping his arms around your waist which you reciprocate. “Sorry I’m late.”

“All good,” you hum into his shoulder. “All the boys are here. I’d say they’re not crazy, but I’d be lying.” 

You feel Heeseung’s chuckle vibrate through you. “It's fine, you’ve met my friends, how much worse can they be?” 

Pulling away slightly so you could look at him, you push your lips into a thin line and feign a concerned look. 

“Eh, they’re something, alright,” you drop the fake look, chuckling. 

“They finally have those snacks downstairs~!”

Jisung swings the door open, prompting you to turn around. He’s beaming and there’s a bounce in his step as a bag of chips sways in his hand, but it all dissipates into an inquisitive, perhaps even nosy, stance once he sees the boy whose arms are wrapped around you.

“Who's this?” The chestnut-haired boy tilts his head, his eyebrows drawn together.

You can’t help the smile that adorns your face. “Jisung, this is Heeseung, my boyfriend.”

You gesture one hand towards Heeseung himself, and you grin wider as he pulls you closer, nuzzling your nose against his shoulder. When you settle your head against his chest, you look back at Jisung and his jaw is practically on the floor. 

“Boyfriend?!”

Oh boy.

Heeseung chuckles again, shyly this time. He glances down at you, unsure of what to say, and you take that as your cue to do most of the talking.

“Yeah?” you affirm with a nod, but your statement sounds more like a question. “Is… is that bad?”

Jisung, still in a shocked state, opens and closes his mouth like a fish. He brings a hand to the back of his neck, rubbing it nervously. “Oh, no, of course not! I’m happy that you’re happy, it’s just…”

Heeseung cocks an eyebrow at the older boy. “It’s just…?” He repeats, trailing off at the end like Jisung did.

You want so desperately to pretend you don’t know what Jisung meant by that last bit, but the fact that you catch three heads peeking from around Jisung’s bed only seems to prove your suspicions correct. Looks like Seungmin wasn’t exaggerating when he mentioned that “Jisung has told us so much about you!” when you met him and the others an hour ago. From the way Jisung glances fervently between you and the door, though, it’s safe to assume the majority of what he said involved Jeongin in some context.

Maybe you should’ve told them ahead of time the “plus one” you were bringing to the Christmas hangout was, in fact, your boyfriend. In hindsight, it was foolish of you to assume they’d get the memo from the mere mention of “plus one.” And by someone, you meant Jisung—the main man on the “Y/Ninnie train”, as he liked to call it. 

Funny enough, you were just following his advice from that winter formal back in high school: date and move on. Sure, it was three years too late, and there wasn’t anything in particular that you needed to move on from, but advice is advice.

Still, you send the flustered boy a stern glare. You were not getting Heeseung involved in his shenanigans if it’s the last thing you do.

But you notice Jeongin stumble in the room, bag of gummy bears in hand, and Jisung’s eyes grow wide. Your voice nearly strangles, but you quickly snap out of it before Heeseung can notice.

“And this is Jeongin,” you gesture to the hooded boy, “my best friend.”

You don’t notice the way Jeongin’s smile falls slightly as his eyes land on you, though your eyes trail after him as he wordlessly shuffles past you two and plops on Jisung’s bed. 

Jisung seems to recompose himself, and he steps closer to you and Heeseung, holding out a hand. “Heh, I’m sorry about that,” he laughs nervously, but Heeseung smiles curtly and shakes his hand. “Make yourself at home, we’re happy to have you here.”

“No worries, man.”

Jisung leaves you two alone, but you don’t miss the look he gives Jeongin. It’s full of concern, and you can’t pinpoint why.

Blinking, you shake off the sinking feeling in your chest, and take Heeseung’s hand as you two move to a spot on the floor by Seungmin’s feet, as the bed was all occupied.

Heeseung snakes his arm around your shoulders as you both focus on the tiny console screen. Felix and Hyunjin were on their last lap of Cheep Cheep Beach, neck-in-neck with each other, and you both chuckle at the boys’ chaotic screams as they pass each other back and forth.

You notice throughout the evening that Jeongin will occasionally meet your gaze when you glance his way. Each time, he opens his mouth to speak and there’s this look pooling in his eyes—some mix of longing but urgency that you can’t sense the reason behind. Regardless, your chest tightens at the sight.

You observe Jeongin whisper something to Jisung, ignoring and trying to filter out the screams of the other three boys as they argue over who gets to be Yoshi, but it’s no use.

“Are you okay?” Heeseung asks softly, the hand around your shoulders gently rubbing your arm.

You gulp but nod, not taking your eyes off of Jeongin but leaning into Heeseung’s side. “Yeah.”

An hour or so passes, and it seems like the awkward glances have only increased in frequency—not just from Jeongin, but between the other boys, too. It eats at you inside not knowing why. All you have gathered so far is that it definitely involves you and Jeongin.

“Hey, Heeseung, is it?'' Felix suddenly pipes up. Both you and Heeseung look up to his spot in the middle of Jisung’s bed, his legs criss-cross applesauce.

“What’s up?” Heeseung responds.

Felix smiles and hands Heeseung his Switch controller. “Wanna play a round? You haven’t had a turn yet.”

A smile of Heeseung’s own forms on his face as he takes the controller in his hands, slowly moving his arm from your shoulders as he hops on the bed. “Oh, bet!”

You’re happy to watch your boyfriend get along with Jisung’s friends as if they were your own—in a way, they kind of are. But one look at Jeongin and all that comes crashing down, seeing the longing look in his eyes.

You still don’t know what’s wrong. Is it because of Heeseung? Does he have some unspoken beef with him? If so, why were all his gazes targeted at you and not him?

Jeongin looks back at Jisung hopelessly, and you attempt to eavesdrop as they whisper amongst themselves. Again, the other boys in the room are too loud for you to get anything useful.

That is, until you glance back at the screen as Seungmin and Heeseung go head-to-head on Rainbow Road, and Jisung scolds Jeongin out of the blue—probably louder than he intended to.

“You need to tell Y/N. Now.”

Your head snaps their direction. Your gaze lands on Jisung for speaking so loud, but slowly shifts to Jeongin. The other boys seem to fall silent, too.

“Tell me what?”

You’re already driving yourself crazy trying to figure it out. All you want is an answer.

Jeongin sighs and sits next to you on the floor. You carefully follow his movements with your eyes. He clasps his hands together, resting them on top of his knee. He opens his mouth to speak, and you nod expectantly.

And… nothing.

After a minute of strangled silence, Jeongin sighs in defeat and drags his feet as he shuffles back to Jisung. The older boy gives him a look you can’t quite read and quietly scolds him some more. The other boys just exchange glances with each other and continue to play Mario Kart quietly, making for the worst awkward silence of your life. So much for your first college hangout.

At least you’re able to pick up some information now. You can barely hear Jisung and Jeongin’s hushed whispers even though the room is largely silent, but you do hear the word “college” over and over.

You guess it makes sense. After months of patiently waiting during your senior year of high school, you remembered Jeongin’s dispirited form when he found out he had been waitlisted for his top choice school. Following that, he’s been going to the state university in your city with you, but he mentioned something offhand about re-applying for the spring semester. Maybe he’s stressed about that, but it seems like Jisung has it covered for now.

Still, they both look over at you with those concerned, longing stares, and it’s not hard to miss.

Even after you get another turn on the Switch, you’re still left with an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach by the end of the night. Yes, you won another cup and got your sweet, sweet revenge on Hyunjin for earlier, but it does nothing to tell you why Jeongin hasn’t spoken a word to you all night. Well, he tried to, but look how well that went.

It seemed like everyone around you knew except, well, you. You hate that feeling, but at least, whatever it was, Heeseung wasn’t involved. He doesn’t need to be thrown in whatever drama had concocted under your nose, especially not during his first time meeting them all.

By the time the boys start heading out, with Jeongin being the first to go, you’re practically squirming in your spot. You can’t take this anymore.

You give Heeseung a goodbye peck as he slips his coat on and leaves the dorm. “Thanks for inviting me, I had a great time.”

You smile. “I’m glad. I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

Heeseung nods, leaning down to kiss your cheek once more before exiting the dorm. That left just you and Jisung, and you turn towards the wide-eyed boy the second the door clicks shut.

“Okay, what is going on?” You don’t mean to snap, but your pent-up emotions get the better of you as you storm toward Jisung. “You and Jeongin have been acting weird all night. Actually, all of you have! What the hell, Jisung!”

“Y/N—” Jisung tries to speak, but you cut him off quickly.

“Was it Heeseung? He didn’t even do anything wrong, he was the quietest one here besides Jeongin!”

“Y/N—”

“And you think I’m not gonna notice you and my best friend staring at me like you two just did?” You stop to take a breath, and you feel heat rush to your ears the more you think about this. “How do you think Heeseung felt?! Is this some kind of sick joke?”

“Y/N, listen.”

Jisung’s soft voice makes you step back. It’s the same tone he gave you in the school parking lot when you were sixteen.

“Jeongin got into the school he wanted for spring semester. He’s been trying to tell you for weeks, he— he just didn’t know how. He leaves tomorrow morning.”

You freeze, and your heart sinks to your stomach. It’s like everything around you comes to a stand-still and the world goes deathly silent. All your attempts to speak go unheard as all you do is open and close your mouth, unable to formulate a sentence, let alone a single thought. 

A long list of questions fly through your mind at rapid speed. Why didn’t he say something? Why didn’t you push him to say something? Why did he not want to tell you when Heeseung was there? Why couldn’t you have just stayed with him instead?

“What?” 

You feel Jisung gently place a hand on your shoulder as he frowns. He pulls you in close and wraps his arms around your shoulders. That's when you notice tiny dots dampening his shirt and you finally realize you’re crying.

[go to part two HERE]

[bitletsanddrabbles]

Thomas-As-Heir Novel in Search of Beta Readers

I wanted to get this post up before my Tumblr hiatus next month, which will last somewhere between one and four weeks, depending on how sane I'm feeling.

Right, so, here's the deal. As anyone who follows me is undoubtedly quite aware, I have been working on my Thomas as Heir piece off and on since 2017. Last month I finished a second complete draft and while it's looking good, it still needs some work. Still, if all goes well, I should reasonably have it ready to start posting by the end of 2024, if not before, and believe you me - I want to post this thing. We are hitting the 'never want to think about it again' point that you do when you've gone over something until your eyes want to fall out. Which leads me to the point of this post.

I'd like a couple more beta readers. I currently have two: Hinney_B, who regular readers will know as my standard beta, and my long time online friend, Marbletoast, who is one of the best editors I've ever met. Both have been helping me with this thing pretty much since the beginning and, while neither of them are fast (one is the head of the herpetology department at the local zoo, the other is a full time mom, plus they have their normal hobbies) they both work well with me and are good at pointing out flaws, making suggestions, etc.

The problem is that neither of them have seen Downton Abbey in it's entirety. Hinney_B has at least seen the first three seasons and both movies. Marbletoast knows it exists. This leaves some…knowledge gaps in rather inconvenient places. I am the resident expert on English culture of the period, the history, and all things upstairs-downstairs which is less than optimal since I'm not an expert in any of that. Since this is set between season six and the first movie (I originally wanted it to be able to be read as canon compliant, if one wished, although the movies shot that), I don't really have anyone to fact check my memory of the series or comment on the characterization.

I really, really want this story to be the best it can be. I don't need someone who has betaed before - I've had some very good results with new readers in the past. What I do need is as follows:

Someone who has seen the show.

Someone who can help me improve the story I am telling rather than telling me what to write. One of my past betas basically tried to get me to write the stories she wanted to read all of the time, never mind what I wanted to write, and got very tetchy if I ignored her demands 'advice'. Even if your advice is wonderful, I won't necessarily take it. That doesn't mean I don't want to hear it.

Someone who's not afraid to have a discussion about the text. The extreme opposite problem of the previous beta was the friend who tried to beta for me exactly once who suggested a rather drastic change to my work. I noted it, then informed her of what I'd been originally aiming for. I told her this so that she could weight my intent against her suggestion, decide which she liked more, and, if she preferred mine, help me get it across better. Instead she apologized profusely for angering me and no amount of explaining that I wasn't angry would coax her back. Good beta work is a conversation. We need to be able to converse.

And that's really all I absolutely need. Speed is obviously not an issue. Seriously, I hear from Marbletoast once or twice a year. Things that would be helpful are:

Good grasp on history. I don't have that.

Good grasp on English culture, especially at the time period. I don't have that either.

Even handed attitude toward all of the characters. I hate character bastardization and am trying to avoid it like the plague. On the other hand, Downton is not a house full of saints and I like it that way.

And that's basically all I can think of. For the curious, we are currently sitting at 52,696 words, so I'm aware that this is not a light commitment, especially for no pay. My method of betaing so far is to toss a piece up on Google Drive and give people commenting access, which requires a GMail account and willingness to give me your email. If you can think of a better way to do it, I'm open to suggestions. Interested parties may comment here, shoot me an Ask, or message me. Uninterested parties may have a nice day, stay safe and healthy, and I will let you all know when I start posting this monstrosity.

[superblysubpar]

we'll call it love masterlist

Hey, thanks for being here - whether you binged the series or have been here the whole year or you're literally just reading this and don't care to read the series. I know it's a little (okay a lot) cheesy to make a whole post saying thank you for a silly little fanfic but I've had a tough year, and I didn't want to make the post longer and well, here we are. Don't read it if you don't want to or you think it's cringe.

I wrote the "Rocketman is Dingus. Dingus is Steve. Steve is Rocketman" scene on November 25th, 2022 in the back of my mother in law's car while shopping. I had no real vision other than Friends With Benefits, modern AU, use the songs off of the Uncanny Valley album by COIN, reader hates love and duh - Steve falls in love with everything that moves. Over the course of basically an entire fucking year, a short, 4 "parts" "minseries" turned into this. This lovely, wonderful, infuriating most days, pain in my ass series that I'm going to cherish for the rest of my life. I learned and discovered so much about writing and about myself while creating it. We're truly almost at a year, and originally, when this idea came to me, I was back on my old blog and I just can't even express to you how crazy it is to know the notes I got on first fics to this journey to the new blog and this series...I feel like I can't say thank you enough or express how crazy it is to me and how truly grateful I am. While writing this I was thoroughly broken down to just a sobbing mess multiple times by comments, messages, and love left for the story - I have your messages saved, and they mean more to me than you could ever know. I made new friends while writing it, I daydreamed about these fucking idiots while on my first international trip, I'm chasing crazy dreams and it's truly all because of this story and you guys. All because of your patience and encouragement as I strung you along for almost an entire year just for a silly little fanifc.

A special and specific thank you to @sweetsweetjellybean I love you I love you I love yoouuuu and I know this was a way bigger commitment than either of us foresaw when I asked you to beta for me. Hours, days, and months of friendship and encouragement can't be acknowledged with a simple thank you, but it's the best I got. And another special thank you to @loveshotzz who not only is also an avid supporter, editor, and encourager, but gave me all the Chicago daydreams and sightseeing tour that literally is at the heart of this entire series. Red Hot Ranch idiots, Steve's apartment, Replay, the train, and many more things wouldn't exist without her.

Thank you for your endless support, for literally taking my hands and dragging me across the finish line, I don't deserve either of you 💛

thank you all for your constant patience, encouragement, and love. And thank you for letting me tell Rocketman and Y/N's story 💛

[theircurse-archive4]

If I had a nickel for every time Yumeno got deleted/s.hadowbanned, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird and also annoying that it happened TWICE.

So a few days ago, I emailed t.umblr to report a bug I was experiencing and you know. Rather than actually fix the bug that I reported, t.umblr was like ' how about we simply remove person instead of remove bug :) ' and removed access to my blog with the excuse that I had a few URLs saved. Which of course .... really annoys me; especially considering the rampant p////0rnb0t problem and blogs that haven't been active for years still around.

I literally cannot access anything on my theircurse blog right now. I can't access my activity, my messages, my followers, the blog itself, I can't even make a post to let people know that I've BEEN s.hadowbanned so it's like ... s.hadowbanning but WORSE because I've seen people be s.hadowbanned but still able to post to let people know. The only way I was actually able to let people know what happened was through my other blog but of course, not everyone that followed Yumeno follows that blog so that was a mess. I deleted all the urls I had saved and only kept the ones I was using and sent t/umblr a few emails but I still haven't heard back from them.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll get the theircurse url back eventually and I'll change it back once I do but I really didn't want people to go ' OH STELLA POSTED ABOUT BEING ACTIVE AGAIN AND THEN JUST DELETED ' because that is not the case. I wasn't quite ready to move blogs / didn't want to move blogs until I had a new set of graphics but ... well. T/UMBLR KIND OF FORCED MY HAND.

But yeah, thanks for understanding my situation here lol. I'm going to do my best to get situated and respond to what I can find but it is a little hard given I can't access my other blog's activity.

( I'm also permanently stuck on beta editor ( derogatory ) too so I no longer have the option to switch between what my partner prefers. Life is pain. )

[purpleyoonn]

Hey!!! You've been getting a lot of asks about updates and you've got a lot going on privately. I'm not a fic writer, I dont have the attention span to see any of my ideas through with any kind of consistency. But! I am a good editor and I can help you with anything you need. A beta, a person to throw ideas at. I'm sure you already have someone to help but if you don't, I can. I have loads of time and I need distraction. Hit me up if you need it. There's no need to respond to this anon. It's kinda embarrassing for me. Just ask for 🌷 flower anon to dm. If you don't need help, ignore me 😉😁

You're doing beautifully and I love reading your works! 💚💚💚

you know what, I really appreciate this. getting messages like that makes me anxious, because I feel pressured no matter what I do or think to post a new ch. I don't currently have a beta, or a permanent beta I guess.. in the beginning of tlblw I had a friend on her reading through it for help but now that ive figured out the character I haven't needed it.

it would be nice to have like a permanent beta. I miss so much even when going over the ch's multiple times when editing. would you be willing to like, beta all of my stories? like, the next baby ch is probably not going to be posted for a couple of weeks because I start my new job and I have the concert and I am helping my younger sister with stuff. but its gonna be a longer chapter and I feel like its already not flowing very well.

I really appreciate your offer to help or beta!

[asksoldieron]

SO-1: Here We Go Again!

If there's a lot of engagement on this, this post is liable to get real long, beware before you expand.

I'll edit in the real art once I make some!

Welcome to the Engagement Lounge, for This Seems Familiar (SO-1) an instalment! Short comments can go in the replies, but there's a 475 character limit. Longer ones will need a reblog. Remember to @asksoldieron if you're reblogging someone else's reblog, so I can see it too!

Woo. It's been a while since I posted this one now. As of this writing it's still lacking an illustration, but I went through and edited for continuity. I don't think this one changed much. (Mainly I needed to add the gumballs, and that's not until later. It's very important about the gumballs. Why? You'll see 😁.)

There may be a little quality loss here, but I'll need yet more distance to see it. The main thing is that I wanted to pen an opening that wouldn't be too confusing to new readers, or too boring to old ones. That's tough! And I don't have any beta readers who aren't already familiar with the story.

I should say, I didn't. And now I don't again! But earlier this year, I joined a group for autistic writers and... Ohhh-kaaaay. That was an experience I will not repeat.

I got fed up and finally cut ties when I found out they were affiliated with a local group that offers ABA for autism. You'll still find a lot of "favourable" articles about it on the internet, including from our "friends" at Autism Speaks! People just love it because it makes autistic kids stop acting autistic! Not "being," no, it just trains them not to act that way and inconvenience the rest of you. Often with punishments! Ha-ha, yeah. That's fine. This is fine. A disability is just like any other antisocial behaviour, you can just cut that shit out!

But I didn't know that about them, and I've been trying to make friends and connections. A group of autistic writers? And we don't have to meet in person? Sign me right up!

It was more a group for one particular autistic editor and her longsuffering friend, and the editor had all the inflexible dogmatism media tells you to expect from people like us. "I think everyone should stop masking because it's hard for me!" she said (I'm paraphrasing) once. "If we all just stop doing it, there won't be a problem!" Ha-ha. Yeah. They kill people like me when we don't behave up to a standard. Maybe not like her, because she's small, feminine and white, but people like me and my family.

That's the level of insight I was getting, but I stuck with it because I'm a people-pleaser!

We only had "time" for a couple pages of the first draft of this instalment (even though not many people were there and not all of them wanted to read words aloud, my god) and I got pressured into sharing first, having never been there before with no idea how I was meant to act. She proceeded to critique it as if it were a short story (not true) and as if that were all, or almost all, of it (clearly not true, I was sharing my screen at the time). I dunno if you wanna open it in another tab and look, but I began with Erik in the first draft. 1000 words into that is 1/5 of a standard instalment length and you've barely met him by the end.

I went back and added Miss Doubek (whom I was going to save for #6) at the beginning, so you could see the world through the eyes of someone a little less impaired. Because this writer group and editor convinced me y'all needed me to hold your hands a little tighter or you'd nope out.

"I don't understand what's happening" is like a kick in the groin to me. Growing up, I did not have a big enough vocabulary to express my big stories and big thoughts, so I heard that a lot. I still do sometimes! I'm overly specific and complex, especially when I'm upset, and I get aphasic and shut down. But, no, they didn't understand. The editor's poor friend was willing to hazard that there was obviously something wrong with Erik and she was beginning to suspect he was being held against his will - as one should. I solve that little mystery for you by the end. But I didn't get to read the end. I didn't even get to John coming home.

The editor told me (and, if I ever die of an aneurism, it will have been these words in my brain that killed me) "People don't say 'I know.'" That shut me right down. I was expected to keep talking and I probably did, but... Wha? Buh? I say "I know" all the time! One of my top ten ways to sort out my thoughts or rephrase and repeat what someone's trying to express so we're both on the same page. "I know [this], are you saying [that]?" But I removed it, and I don't think I put it back. (I think I ended up referencing the brain damage earlier instead, because I thought you needed to see a reason Erik might bit a little off, even if that's not the real one.) I'm still feeling self-conscious about using that phrase, in text and IRL!

By the grace of god, I didn't have a total meltdown and gut everything, but I wrote poorly and without joy for a long while. Trying to meet the standards of someone who had no idea what I was doing and didn't care to learn. She was an editor! I always wanted access to one of those!

Yeah. This helped solidify my now-militant belief that 1) Traditional publishing is not for me and 2) Stuffing art into a tiny box will kill it, so 3) Maybe we should be a little more grateful that people share the things they love with us.

I am clueless. I have sinned. I have issued unsolicited criticism on the internet, with the best of intent. But I am gonna try like hell not to do it anymore. Y'all don't need to be ruin your week. Unless you say you want help (and I will take you seriously, even if you don't mean it, so be careful!) or you're hurting others, I will back off and accentuate the positive. Even if the best I can come up with in the moment is "You made a thing!" (Ha-ha, nonverbal blues.)

Wow, that came out kinda sad. But I'm OK now! Tired of website glitches, but loving the writing part. I'd rather write another instalment than do any of this other stuff I got on my plate, but that's not in the cards for a few more days...

[Back to the Site?]

[viridianvenus]

Oh my gosh! Just realized you were a beta for Family by the middle Warner sibling! I’m just so curious—what was that like? Highlights?? Lowlights?? It’s probably my favourite piece of fiction <333

Obviously the biggest highlight was getting to read the new chapters early. She had a pretty detailed outline going well into the Warner's adulthoods. I don't know the details, but she already knew who wound up with who, what careers they had, who had kids and how many and if they were boys or girls.

Another highlight was when she'd slip shout outs to me in the story. That friendly cat reporter Anica? I had a cat named Anica. One of the other students in Dot's riding class, Diego? My other cat was named Diego. Yakko's early girlfriend Athena working in a cookie store? I worked in a cookie store at the time.

Another highlight was just knowing that I was helping what I knew from the very start was going to be the biggest deal fanfic in the fandom. Obviously all of the genius came from her and my impact was minimal, but it was there. When I read the very first chapter she posted I knew I was reading the start of something amazing, but the spelling and grammar were all over the place, so I contacted her and offered to be her beta. We did not know each other at the time. Her immediate reaction was "God, yes!" I edited that first chapter, she reposted it and I was her beta for the next two, maybe three years.

A lowlight would be that, try as I might, I was never able to get her to stop info-dumping non-story related content. All we need to know is that the grandfather clock is significant to Goose, and why. We don't need a full page explanation on how grandfather clocks work. All we need to know is what's going on emotionally between Wakko and Foghorn, we don't need paragraphs explaining on how to fix a car engine. But her justification was that she spent the time doing the research and by God she was going to use it.

Another lowlight, and I'm not sure I'd really call it a lowlight, but it is ultimately the reason why I stepped down as beta (the final two, maybe three, chapters were not beta'd by me) was that it was a major time commitment. You know how massive those chapters were. My turnaround time was 4-5 days. That was not an expectation set by her, she was always saying she didn't know how I was doing it so fast, that just wound up being the speed that I worked. My process was that I would get the chapter and then I would read it through just as a fan enjoying the story. If something stuck out to me I would notate it, but I was reading with my fan brain, not my editor brain. Then I would reread the whole chapter again. much slower, with my editor brain. I was working two jobs at the time, so it eventually got to be too much, but by that time she had a second beta so I wasn't leaving her high and dry.

To this day, Family is still my favorite fanfic ever. Not just for Animaniacs, but in general and I still do occasional re-reads. She and I aren't in touch anymore, we're still Facebook friends but neither of us really use Facebook anymore. She's married and works full time, and we basically just slowly lost touch. We did briefly reconnect when the reboot first dropped. She wasn't impressed. She couldn't even make it through the season. I don't like the reboot either, but I watched all of it and gave her a rundown of what she had missed. She's glad she stopped watching when she did. We both agree that the reboot writers have no idea who the Warners are.

[stormears]

Questions 1-77 of the writer ask game >:]

Jammie decided to MAKE my night and ask me to answer every damn one the 77 Fanfic writer questions. I assume tumblr will automatically add a readmore thing to make it not be a Bible-length post. But I’ve got 15 years of fanfic history to go off of and I can ramble like nobody’s business when I’m typing.

But if you have any interest in my fics, maybe scroll a while and stop to read 2-3 of my 77 answers hmmm?

Also I shudder to think how many tags this is going to pop up in because of the ships I name here and there, sorry strangers lol

- 1) Do you prefer writing one-shots or multi-chaptered fics?

I thiiiink I prefer to write oneshots because they take a shorter amount of time, meaning a few months instead of multiple years. Because multichapter stories almost always take me fucking years. And my oneshots are still extremely long and big time commitments to write. The last oneshot I wrote (JJK, gofushi) was 25k and took a little over two months and god I SLAVED over it…

2) Do you plan each chapter ahead or write as you go?

There is always at least a rough plan in my mind, if not written down in an outline or notes document somewhere. If I don’t know what is happening in the upcoming scene, I am not writing.

3) Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

I see a vision in my mind of Character Doing Thing or Characters I Ship Doing Thing Together. I create a universe that exists only to create the circumstances where they can do that thing. However even if I just want a sexy or weird af ship scene, I STILL want their to be plot elevating it all. I often struggle to tie together a plot that makes sense and isn’t fucking stupid but still caters to my stupid preferences and kinks. It’s like trying really hard to mix oil and water.

Practically, I write down all the plot beats, ideas and important bits I can think of into a Scrivener document, maybe scrape it into an Outline ish thing, and then start writing. Before Scrivener (up until end of 2021) I wrote stories in Word. And either had a separate Word document for the story’s outline/plan, or just kept the outline in my head.

Oh yeah I also have a pretty notebook from Target with roses on the cover and soft pink pages, where I write down a VERY general outline of the story or late plot beats/important things to remember to use. This isn’t as helpful or as long as the Scrivener version but I LOOOOOVE having a physical bite of my fanfic vision, seeing it outside of my head or the internet/laptop screen. As of end of 2022 I discovered I looooove writing things in journals!

4) Where do you find inspiration for new ideas?

Imagination, music, books I read, movies, etc. Like everyone else I guess.

5) Do you like constructive criticism?

Fucking YES!!! I feel a tiny bit of resentment that fanfic comments seemingly have to be glowing praise all the time or you shouldn’t say anything at all. Good concrit isn’t about your preferences, but how well the scene accomplished what it set out to do, and why or why not. You can give concrit to a tentacle fucking scene and give the author advice on how to write better tentacle sex.

But the author of course reserves the right to either absorb that concrit and keep it in mind for next time, or just say/think “That person’s concrit makes sense, but I like the way I did it here because it’s hotter to me and I just like it this way so I’m not changing.”

6) Do you have your work beta'd? How important is this to your process?

Lmao no. I mean once, but lmao never again. I’ve never wanted a beta, I am my own editor and in my experience (reading my stories after posting) I generally don’t have typos or grammar to fix anyway, I catch them successfully myself.

HOWEVER…one time in 2019 I decided to try a beta for a Haikyuu fantasy AU story whose plot beats I was having a lot of trouble pinning down. I asked around on Reddit and only one person offered and I felt fed up with the story and irritated enough to just accept them, grateful for their willingness and time. The person offered next to no advice on the plot and instead corrected grammar that was wrong as a stylistic choice (little kids’ speech) and nothing else.

In exchange for their beta services, I had promised to review a story of theirs. So I read their FFN story which was a Naruto fic featuring a Kakashi crackship. I enjoyed their creative exploration of that ship but was flabbergasted to find their writing was. Um. Not that good. I mean down to seriously using “orbs” for “eyes.” That cliche was still alive in 2019 thanks to this person. It really felt like a teenager’s fic from 2008 but it was only a year old or so and they said they were 26.

I found things to compliment in their story and then happily ghosted them. No betas for me ever again.

7) How do you choose which POV to write from?

I usually write ship fic and I usually write from the POV of the character in the ship that I like more lol. Even if it’s a plot heavy fic and there’s little to no romantic or sexual scenes or vibes or whatever, if the ship is present at ALL that’s how I immediately arrange the plot/POV in my head. So I guess it just boils down to favorite character bias.

However I am toying with the idea of writing a JJK fic featuring a creepy problematic yandere character and usually such fics use the POV of the Object of Affection so you can feel the oppressive weird sexiness coming out of the screen at you. But this fic will be written from the yandere’s POV instead of my fave’s, so you can see their crazy af animal-like thoughts when their love interest runs away/goes missing which sets the plot in motion. The story is about finding that MC in a cyberpunk city, so hanging with the yandere the whole time who is forced to put themselves on a leash and solve a mystery facilitates the…mystery vibe of the story.

8) Do you prefer the beginning, middle, or end of a story?

Hmmm difficult to say because for many of my multichaptered fics I don’t even make it to their endings…again, it takes YEARS sometimes. One of my greatest fics, a MadaSaku dark fantasy au called Chasm, started in 2015 when I first had the idea, I didn’t publish Chapter 1 until 2018, it currently is sitting at 6 chapters, with C6 being posted on fucking January 1, 2021. It’s not even reached “the middle” in my opinion.

I guess I prefer…the beginning? I love setting up the intense stakes and unknown factors and threats and suspense that doesn’t yet have answers…very tasty…

9) Do you comment on stories you read?

Fucking yeah I do you want to see my post with MANY screenshots bragging about how I carry 95% of AO3 readers on my back and support the fucking economy???

I don’t tell people on twitter what my AO3 is (because I rarely talk to people on twitter and when I do they fucking ignore me anyway!!! :D) but there’s 3 separate people on twitter who have made gushing tweets floored by the length and interest in my comment. I kept those screenshots too and ahhh it feels good.

10) Cltr+f "blinks" on your WIP & copy paste the first sentence/paragraph that comes up

Nothing came up. Maybe because I don’t write in present tense. Not really a fan.

11) Link your three favorite fics right now

Uhh I’m not sure I have favorites, these are the ones that came to mind. I don't keep bookmarks on AO3 so I don't really have a "favorites list" and these aren't necessarily recent just the ones I wanted to mention...

1) “Shard Society.” Haikyuu mystery crime drama about Oikawa being murdered just before high school graduation, Iwaizumi is arrested and jailed for it. Eight years later, law student Kindaichi discovers a recently written confession from seemingly the REAL murderer and is on a quest with youngest prosecutor in Japan, Sakusa, to find out who did it.

I followed this story for over a year, gave a few dozen MASSIVE comments to the author who always giddily replied to me. They also expressed their gratitude by sending me a physically published copy of it in the mail!!

2) “He Had No Fingers”. I’m gonna go for oldie fics now lol. This is a horror Naruto fic about Kyuubi being an eldritch monster, with deadly serious and ominous prose. The story makes it pretty clear that it will absolutely take over and consume kid Naruto and the whole world, in time. I remember passages describing like how the Kyuubi is its own dimension, and speaking aloud even the names of its body parts will turn its attention to you and make you explode.

When I first read it in like 2010 or something it actually made me light-headed. I remember the story described the Kyuubi as smelling like chitin (what bug exoskeletons are made of) and I somehow thought I could…smell chitin when I was reading. I remember sitting on my bed reading this story and SMELLING something I never had before. And never did again.

3) “Lapsus Memoriae.” This is an OG cartoon Transformers fic. I watched a bit of the cartoon as a kid but I don’t even go here fandom wise lol, I forget how I even found this…maybe in 2008 ish when the Michael Bay movies were new, because I was kind of into those as a teen?

ANYWAY THIS IS TRANSFORMERS THREESOME SOULMATE AGE GAP YAOI, AMNESIA AU! Medical autobot Ratchet and his 2 friends wake up at headquarters missing the last several years worth of their memories. None of them remember their respective “bondmates”. The main character is Ratchet, a prickly, older medical bot whose bondmates are a pair of hot, sexy young twins named Sunstreaker and Sideswipe.

The other 2 ships get attention too, but high school me was sooooo into the twins being clingy and protective over their beloved angry old medbot uke Ratchet. 5 stars, still a fun read despite never being completed.

12) how does receiving or not receiving feedback/support impact you?

Not…much? I feel like I “write for myself” a little more than the average person bc I’m uhhhh arrogant I guess. Low feedback generally does not bother me because I love my story more than anyone else ever could. I always spend WAY more time re-reading my own stories, sighing in appreciation at my own hard work and prose, than I do re-reading people’s comments about it.

13) what’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?

Write what you want to read. That’s what I’m always doing. I can’t think of any other common tips besides “Write what you know” which I don’t follow nearly as strictly. One wip right now is a fantasy/comedy MatsuHana in a society where gardening is mega-popular and culturally important and I didn’t know jack shit about gardening or flowers, etc., I was googling plenty of basic information to try and make the characters sound like they weren’t total beginners.

14) how do you write emotional scenes? Do you ever feel what the characters feel? Do you draw from personal experiences?

I’m not too sure how to answer the first one. I try and write them…realistically? Keep their emotions in mind? I try to remember that a character feeling intensely emotional will probably be too overwhelmed to properly/fully explain what they’re feeling or doing. So I’m careful with my word choice. No, I don’t feel what they feel. I’ve seen people say they get emotional/teary eyed themselves sometimes writing what their characters feel, that has never happened to me.

Do I draw from personal experiences, I don’t think so. The reason I write a fic, or the scene I want to get to, or the point of a story, is never based on something I experienced, just a cool idea I want to see. I've always kinda disliked the idea of projecting yourself that blatantly into a story. That’s not why I write.

Well shit I just thought of a new Haikyuu fantasy au I’ve got cooking where the villain is an OC whose backstory is basically that she’s a sad, bitter, loser failure and doing antagonist stuff out of resentment. That fit the plot I wanted, but I realized later a lot of her life is reflections of what happened to me when I felt like a sad, bitter, loser failure in life. She’s like…30% me. And that feels like a fucking LOT, I’ve never done this with a character before, it feels like…invasive or insulting or something but I’m going ahead with it.

15) How do you write smut scenes? Do you get very visual or detailed? How important is it to be realistic?

I’ve written very few smut scenes because I’m a coward and don’t much trust my ability to write them well. The couple of times I did took a looooot of work though I ended up liking them okay. I thiiiiink I’m ace and I rarely actually want to read characters having sex. A lot of the time the idea…bothers me somehow? I’ve got my own hangups with sex both irl and in the silly fandom world. Like I remember there was a #Whore(character)week on twitter where big fans of (character) wrote/drew him being a total cockgobbling passed-around-the-room slut, and I liked a little of the content but later felt so angry I had to mute the tags bc he’s NOT a whore don’t fucking insult him, he would NOT act like that in a million years, stop it stop being mean to him etc

Anyway realism is fine up to a point but I’m not here to read about realistic sex, usually, it’s fantasy sex where nonsensical things can happen and be portrayed as appealing. If realism doesn’t facilitate the hotness, then out it goes.

16) How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

Lots…too many…I’m angry and despairing at how many ideas I have and the fact that I’m slower than almost any fanfic writer I know, so many of my ideas are doomed to never manifest or will manifest and then sputter and die before completion. I’m sad about it all the time. This is my favorite hobby and I can almost never do it at a level where I’m truly satisfied.

Anyway one of my ideas is a Haikyuu fantasy AU where Kageyama is a fantastic mage but a shitty person no one likes and he manages to capture a talking unicorn (hinata) which are hella rare, but he seriously injures the prince (Daichi). So as punishment he’s forced to tame the unicorn for the crown, and if he doesn’t he will be kicked out of the mage guild, which will ruin his life as he’s not good at anything but magic, it's his volleyball equivalent here.

He befriends Hinata the unicorn and accidentally does a spell that turns him human a la the Last Unicorn. Then other unicorns come to humanville to rescue Hinata and Kageyama gets embroiled in unicorn politics and there are many unicorn OCs based on horses I have in a racing game called Rival Stars omgggg I fucking love unicorns horses yadda yadda

17) What do you do when writing becomes difficult? (maybe a lack of inspiration or writers block)

A majority of the time I wallow in self-pity tbh.

When I make myself be constructive about it, I try to write another story which can sort of unstick my writing gears by writing in a new way/new tone for that story. Also, reading helps a lot. Reading interesting ideas and good prose is GREAT for greasing the wheels in your head and reminding you what good writing looks like.

18) Do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process? How do you come up with titles?

I LOOOOOOVE COMING UP WITH TITLES! This is my way in which I’m Not Like Other Girls, I hear this so often among fanfic writers that they don’t know wtf to title their story, not me baby!! I love cooking up a new title and to me it’s a very important part of the story process. I usually decide the title very early on, if not before I even start writing!

My titles are usually phrases I make up that sum up the vibes of the story or point to a very significant event, the kind of thing that would “be on the cover of the book” you know? EX:

CHASM - Naruto, MadaSaku dark fantasy au. Mostly named for a point in the story where Sakura looks across a huge literal chasm and sees…something on the other side that changes her forever ;) Also points to Sakura’s deteriorating mental health due to surviving an attack on her home where many residents were killed by monsters

THE SUN ON JAKKU - Star Wars, Reylo fic I’ll probably never finish. But it was about Kylo Ren invading Rey’s mind and seeing her entire horrible childhood on Jakku. Even though only hours pass irl, he is present in her memories like an invisible ghost standing nearby and experiences those years alongside her. And over time becomes obsessed with her. His gaze is “the sun on jakku” that watches over her every day.

DAY OF THE NAVIGATOR - Haikyuu, Oiiwa space/sci-fi horror au. Aliens arrive on earth and destroy it, lone astronaut (called “navigator” in this fic) Iwaizumi barely escapes in a little ship but is pursued for YEARS through space by sexy alien Oikawa (+alien wolfpack Seijoh) who totally wants to fuck him and put an alien ring on it but Iwaizumi assumes the aliens want to eat/kill him. Iwaizumi keeps himself together with his navigator training, which stresses that your work “today” is the only day that matters. Also gives significance to the moment Oikawa finally breaks into the ship and hears Iwaizumi speak for the first time. He says “Today is it for you,” and alien Oikawa is so fucking turned on

19) What is the most-used tag on your ao3?

I think it might be Possessive Behavior or Obsessive Behavior? Yeah that’s been my fanfic food of choice since high school haha, some things never change. I just get better at dressing up my creepy ships in cool plots to make them feel less cringe.

20) Have you noticed any patterns in your fics? Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

I definitely prefer fantasy AUs. Worlds with magic and mystery and cool places to go adventuring in, and scary but sexy monsters who can hunt down the protagonist in an open World(tm)

I’ve tried to search for common word choice or expression in my fics, tbh but I either never found any or just can’t remember.

21) Would you ever collaborate with another writer for a story?

I don’t think so. I don’t like the idea of ceding over control of my story to someone else. And if it’s a story we made up together so they “had control” over some of it in the first place, I’d automatically be not that interested and committed because it’s not fully mine. And I want it to be mine.

22) Are there certain types of writing you won’t do? (style, pov, genre, tropes, etc)

I don’t really do present tense. Can’t think of a fic where I have. I vastly prefer past tense. And I’ll probably never touch the following tropes because I hate them and think they’re stupid: Fake Dating, There Was Only One Bed, FWB.

23) Best writing advice for other writers?

Just write what you love. Even if it doesn’t really make sense, the plot doesn’t really come together, something about it doesn’t “vibe”…if you love it, that is all that matters.

24) Worst writing advice anyone ever gave you?

I can’t think of any writing advice that was outright stupid or bad…then again I don’t ever look up writing advice. I’m sure I have room for improvement much as anyone else, but I usually like the way I do things.

25) What fic do you wish you got more of a response on?

Ehh I guess my AtsuHina sci-fi horror au, The Abandoned City of Saint Winona…though I knew it wouldn’t get much of a response, because AtsuHina is such a sunny, cute ship, I don’t think most of its fans are the type to want a story where Atsumu is a disgusting maneating, shapeshifting alien who says he loves Hinata but the narration leaves it unclear if he means it or will eventually eat him.

But man I put a hell of a lot of work into that story, when I first posted Chapter 1 in 2021 and this past July when I scraped together Chapters 2 and 3. It was the first time in a long time when I wrote something where I knew the audience truly was me and MAYBE 3 other humans on this planet. Most other things I write do have a ship audience at least. And yet I wrote 35k...for me :)

26) Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

Oh Jesus, “Darcia” all the way…2019 OiIwa fantasy au that I only wrote one chapter of (BUT I STILL ADORE IT) I wrote/started no kidding THIRTEEN drafts of that chapter… Because I couldn’t decide certain plot points or WHY certain things would happen, I just couldn’t get a vibe I enjoyed…I toiled over this for a huge chunk of 2019, this is the story where I had that stupid useless beta on board for a bit. I actually seriously cried about this story a couple of times…

After fighting like hell and nearly eating my own skin I FINALLY posted the chapter, and took a day off work to celebrate…only for my mi litary boss to text me at 11am that day and say “Hey you know your yearly fit test was coming up next month, can you do it next week instead?” which fucking RUIIIIINNNNED MY DAAAAAAAY

27) What is your most and least favorite part of writing?

Favorite: when I end a successful evening writing session only because I am falling asleep, and I’m thinking “dammit, I could have written more!” I’ve found that many times, when I get lucky and pump out a huge word count in a session, I ALWAYS think to myself “dammit I could have gotten even more!” So even having that thought is itself a sign of success.

Least favorite: scraping my way through the dialogue for an important scene that moves the plot forward. Finding ways for characters to properly elaborate wtf is going on or needs to happen, in words that make sense for that person to say. If I get stuck on a fanfic, it’s EITHER because…I can’t make a decision about a HUGE plot beat, or I can’t fucking write the conversation that makes the scene go.

28) On average, how much writing do you get done in a day?

Oh geez…not a lot…I spend far too much of my life not writing because I’m busy with work or family obligations…but when I DO write, it’s maybe 400-500 average? Plenty of 200-300 days…Here’s my little wordcount log from when I was writing the AtsuHina sci-fi horror fic last month, like when I was really slaving away at it.

This makes me look better than usual, I think. I AM NOT USUALLY THIS ON TOP OF IT

7/17 evening from at least 700 7/19 - 1195!!! Though 160 are not being kept 7/22 - 1500!! 7/23 - 720 7/24 - 100 if that… 7/25 - 251…sleepy after post-dinner treadmill… 7/26 - 700 exactly! We’re at THE SCEN!E 8/5: 531 (well 731ish but deleted 200 ish) 8/7: 845 words 8/8: 1425 words 8/9: 742…getting closer…the narration doesn’t sound great though… 8/10: 1154. My god maybe this weekend will be it…

29) What’s your revision or editing process like?

I usually edit as I go. At the end of finishing a chapter, I will do a read-through that’s a little deeper than a “skim”, where I fix any spelling errors, tweak any word choices I was on the fence on originally, etc. Usually, after I finish a chapter, I will be posting it one or two hours later. I don’t usually wait.

30) Do you share rough drafts or do you wait until it’s all polished?

Wait until it’s all polished. Maybe this sounds contradictory to the answer above, but by the time I reach the end of the chapter, everything above it has already been combed through/edited along the way many times. So when I finish off the last scene, it’s already pretty well polished.

31) Do you start with the characters or the plot when writing?

I start with the plot because setting that in motion in the right way, and starting at the right time in the plot’s timeline, is ultimately more important.

32) Name three of your favorite fanfic writers.

Time to out myself as a toxic loser bitch but the two authors who come to mind as favorites, whose works I SO admired and enjoyed (and followed them both on other social media so I saw some of their irl happenings too) are also the two people I got the most pathetically, hatefully, despairingly envious over in all my life. They happened a few years apart. But my jealousy lasted months for one of them and YEARS for the other. People would point and laugh...or maybe just not know wtf to say...if I actually admitted how deeply my envy of those two writers affected me.

I swear on my life I don’t have jealousy problems in any other avenue of life…it’s JUST fanfic writing, the hobby that I most care about and that gets more of my passion and soul than anything else I do. I basically stepped away from their fics and decided to not look at them anymore. And even though I truly adored their works, I’m kinda scared to ever look at them again. In case it turns out I never got over it or the bad feelings just flare right up again. I don’t want to feel that way again. Sorry. Next question.

33) Do you want to be published some day?

I actually drafted 10 or 11 chapters of a fantasy YA book when I was in high school but that desire to be traditonally published faded a lot during college. I realized I like fanfic writing much more than original fic writing and don't really want my irl peers reading my work. But I did also write a shitty “book” in middle school that was 120 pages on Microsoft word about talking dragons, totally plagiarizing plot points from Majora’s Mask and Princess Mononoke.

And the YA book was about people with wings living in floating cities in the clouds. The MC’s little brother fails the Rite of Passage flying test and falls to the earth, so MC and Love Interest dive down to see if he survived and find him (a forbidden act!) and find out Earth is a nearly dead wasteland with gross monsters and some wingless dragons. The dragons dream of making it to the floating cities and conquering/stealing their resources. They hang out with a wingless dragon who barely tolerates them and carries around his extremely weak, almost-totally paralyzed little sister dragon on his back.

34) Five years from now, where do you see yourself as a writer?

I’m sure I’ll still be writing, and I’ll still have SOME of the same fandoms I do now, because fandoms last years and years for me. I’m still a bit into Naruto and read fic of it now and then despite it being over for nearly a decade. I hope I will have finished some stories by then! If I have, I might pursue my half-hearted dream of getting a physical copy of my fanfic published hehe! But I’m greedy and would only do so if I could somehow find a fic binder who’d make it to my totally extra expectations (gorgeous commissioned cover, black pages with white text for the first page of each new chapter, probably Garamond font…sprayed edges ahhhh)

35) What is one essential thing to remember when writing a villain?

They see themselves as a “protaganist” and will deal with “antagonists” accordingly.

36) How do you write kissing scenes?

Depends on who the characters are. I guess I’m usually writing characters who haven’t kissed very much or at all, or characters who at least haven’t kissed each OTHER before, because I tend to write characters at the start of a relationship because that exploratory, careful manner of figuring out how to kiss is just so fucking cute for damn near any ship.

37) How do you choose where to end a chapter?

I decide in my mental outline or Scrivener outline how much I can fit in this chapter. And it’s just…the last thing I can stuff in. My tendency to write long af chapters is a more important factor than wanting to end on a particular scene.

38) Would you ever write commissions?

I…don’t think so. I’ve definitely thought about the idea. But even if I had buyers, writing a commission probably wouldn’t go any faster than my own fics do, which, again, take months or possibly fucking YEARS…my payment would be fractions of a fraction of a cent per hour if you wanna slice it that way which is SOOOOO not worth it for the amount of time it takes me, and the time it takes away from my own wips, and there’s not many customers who I think would have the absurd patience required for ME to pump out a finished piece…the outlook is just not good.

39) Share a snippet from a WIP

(I’m putting a snippet of the dang AtsuHina Sci-fi horror fic I keep talking about)

The metal circle was knocked inward. It fell onto the basement floor with a hard thud, kicking up a puff of dust. Shoyo glimpsed a slice of the semi-dark inside: the innards of Saint Winona’s wall, wires and circular metal things with tiny glowing lights. Machines that kept his city alive. He’d seen some of those things in textbooks long ago.

The arm of a filthy spacesuit shot out of the hole and grasped for purchase on the basement floor.

A man with dirty, dark hair crawled out through the small hole. He was smeared with dust; his space suit looked ancient and strange, like dirty white leather. There was no helmet around the collar, only a metal collar at the neck of the outfit where one might have once fit on.

His hand slipped on the metal circle he’d cut out of the wall and fell forward onto his chest. He pushed the circle out of the way with a furious shout that made Shoyo gasp aloud in fear.

That’s when the man noticed he wasn’t alone in the room. That’s when he finally raised his head and showed his face and Shoyo’s soul writhed inside the cage of his frozen body.

The face—the face—his face—

He had Atsumu’s face.

-

40) If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

I have daydreamed of commissioning some artist many months in the future to draw scene in Darcia, where Oikawa is a demon a la FHQ but with some eldritch qualities. There’s also many dragons in the fic.

I have this scene in my head of Oikawa in the foreground, walking away from the camera towards four or five dragons backed up against a huge cave/dungeon wall in the background. They're like 20-50 foot tall beasts, who are all terrified of this human sized creature because he's going to kill them and he CAN. They are shooting fire or trying to claw at him but he is magically shielded and nothing works. The point is to amplify how utterly horrifying and powerful Oikawa is even in the face of gigantic and powerful monsters.

But imagining scared dragons backed up against a wall afraid of a small human can easily make them look goofy, unfortunately like an elephant scared of a mouse...so it would be a tough balancing act to portray the scene as scary instead of accidentally comedic.

41) Do you tend to reread fics or are you a one-and-done kind of person?

I am mostly a one-and-done person. There are a handful of fics I might return to to read specific scenes or chapters but I basically never re-read entire fics again. The memory of the fic and me appreciating it afterward is usually enough.

42) What’s the last fic you read? Do you recommend it?

I've been slowly going through the "horror" tag in the Haikyuu fandom, a kind of slim tag with only 400-some fics out of the whole Haikyuu section which is probably to be expected...

But I found this total gem called YACHI HITOKA: ZOMBIE SLAYER.

It's only 3 chapters long and not updated for many months now. But the chapters are quite long, and intense and horrific and WHOOO what a rush! I think it's a fantastic read for horror fans. Yachi is far from being a "zombie slayer" so far but I can see that there's tiny bits of growth in her bravery, inching their way up. I absolutely recommend it.

I left a huge glowing review to the author almost a month ago but they moderate comments and mine still hasn't appeared tho :0)

43) Do you take a sadistic joy in whumping your characters, or are you more the "If you hurt them I would kill everyone and then myself" kind of person?

Closer to the “taking joy” in it end of things I guess. I enjoy writing characters going through intense action or adventures or escapes. If that involves pain, fighting, getting hurt, etc then hell yeahhhhh.

44) What mistakes do you keep making no matter how many times your beta corrects you?

Me thriving with no beta and dick flapping in the wind: YEEEEEE

45) Do you want to break your readers‘ heart or make them laugh?

Leaning more towards the heartbreaking side. But being able to come up with a truly funny line is an accomplishment as well, and harder I think.

46) How would you describe your style? (Character/emotion/action-driven, etc)

Intense, more focus on narration than dialogue, viscerally ugly and suspenseful, romance is always at least a little creepy lol…I wonder how other people see my work in general like this.

47) How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

It gets combed through several times as I write, then one last once-over after I finish the chapter. Therefore the “rough draft” (after getting to the end of the draft) and “final draft” look very similar.

48) What do you look for in a beta?

#44 ^^^

49) Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

I can only think of one rude review I got, it was for my naruto/pokemon crossover story on FFN that I got 26 chapters into before basically abandoning it in 2014-ish. Someone said basically “no one cares about these characters except ur ugly cringe ass”. I just ignored it.

Though nowadays sometimes I hope a hater would comment on my fics because I think coming up with a sniping comeback, and then freezing the comment thread so mine stands as the last word in the conversation, would be so fuckin gooooood…

50) How long is your longest fic?

Well uhhh I think that’s the Naruto/Maximum Ride crossover I wrote in 8th and 9th grade and I just had to check, it was 25 chapters when I abandoned it and 227k long! Cringe af now but lord I was so proud of it at the time.

People reviewing that story gave me a real-life confidence boost to the point that in 9th grade, classmates and teachers and people I didn’t talk to at all actually noticed and started chatting me up, because I was suddenly more interesting and engaging. 9th grade was the start of me understanding how to socialize...because of my fanfiction!

51) What’s your total AO3 word count?

273,602 (wow only slightly longer than the 8th-9th grade fic maximum ride crossover fic WOW?)

52) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

If they are long, substantive, or directly ask me a question. Otherwise not usually. I don’t feel the need to respond to every comment when I already wrote the damn story. I also don’t like the idea of half my comment count on a story just puffing my stats by endlessly replying “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Tha

53) How do you spend your time when it comes to fanfiction? Are you primarily a fic reader, writer, or a perfect 50/50 split of both?

Definitely a writer more than a reader, though I’d say in high school it was a 50/50 split. Somehow I read more but also wrote overall more…because I didn’t have to work aghgnghgh

54) What’s your favorite part about the fanfiction writing process?

The fact that I can do what-EVER the fuck I want. I can write batshit insane endings. I can add “obsessive/possessive behavior” magic fairy dust to my favorite characters to make them have sexy interactions with my faves that appeal to my silly fictional tastes. I can give someone an unexplained Raikou companion in a universe that has no other Pokemon and not explain it if I don’t feel like it. I can indulge in anything, dress it up how I please, and still practice a fun and interesting skill, and CREATE! I LOVE CREATING STORIES!

55) Of the characters you write for, which is your favorite? Has that choice been swayed at all by your followers/readers’ reactions to certain ones?

It has to be Sakura Haruno, doesn’t it? Even long past the end of Naruto, she lives on in my heart, in my beloved story Chasm…I own three figures of her for god’s sake. I started caring about her in middle school and I was part of the growing “MultiSaku” fanfic scene in the late 00’s and 2010’s. Even after all these years and all these fandoms and stories and life events and things I had to pass through and carry…I never let go of her.

And no my choice of favorite character to write for is not swayed by any other people, lol please.

56) What’s something about your writing that you pride yourself on?

I think I write very good intense action scenes. Scenes that feel like a razor’s edge slicing your skin that might penetrate and cut through you. I re-read my own action scenes a lot and still feel proud of the ugly, harsh imagery and the suspenseful nature of a movement making you unsure if it will turn out safe for the character or not. I love thinking up “cinematography” for movements like that in my head.

57) Do you prefer editing as you write, or waiting until it’s finished?

Mostly edit as I write, with a final pass over after the draft is finished.

58) What part of the writing process do you enjoy the most? (Brainstorming, outlining, writing, editing, etc)

I feel like I answered this. 58 questions into the 78 I've realized some of these questions are rather similar to each other. The writing part is the best.

59) Does anyone in your personal life know you write fic? if not, would you tell anyone?

My bff and I have been into fanfiction since 2006. Though I don’t think I told her my FFN name until 2010 or 2011. More than a little disappointed that she doesn’t read my fics anyway because we’re not into the same genre and she’s not a person I can talk to about writing either so wtf was the point. Also my brother knows I write fic and is friendly/nice about the concept of fic in general. I certainly don’t share with him but he doesn’t mock fanfic as cringe or a waste or anything.

These two are exceptions. For the most part, HELL NOOOOOOO. I never plan to tell anyone irl I write fic, it is too private and precious to me. Someone irl finding out about my fanfiction or fandom things in general is truly my worst nightmare.

60) Have you had a writer you admire comment on your fic? What was that like?

Yes, a couple of times. Their words meant more than the average commenter of course because they’re on a pedestal in my mind. I know their exceptional work so they damn well know what they’re talking about when they say similar things about my work. That’s the kind of comment I will keep in my email inbox for days if not weeks for easy re-reading.

61) Why do you continue writing fics?

Because I love them. Because I love the art of translating a character into a plot of my making. I love placing my favorite characters into a canvas I made and making them a part of it, and making something that is perfectly suited to ME. It has my colors, only mine, it’s my love letter addressed to me.

62) Thoughts on cliffhangers?

Not many thoughts on cliffhangers. If I write one, I rarely think of it as such, more like, this is a suitable place to end the chapter if possible. The usual “it sucks if you’re a reader, gotta wait for the next update, aw man” whatever.

63) Something you hate to see in smut.

Dirty talk involving one character calling the other a whore or slut. Once in a while I’m into it, usually I’m not. I think I’ve got a bone to pick with…humiliation, or something? Sometimes it can be hot as hell, sometimes it borderline offends me. And that’s a really popular and hell, a NORMAL thing for people to do, like some of the most basic dirty talk there is, so it’s hard to dodge. I have to just scowl a little and keep reading.

64) Something you love to see in smut.

One character acting like an animal. Rutting, biting, licking. Possessive behavior and body worship. Character calling the other one “mine” can be a lame fanfic stereotype but I’m SO INTO THAT

65) Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project

Really looking forward to the end battle in my Haikyuu fantasy au where Kageyama is a mage and Hinata is a unicorn. The battle involves KageHina (both human at this time) and also mage Oikawa and Iwaizumi who is in human form but by this point everyone in the story knows he’s actually a dragon. The villain is a unicorn OC who’s filled with rage, resentment and bitterness and wants to make others suffer, she’s a sad bitch but mostly a petty bitch.

In my head, the battle happens to the tune of the final battle theme in Elden Ring (which I have not played) and I just loooove what happens to the villain at the end. It is beyond satisfying, and unexpected, I think. But god, that’s like 50k words away at LEAST.

66) How do you deal with writing pressure (ie. pressure to update, negative comments, deadlines, etc.)?

My pressure comes 95% from ME feeling bad about how long I take. I deal with it by…trying to fucking write and also a lot of feeling bad, idk.

My update schedule is so slow that the shit mentioned in the question does not affect me at all. Also, those things don’t really happen to me? I get almost no negative comments, hell I kind of dream of getting a negative comment because I like thinking up snide, uncaring, rude etc., ways I’d snap back at them. No way in hell would they make me write faster.

67) Do you prefer prompts and challenges, or completely independent ideas?

I don’t really do prompts or challenges. The closest I can think is a few prompt asks I did her on tumblr, years ago. I did maybe 3 in my entire life. Not really a prompt person. I got WIPs out the wazoo, like I need more on my plate.

68) What, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

Lately I’ve been doing the absolute normie shit of making Pinterest boards. I have about 15 boards that are dedicated to either a specific fanfic or just a common theme in many fics (board for dragons, board for fantasy castles and towns etc). I usually don’t need to like manually force inspiration though, it comes when it comes and I prefer that to needing to use Pinterest tbh.

69) What work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

Oh man, I don’t even know if I want to say the names of some of them haha. Probably one of my various MultiSaku stories from my Stormdragon6 account on FFN, which I’ve had since 2005 when I had just started middle school…I didn't use AO3 until 2014-15 and most of my FFN stories are NOT cross posted there.

I’m sure there’s many on the FFN account that are equally cringe and I don’t really want to look. They meant a lot to me when I wrote them and took quite a lot of effort and time for a teen to do…I’ll keep them in my mind that way instead.

70) When asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

Outside of fandom social media I don’t EVER tell people I write, period. My mom knows I wrote the middle school talking dragon book and STILL once in a while says I should publish it bc she hasn’t read a book in about 15 years and is a horrible judge of good writing. I keep telling her I “forgot” where I put that book but it’s gathering dust in my garage and I hope she eventually goes senile and forgets about it.

Otherwise I haven’t mentioned writing as a hobby to anyone irl but my bff and brother since like 2012. It is EXTREMELY private to me.

71) When it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

I used to just keep two Microsoft Word documents per story (at least longer ones) one for the story itself, whatever most recent chapter I was working on, and a second one for the notes/outline on that story. Sometimes I kept a third one for storing axed/rewritten passages of writing. It was tedious but I knew no other way.

I’m glad I have Scrivener now to keep all those things in one “document” basically which makes it easier to look through it all and compare things side to side.

72) What order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

Chronological! I can’t imagine writing any other way omg ew. Writing a big epic scene when I have'nt written or decided the buildup sounds like a horrible idea. It simply will not be written the same as it would when I know and have experienced all that led up to it.

73) What do you think makes your writing stand out from other works?

I’m having a lot of trouble with this one. Any quality I can think of, some other people surely do as well. I like focusing on dangerous, scary conflicts and situations that are more horror movie-esque than like, fun? I bring in magical or supernatural creatures whenever I can. I love writing chase scenes especially between two parties in a ship. I ship damn near anything. I have my own flavor when you mix these things together, I guess.

74) You’ve posted a fic anonymously. How would someone be able to guess that you’d written it?

This is getting kind of repetitive again. The stuff I mentioned above. Maybe if there’s a lot of horses, unicorns or talking animals that might be a sign that it’s me…using the possessive behavior tag…shipping Sakura with a man who tried to kill her at least once…nowadays I think the horses/unicorn inclusion would be the biggest clue lol.

75) What scene in [Fanfic Name] took the longest to write? What was difficult about it?

There’s a few scenes in Chasm (MadaSaku dark fantasy, Madara is a huge wingless gryphon) where Sakura has to talk to Madara and/or the Uchiha clan, and they’re big scary monsters and she’s terrified. Pushing these conversations along to get to the point of them while not having the two parties just insulting/dismissing the other, trying to build up a bit of a relationship between them at the same time…was really hard! Those Madara-Sakura talking scenes are HARD! I remember being stuck on the dialogue several times, for ages each time. Gah!!

76) Did you have any ideas that didn’t make the final cut of [Fanfic Name]?

Lots. There’s several stories of mine with pieces that I scrapped (put in the 3rd word doc) and didn’t use. I remember writing that I scrapped 12,000 words of Chasm chapter two back in the day.

Oh I had a scene in the AtsuHina sci-fi horror recently where Atsumu and Hinata get into a van that’s basically a taxi. Suna, Atsumu's friend, is the driver and interrupts when AtsuHina are feeling each other up in the backseat. I forget the timing exactly…but Atsumu playfully asks if Hinata has ever fucked in a taxi, and Suna is right there looking through his little divider window and replies, “* I’ve * fucked in a taxi,” and Atsumu shouts at him to listen to his fucking podcasts and shut the window already.

I thought it was really funny, but I cut it for time/word count and not really fitting the tone of growing ominousness. That chapter ended up at 15k without that scene which was 1k by itself.

77) Do you have a favorite scene you’ve written from [Fanfic Name] story/chapter?

Yes, I really like the writing I used in the “alien Oikawa finally breaks into the ship” scene in Day of the Navigator, end of Chapter 2.

I think its ominous tone is strong at the start, which bursts into shock and horror when Iwaizumi sees the alien at the end of the hallway and almost faints, he imagines his dead captain Ushijima to fucking get up and move, and he bravely stands against the charging alien with a flamethrower. Catches him in a net shot out of a....net gun...first, then burns him with the flamethrower up close. Alienkawa can regenerate tho and will NOT be deterred from claiming and fucking his cute humanbride so he shakes it off.

But god, it was fantastic to write.

-

Oh my god I wrote 77 answers (this took 2 days). Why can’t I write fanfic at this kind of speed. I guess because following a plot matters and takes much more care than 77 individual questions jeeeeeeeeesus I answered 77 questions…sending my corpse to Jammie in the mail

@spacejammie-eimmajecaps

[kvalenagle]

It's a chaotic week, and there's no better way to greet a grumpy Wednesday than with this @merteazy Blinky art <3 It's a week of doctor visits and medical tests, which always leaves me grumpy because I can't always get any editing done. Pridelord is mostly through line edits, which are going fairly fast, but I needed to take a break to add in a new Whisper scene. I'll avoid spoilers, but there was a subplot I considered taking on to Saberbeak before finishing it, and when I was doing my line edits, I realized that I had the perfect moment to pay it off right then. It just required a few nudges. Most books don't get scenes added in the line edit phase, but the large ones like Ashen Weald or Crackling Sea had the same thing come up. If you're new to book creation, everyone is a little different, but my novels usually go through the following phases. Story-related ones are slow, the rest can be as fast as a single day or two. 1. I write the book. This is actually the first and second draft. Before I start writing for the day, I read and edit what I wrote yesterday. That helps keep it fresh in my mind. I ran a test early on when it took me an hour to write a thousand words, and I found that if I had just read/edited the last thousand words I wrote, it took about 30 minutes, and the writing went twice as fast. So this turned out to be a 'free' second edit as I went along. 2. I read through it in Scrivener (the most common novelist word processor) and make changes. My goal here is to fix story issues, foreshadowing, etc. 3. I read through it out loud with my spouse. My brain will often leap from A to D, and his brain needs B and C to be there. If I'm reading it out loud, he can tell me what he needs to make sure the logic flows, and I can usually find a way of saying it that works perfectly for me, too. And reading aloud catches some errors that I wouldn't normally find. 4. I hand it off to my developmental editor, Dustin Porta, and my beta readers. These steps used to be separate, but there's a lot of redundancy here. It's also a case where sometimes Dustin has a feeling but we need data from how fans think. A lot of Foultner and Henders scenes get saved here. I'll go through his feedback (~500+ fixes, some bigger than others), and go through beta feedback. Beta reader probably deserves its own post, but the biggest problem with editing isn't finding problems... it's the author editing out the good parts. Beta readers are flagging their favorite bits first, before the mistakes, so I don't delete, say, Cherine from the novel. 5. I print it out and do a line edit myself. This fixes prose, pacing, language, imagery, and echoes. This is about making sure the language compliments the story and doesn't detract from it. 6. It goes off to Tim Marquitz, my copy editor. This is spelling/grammar/etc. He catches the grammar things that're invisible to me. 7. I do a final printed read-through with a green pen (things I want to fix but probably shouldn't so I don't introduce new errors) and red pen (things that if I saw in someone else's book, I'd consider an error, and must fix.) There's usually a proofreader in here, too. You expect to catch 95% errors from each pass. This is often when the Patreon supporters get their ebook version =] Though it gets updated with the release version if typos are found after here. 8. The audiobook narrator, James Scott Spaid, begins recording the book. He'll always catch some things that got past everyone else by virtue of saying them out loud and doing the sound engineering. Once he finishes, I listen through, suggest changes if any come up, and an audio proofreader comes in. Usually once I've listened, Patreons get the audiobook. And during this phase, the final formatting and printed proofs are happening since the page count is finalized even if a typo or two gets fixed. And that's it =] Eight big steps from start to finish. The first steps are by far the slowest because they involve story changes.

[aceofwhump]

Question is the legacy editor any good? I've never used it because I'm paranoid about it messing my posts up lmao but I'm curious

The short answer is yes. Legacy editor, the older way tumblr did posting, is in my opinion, the superior editor. I love the legacy editor. A lot. It is definitely superior and I'm sad staff has decided to slowly get rid of it.

However! With that said I've been pretty much exclusively using the beta post editor for the last like year when staff announced that they'd be eliminating the legacy editor eventually so I thought it'd be a good idea to get used to the beta editor. Which I suppose I did. I've gotten used to it and don't use legacy much at all anymore. I also wanted to use it because I got really tired of not being able to edit in mobile the posts I made on web using the legacy editor. With the beta editor you can edit across platforms which is soooo nice. (although it appears that in one of the apps many updates I can now edit a gifset I made today via legacy editor but not the posts I've made in the past using the legacy editor so who knows what's going with that).

But there's a lot of annoying things about the new beta editor that make it inferior to the legacy editor and I'm praying that staff will improve it. For starters, and probably my biggest complaint, is how awful it is to upload and rearrange images. It's so much easier in legacy editor to move images around. In beta the page moves when you start to move the image and it drives me CRAZY!!! I always end up putting the image in the wrong place because the page won't stop moving! Legacy is wonderful to arrange images. I do think the upload is slightly better in beta purely because it uploads multiple images in the order I select them where the legacy just puts them in whatever order it wants to and I have to remember what order I wanted my gifs in.

Legacy is also better because it actually differentiates between an image post and a text post. With the beta editor everything is technically a test post. So my gifsets are not considered an "image post". Some people have noted that the beta, since it's not an image post, it resizes the images a little and sometimes decreases the quality of the gif by doing that. I haven't really noticed that myself with my own gifs but doesn't mean it isnt happening.

The legacy editor also allows me to upload my gifs without stupid errors for no reason. Lately any time I upload more than 6 gifs at once I get an error message and have to upload them one by one. Its not because of size because they're always under 7mbs so I don't know why I can't upload them all at once. I hate it actually. And sometimes my gif will be under 10mbs (like 9.7mbs) and it'll tell me that the gif is too big. Excuse me tumblr but 9.7 is smaller than 10! I never had this problem in legacy.

The legacy editor is also better when it comes to using html, inserting links as text and not the stupid thing beta does where you paste the link and it becomes that stupid post preview thing that I hate, and oh my god is it awful for text blocks! When it first came out you couldnt select multiple texts blocks at all. You can now but it isn't the easiest. And it like expands when you do and makes it weird. Idk it's hard to describe. In legacy you can just...select all the text with no problems. Text blocks are treated like individual sections in the beta and make editing a major pain in the ass.

I also don't like thst apparently new xkit won't work in beta and you have to use xkit rewritten because fuck I don't want to learn how to use that one when I've been using new xkit for years but I guess I'm gonna have to now. I haven't been having any problems with xkit yet but who knows....

So yeah I think overall legacy is better. Beta Post Editor has some good things (I like the increased image upload limit, the editing tags is good) about it but there's so many problems. Unfortunately we're stuck with it so I've been sticking to using it exclusively to make the transition easier on myself. I do suggest becoming used to how it works and to just continue to provide feedback to staff about features we dislike or bugs we come across. Hopefully they'll listen and improve it.

[goodboylupin]

It's that time of year again! Welcome, returning participants and newcomers alike to

The 3rd Candy Hearts Challenge

A fun, stress-free Wolfstar mini-fest!

(If you remember how this goes , feel free to skip my introductory spiel and check for new rules!)

They’re sold by many companies and known by many names: Candy Hearts, Conversation Hearts, Sweethearts, and Love Hearts. Whatever the brand and whatever you call them, they’re the signature sweet of the season. Sure, you could buy your beloved a box of chocolates, but that’s an option any time of year! Good luck finding these bad boys in November!

Not that candy hearts are bad! Sure, they’re kinda chalky… and they taste stale no matter how fresh you bought them… but it’s not about the taste with candy hearts, it’s about the pastel, the experience, and above all else: the sayings! Who doesn’t remember going through a pack with friends, trying to find the kookiest message? Digging through a box to find one that was just the right level of romantic to give a certain special someone? (And maybe the heartbreak when you received one in turn where the message was just a big, pink smudge?)

Now, candy hearts have been around for a long time. And with a constant rotation of messages so we always got fun variety in a box, they’ve had a lot of sayings.

Through a great deal of internet sleuthing (and a little creativity on my part), I’ve collected over five hundred of them.

Some are a little raunchy (TEASE ME), and some are outright rude (EW NO). They range from classic (BE MINE) to contemporary (SWIPE RIGHT) to were-at-one-point-contemporary (FAX ME). Some of them are, quite frankly so hyper specific it’s a wonder they made it into circulation at all (ME JULIE BEST MUM).

And they are all, even the weird ones, ripe with potential as fic prompts!

The way this mini-fest works is simple:

From now until 11:59pm EST February 14, drop me an ask containing these emojis: 🍬💕

If you don't want to send an ask from your main tumblr account (or don't have a tumblr account), you can do so anonymously. However, you must include the ao3 handle or tumblr sideblog from which you plan to complete the challenge.

I will shake my Great Big Box of Candy Hearts and pull out a unique candy heart for you and only you!

With your message in hand, create whatever that candy heart inspires and your own heart desires! Fanfic, art, graphics, playlists, head canons, shit posts, interpretive dances, cosplay, meta essays, it’s all great as long as its central focus is on Wolfstar, the relationship between Remus Lupin and Sirius Black!

You can either directly quote your candy heart message in your work or use it as a broader inspiration.

You are allowed to use the same candy heart as inspiration for multiple unrelated works and submit all of them to the fest.

You do not need a beta before submitting your work, but I do encourage you to get one. I want this to be as stress-free an event as it can possibly be, and in my personal experience, it reduces stress to have someone else look over your completed work for at least spelling and grammar so you don’t have to reread your own stuff and psych yourself out before posting. If you don’t have any fandom friends with whom you feel comfortable sharing your fanfiction, there are also online resources to find a friendly stranger (including, hopefully, our discord server — see rule 17). But if ultimately, you’d rather be your own editor, I certainly won’t reject your work!

Include the following caption at the beginning of the tumblr post or AO3 beginning notes: For @goodboylupin's Candy Hearts Challenge. My candy heart prompt was ____.

If posting on tumblr, please make sure the @-tag of your caption is working so I get a notification! It should show up on its own automatically as you type. Also tag the work with #RSCandyHearts, preferably within the first five tags.

If posting on AO3, post your work to the collection and tag it with #RSCandyHearts (it will probably not be common enough to be a drop-down option, just type the whole thing out and hit enter).

I will reblog every work on Tumblr, and leave a kudos on every work on AO3. (If I haven't done so on your work and you see I've been active on this blog, then both the @-notification and #RSCandyHearts tag failed. Send me an ask with a link!)

If, after completing your first work, you want another helping of candy hearts, that’s more than welcome! Since I don’t want anyone to get a sugar crash, there is a two-day wait period between submitting a work and getting a second (or third or fourth or wherever you are) candy heart. You can send the ask earlier, but I will wait two days before answering it.

If you find you cannot come up with anything for your prompt, you can drop out and send a new ask to get a different candy heart. However, you need to give it an honest effort for at least one week before I give you a new one.

Works are expected by March 1, but this is a low-stakes, self-posting challenge! If you need more time, just message me or drop an ask. And if you want to drop out, that’s totally fine! I’ll even delete your first ask where you requested a candy heart if you prefer. I only need to know for the sake of my own record-keeping. Let’s all just be honest, considerate, and try to have a good time!

If you need a really long extension: Your candy heart is yours until January of next year, at which point, if I haven't heard back from you with an update or request for extension in the past few months, your prompt is going back in the Great Big Box of Candy Hearts so somebody else can have a go at it. The AO3 collection closes at the same time.

I will keep a masterlist of works pinned on my blog until at least March 7.

There's a discord! Feel free to join to discuss your prompts, your progress, your love of Wolfstar, or just to have another little circle in your sidebar.

New rule: Over the past two challenges, there have been a small handful of people who requested a candy heart, did not create anything and did not speak to me any further to tell me they were dropping out or having trouble. I work hard to make everyone a custom graphic and keep this fest running smoothly, therefore: Any creators with multiple instances of ghosting are suspended from getting another candy heart until next challenge.

Attention: @goodboylupin​ has been shadowbanned. I have already sent a support ticket to tumblr but do not know how long this will last. My @ -tag is therefore broken (it will look like you @’ed me successfully but I will not receive a notification) and it is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL that you remember to tag your post with #rscandyhearts in the first five tags!!! If you need to speak to me about anything, your best bet is ask box or discord, because while it may look like a private message has sent, I won’t receive it. Unfortunately, people who send me asks will not get a notification when I answer them, you’ll just have to check my blog. Sorry for the inconveniences, I promise they suck worse for me. 💔

(And this announcement post won’t show up in tags, so please reblog to signal boost!)

My ask box is open now to receive your candy heart requests 🍬💕

[spiritedfennec]

There’s finally a new promo! 

So for the uninitiated, I have this really bad chat fic on my Ao3 account, when it got really out of hand I stopped updating and didn’t give updates for months and then decided “screw it! let’s redo it!” There was a bit more to it of course, but that’s the gist. 

This! This right here is the 2nd promo for the complete version of the fic (aka the rewritten one, you get it). Is it messy? Yes. Do I care? Sorta because I stared at it for hours and had plenty of time to fix things before it got out of hand. But it’s fine. 

Timelapse: https://www.instagram.com/reel/ClhCrLnpdbK/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

First promo: https://www.tumblr.com/alythelostsoul/699299331257286656/chat-fic-rewrite-promo-1-its-messy-and-i-dont?source=share

Anyway, anyway, the fic

I should go over that. 

L.O.V: Reloaded is the complete edition of the League of Villains chat fic I posted back in December of 2020 on Ao3 that was simply called L.O.V (my naming skills were great, weren’t they?). The original fic, now dubbed L.O.V [Draft] has over 16k hits and over 600 kudos and has stagnated after being discontinued a few months ago, which I’m fine with, please do not go find and read that. 

Despite that being my highest rated fic in all my years of writing fanfiction, I could not in good conscious continue writing it after it got away from me last year, it became a disaster and didn’t make any sense. There were flaws everywhere and I just couldn’t deal with it. 

L.O.V: Reloaded seeks to fix all the issues that were present in the original fic. 

It’s approximately half in chat form and approximately half out of it in order to make the plot flow in a more organic fashion, if the whole fic was in chat form it wouldn’t work. The original fic was actually this way too but there was no warning that time that it would go out of chat because I didn’t expect it to when I started it and the majority of the fic at the beginning was in chat form, now there will be out of chat moments mixed in throughout. 

Now the story, I’m not going to give much away- here’s the synopsis that would actually work for both versions in a way;

L.O.V is a chat/ooc fic that follows the League of Villains as they discover that hero society isn’t what it seems

I’m super bad at synopses, that sounds so basic and like every fucking fic out there

uhhh

Hawks is important even if he doesn’t seem it at the beginning as he doesn’t become a permanent part of the cast for awhile

Ashido and Midoriya are important as well, they’re a redemption duo so to speak

I’m sorry I’m bad at explaining these

I should let my editor/beta reader write my descriptions for me 

[lookedlikethebins]

🤮🐱🎲

hi! thank you so much for sending these in!! they cover quite the range; had me contemplating a lot of the boys Looks this afternoon x

🤮 -what is matty's worst hairstyle in your opinion?

When he was growing out the bleached hair and it was so fried it didn't have a single curl to it... And I say "worst" because when I look at those pictures, I can feel that texture and I cannot imagine how long it took for his curl pattern to come back oh my god (actually I can and for me it was like three years. Although, I didn't shave it so maybe he had some luck with All That business)

🐱 -do you have a beta reader?

I don't! Frequently, I think about putting out feelers for one, but most times when I post my writing, I just want to talk/get excited about the ideas/fun (or realistically kind of angsty) parts of the fic! I'm a "discovery writer" so even though I wrote the fic sometimes little details weren't things I started with/intended on exploring, so even after posting it, it all feels new and fun to me. All that is to say, I don't know if I'd be very good at sharing my work with someone and just talk Shop afterward lol.

Also I'm an editor as part of my day job! Not to say that makes me the Best Editor of My Own Work, but I'm used to hashing all that Story Stuff out with authors, so sometimes it's nice to just put something up and say: Here it is! It's done! Now let's talk about what these guys got up to this week...

🎲 -do you picture a specific era when you’re writing for each member?

I really like writing about or with an accompanying photo of the moment/era surrounding a scene (because I love looking and finding a little detail [mostly in clothes idk why but it's always clothes] that sparks something new for me), so I don't know that I have any one specific era that I go for immediately? Also usually when I have an idea, my first thought is "what is the era/timeframe/ages of the guys?" to orient myself, so any era is "specific" only because it's tied to the idea, if that makes sense.

Although, I will say I think I am always "hearing" Matty in his iliwys/"Oh, love me!"/Neon Pink and Lowrise Pants era for his dialogue-- but recently I've been writing more bfiafl era fics so that's been funny. Just thinking of the speech cadence of this flouncy 20-something that's... got gray hair and probably sore knees and back pain and any time he needs to speak it's because he needs George to grab him his glasses because he just can't read the wine list at their weekly date night...

|| 1975 writer emoji asks ||