#i should make an outline document for fun. i Should.
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studioeisa · 10 days ago
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the way the cookie crumbles 🍪 chan x reader.
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you need one good story to get your career off the ground. lee chan is on a mission to try every chocolate chip cookie in seoul. better start somewhere, right?
🍪 pairing.  interviewee!lee chan x food journalist!reader.  🍪 word count.  14.4k.  🍪 genre/warnings.  alternate universe: non-idol. slice of life, romance, angst, hurt/comfort. mentions of food, disease (which neither mcs have); profanity. themes of food/memory/grief, svt ensemble as journalists. 🍪 footnotes.  this is part of the milestone: 100 collab. it’s been a while since i’ve written something that i feel like actually means something, and this is that fic for me. it’s my soul on a baking sheet, and i’m grateful that i got the chance to bring it to life. the two halves of my heart, a @chugging-antiseptic-dye & tara @diamonddaze01, proofread the outline for this months ago. thank you, @eclipsaria, @nerdycheol, @gyubakeries, and @shinysobi for the trust!!! 🎵 recommended listening ⸻ the way the cookie crumbles.
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It’s taunting—the way the Google Docs cursor is blinking up at you. 
You swear you’re going mad. How long have you been staring at this empty document? An hour? Three? 
You heave out a sigh, slouching at your work desk until your forehead has landed on your mechanical keyboard. A couple of keys are smashed in the process, and you find an intelligible smatter of letters on your screen when you look up. 
That’s the most progress The Story has had in a couple of days, unfortunately. 
“You know,” a bemused voice calls from behind you, “maybe you’re trying too hard.” 
The thought draws a snort of laughter from you. Trying too hard. It’s more like you’re not trying hard enough. How else to explain the sheer lack of progress in what was supposed to be your magnum opus? 
You don’t wheel around to face your workmate. You already know who it is, anyway. 
“Easy for you to say,” you grumble. “Aren’t you accepting a Hinzpeter Award next week, Mr. Humans-Write-Recipes-Better-Than-A.I.?”
Joshua lets out a low chuckle at the light jab about his capital-s Story. You poked your fun at your senior, but you had to give credit where credit was due; the article had been a riveting read, and Joshua deserves all his flowers for tackling it with such finesse. 
“It’ll be your award next year,” he says with a certainty that should be comforting. 
Instead, it reminds you of looming deadlines, of your prickly Editor-in-Chief, of your empty fucking Google Doc. Another sigh. This time, heavier. 
“Or Seungkwan’s,” you say. “His ‘swicy’ story is doing crazy rounds on SNS right now.” 
That was Seungkwan’s Story: A bold declaration of sweet and spicy— aptly called ‘swicy’— being the flavor of the 2025 food scene. Even the new guy, Vernon, had already managed to write something worth reading. Some feature about how foreign candy puts American candy to shame. 
And you? Dozens of listicles and a couple of How-To’s later, you’ve yet to make your dent in The Korea Post’s Food beat. 
You can’t see Joshua’s face, but you can imagine his expression when he sympathetically chides, “What did I say about comparing yourself to other people?” 
You swivel around in your computer chair. Sure enough, Joshua is sporting a disapproving look.
“I’m not comparing myself to Seungkwan,” you say defensively. “I’m just factually saying that his article has over twenty thousand hits already.” 
“Stop.” 
“Okay, okay.” 
Joshua’s demeanor softens a bit when he notices the palpable frustration on your face. “You’ll get there,” he reassures. “I’m sure you’re closer to it than you think.”
You’re tempted to call Joshua out for the platitude, to wax poetics about the Google Doc collecting cobwebs on your screen. Instead, you flash him a tight smile and go to change the topic—bringing up instead his most recent baking endeavor. 
By the time Joshua has flounced away to go bother someone else, you’re ready to call it a day. Head home with your tail between your legs and watch Culinary Class Wars until you crash. It sounds as good of a plan as any, you gingerly think as you click on to Reddit one last time. 
Crawling the web was typically a good source for inspiration. You’d been coming up empty-handed for the past couple weeks, but it never hurt to try. As you click through r/foodkr, your mind wanders to mala cream shrimp dim sum and—
A post catches your eye. You have to backtrack a bit to check it out, having scrolled too fast the first time around. 
r/foodkr • 2hrs ago pichanlin
I want to try EVERY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE in Seoul 😃
Now that I have your attention: Please name a cafe/bakeshop that sells chocolate chip cookies. Criteria: MUST be in Seoul, should be PURELY chocolate chip (no raisins, nuts, et cetera). Price is NOT an issue. Even if you personally think it is the worst cookie known to man, please please please name it. I am on A MISSION.
↑  12  ↓     🗨  8     ↷  Share
It’s a lot to unpack. The abysmal use of all caps. The ambitious declaration. Who the hell is this ‘pichanlin’, and what sort of death wish does he have? You tongue the inside of your cheek. 
Closer than you think, Joshua had said. 
The words ring in the back of your head as you go to send an invite message to start chatting.
--
For all intents and purposes, user ‘pichanlin’ isn’t the type who looks insane.
He’s bright-eyed and boyish in his attractiveness. He looks like he’s around your age, too, though that’s an assumption you make solely based on his megawatt smile.
Lee Chan, he had introduced himself prior to your meetup at Taegeukdang Bakery. 
He sits across from you now, one leg crossed over the other. When the waiter comes to give him the warmed cookie he had ordered, he flashes the stranger a charming grin. It occurs to you that he’s not trying to be particularly winsome; it seems to be a natural quality. 
You notice that his order doesn’t come with a drink. 
“Just service water for me,” he explains when he catches your scrutinizing eye. “I’m already going to be blowing so much money on cookies, so I have to cheap out somewhere.” 
You respond with a fake laugh. Such was the life of working in a corporate-adjacent setting. Mastering the art of the fake laugh was a must, and you’re convinced you’ve somewhat perfected yours. 
You’re not on the same budget as Chan, so you can at least enjoy an iced latte. You absentmindedly stir the drink as you ask the million won question. “So, what’s up with this insane cookie run?” 
The query is posed to be one that’s almost casual. When Chan responds just as coolly, you figure that you’re partly to blame. 
“I like cookies,” he says simply. 
You offer him a tight grin. “I like coffee,” you say, “but you don’t see me running around the city chugging Americanos.” 
Chan’s responding laugh is far from fake. He sounds genuinely tickled. “Are you making fun of me?” he jokes, feigning hurt as he places a hand over his chest. “And here I thought you were a serious, no-nonsense journalist.” 
A part of you bristles at this virtual stranger trying to poke and prod at you. You know he’s kidding, but the topic of being serious at work is a sore spot you’ve yet to find a balm for. You sip at your drink to try and forget the fact. The coffee is scaldingly hot, which makes you wince. 
“I need to know what I’m getting into.” Your tone is surprisingly sage for your internal conflict. That gut feeling is beginning to tug again—that fear you’re pursuing a dead end, interviewing someone who’s not about to make sense.
It doesn’t help that Chan’s smile only breaks at your words. You want to snap that this isn’t a joke to you, but you’re trying to reign in that temper that’s given your editors so much grief in the past. 
Fuck it. You should cut your losses. Head home and consider this yet another freak hoping to find his five minutes of fame with a viral TikTok series that won’t get more than a couple hundred views. 
You open your mouth to excuse yourself to the bathroom from where you have no intentions of returning when Chan, seeming self-aware of how insane he sounds, motions for you to wait. He fishes through his backpack and—
It’s a map of the city. Not one of those folded, English maps you can pick up at the airport, promoting tourist traps like N Seoul Tower and Nami Island. No, it’s meticulously scribbled, with splotches of ink and hasty scribbles. Chan lays it out in the table between you with excruciating care, as if the map isn’t already battered with its torn edges and faint coffee stains. 
There are dozens of hand drawn, red pins, indicating what you can only presume are the destinations that Chan wants to hit. Pain d’echo. Aoitori Bakery. Samarkand. It’s extensive, obsessive, and the work of either a genius or a lunatic. 
Said genius-slash-lunatic smiles up at you, unashamed of what he’s presenting. “This,” huffs Chan, “is what you’re getting into.” 
Touché, you decide, as you settle back into your chair. 
--
Your editor, Minghao, doesn’t look impressed. 
To be fair, it’s hard to impress a man like Xu Minghao. A part of you feels silly, proposing this cross-country cookie run to him. Minghao is a serious journalist. He brings to the table—no pun intended—narratives that are unheard of in the field of food writing. 
His Story was a thrilling investigative on Chinese fleets and their impact on the seafood industry. It landed him in this gorgeous corner office, where he edits drafts with a 0.3mm Muji Gel Ink Ballpoint Pen. In red, of course. 
He’s holding that very pen now as he surveys your pitch, printed on an immaculately crisp piece of A4 paper. Minghao is old school like that. He doesn’t believe in Microsoft Word; he wants you to get blood on your hands, in the form of his editorial genius. 
He clicks his tongue. You wince, bracing for impact. 
Instead, you get grace. “This has potential,” he says. 
To hell with I love you. Those are the three words you want to hear most in the world. This has potential, from the world’s most anal proofreader. 
You exhale. Let your guard down. “But,” he starts, and you have to scramble to bring your wits back together. “You haven’t filled out this part.” 
You knew it’d be called out. Before Minghao can even tap his pen at the empty portion of your pitch, you’re already prepared. 
Rationale. That’s what you’re missing. The reason why Chan is trying to speedrun himself into diabetes. 
“Yeah, well.” You shift from one foot to another as Minghao peers at you from over his glasses. “I was hoping I could fill that out later on.” 
“You’ve got balls,” says Minghao dryly, “for making a pitch when you haven’t got a reason for it.” 
“It’s interesting.” 
“So is the fact that cheese is the most stolen food in the world, but you don’t see us writing 7,500CWS for that, do you?” 
You bite back a laugh. A corner of Minghao’s lip twitches upward despite himself. He’s not as formidable as people make him out to be. He just has the tendency to make interns want to cry, and writers question their entire existence. 
You were already full of doubt the moment you stepped into his office, so—it cancels out, you suppose. Minghao sees right through you nonetheless. 
“Is this guy a frustrated baker? Is he someone planning to start a bakery?” Minghao poses, handing you back your pitch. The carnage isn’t bad today. A couple of struck-out adverbs, some dangling sentences with eight question marks next to them.  “You’ll have to figure that out, or else your story will have no gravitas. It will float.” 
“Float,” you repeat, clutching your pitch closer to you. 
“Float,” he confirms. “Like an astronaut jettisoned out into space.” 
You’re not sure you get the analogy, but you suppose a man who gets paid an annual salary of ₩100,000,000 deserves to be a little cuckoo. He rattles off your deadlines. You mumble gratitude and get ready to chase leads for a short-form listicle. 
You’re only halfway out Minghao’s office door before you’re pulling out your phone from your pocket. It’s your latest saved contact, which makes things infinitely easier. 
To: [INTERVIEWEE] Lee Chan 🍪 I’m in. 
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Lee Chan has a plan: To try every single chocolate chip cookie in Seoul.
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Not every cookie, you realize a little later on. Just around a hundred. Which is still certifiably insane. 
A bakery and dessert café off Itaewon is where you two start your mission. Passion5 is gorgeous in that probably-overpriced way, set in an art-gallery like space. They boast of everything being made in house—cakes, ice cream, sandwiches. 
You and Chan don’t look too out of place. If anything, the two of you look like a couple on a date. It’s a horrifying realization, but it’s also a good cover. You like to think of your stories like that, sometimes. Like they’re something Actually Important instead of a lead followed from Reddit. 
Chan orders his chocolate chip cookie. You get an iced matcha that you put on your company card. 
“So,” Chan says loftily, setting the cookie down between you two. 
“So,” you respond, voice carefully measured. 
You wait. You weaponize the silence. It’s the first good tip you got about interviewing: letting the quiet stretch, so your subject might divulge more than necessary. But Chan doesn’t look like he’s about to spill his entire life story. He just stares at you for a moment too long. 
“Are we gonna half or what?” he asks instead of—I don’t know, giving you a quote you could use for your story. 
You force on a tight-lipped smile. “No,” you say. “Go ahead.” 
Chan doesn’t have to be asked twice. 
Being a writer has made you more attuned to the little things. Mannerisms that might make or break a sentence. Tics that could point to something just below the surface. Most of these habits are the kind you have to dig for, the one you need 20/20 vision to be able to clock. 
Lee Chan is as subtle as a foghorn. His fingers are stiff when he picks up the cookie. His bite is deliberately slow. When he chews and drawls out a comical, exaggerated ‘mmm’, you resist the urge to face palm. He’s putting on a show. 
You couldn’t care less, though. Chan can perform all he wants. You give him a beat, and he cracks. “Very chewy,” he says through his mouthful of pastry. “Uses chocolate chips. Mmm. Nice.” 
You jot it down in your notepad, even though it makes you feel like a student highlighting things that won’t be on a test. “Anything else?” you prompt. 
“It’s… sweet,” he says lamely as he swallows. “A bang for your buck.” 
At least that makes you laugh. Bang for the buck. “I didn’t know value for money was part of your criteria,” you jab. 
“It’s not,” says Chan, and you feel that slight thrill that comes with having an opening. 
You spring the question on him. “What’s your criteria, then?” 
It’s meant to be the first question to a dozen more. What’s your end goal? Do you come from a family of bakers? What’s the worst cookie you’ve ever had? 
But Chan doesn’t give, doesn’t bite. He only gives a noncommittal hum, finishes off his cookie, and wipes the crumbs off his fingers. He pulls out his city map from his bag and crosses out Passion5. No ceremony, no fanfare. 
You stare at him incredulously as he chirps, “Next stop?” 
--
You build your days around Chan. 
On days when you’re not expected to report to the office, you follow him on his mission. He agrees to not try anything while you’re gone lest he find himself finding whatever he’s looking for while you’re in Google Docs hell.
He always gets the same thing: a chocolate chip cookie, and a glass of service water. You get mostly drinks. Every now and then, you give in to something novelty—a cheesecake-cookie hybrid at Songpa’s Au de Cookie, a s’mores-flavored cookie at Cafe Chunk. You’re convinced you’re going to both be very broke and a couple pounds heavier by the end of this story. 
If you can even call it a story. The visits go like this: he orders. The two of you sit across from each other for seven minutes, tops. He eats his cookie, gives a half-hearted commentary on it, then crosses it off his map.
You’re not stupid. Chan obviously has no fucking idea what he’s talking about when it comes to the cookies. He doesn’t make any particular comments about the ingredients, about the consistency. He isn’t consuming them with the criticality of a pastry chef. By the fifteenth café, you realize maybe you’re just asking the wrong questions. 
You’re at Breadypost—another recommendation that looks like it’s about to be struck out—when you try a new approach. 
“What do you do?” you ask, the end of your pen tapping the table. “When you’re not on a cookie rampage, that is.” 
Chan chews at his cookie thoughtfully. You’re bracing for another evasion, some lackadaisical comment about his personal life, so you nearly jump when he answers, “I’m a dancer.” 
Your pen skids across your notebook. Dancer, you write down without ever looking away from Chan. “Oh?” You fail to sound casual. At least you sound interested, which, to be fair—you are. “A professional one?” 
“You could say that.” Chan brushes some crumbs off the front of his shirt. “My parents own a dance studio. I help run it.” 
Dance studio, you jot down. “Like… ballet? Hip-hop?” 
A boyish sort of smile tugs at his mouth. “All sorts of things,” he says vaguely. “I’ve been training since I was a kid, so it was pretty natural for me to start teaching once I got old enough.” 
You feel dizzy. A dance instructor. No, dance prodigy. Has a better ring to it. You have a feeling you’ve struck gold, but there’s still that hint of suspicion. Whether the gold is real. Whether it’s just the truth wrapped in gold. 
“Being a dance teacher,” you start, brain already working on overdrive, “is that something you’ve always wanted to do? Or is this one of those, like, tiger parent situations?” 
Chan seems to catch on to the underlying question. Really, you have to start giving him some more credit. His smile breaks into a laugh, one that’s still rattling through his chest as he pulls out his map. “I want it on record,” he teases, “that whatever you’re thinking is wrong.” 
You hiss in some air through your teeth. He knows you’re still trying to find that rationale, still trying to land on a reason for all this. “What is it, then?” you ask, frustration leaking into your tone.
It’s highly unprofessional; Minghao would probably flay you alive for speaking to a source like this. But going on just enough cookie runs have made you kind of crazy, and perhaps a little too comfortable around Chan. 
He doesn’t clock you on it. He just gives the same, infuriating answer. “I like cookies.” 
Your pen jabs into your notebook. A period to the same sentence spoken time and time again. Chan pretends not to notice. 
You do notice, however, the slightest quiver in his fingers as he crosses Breadypost off his map.
--
“What should I do if my interviewee is lying to me?” 
Seungkwan levels you with the most vicious side eye mid-salad bite. Vernon pulls off one of his earphones, pausing his transcription of his Ahn Sung-jae interview. 
You’re caught somewhere between the two of them. A working lunch. Greasy fingers flying over your keyboard, chasing a deadline, as you try out KyoChon’s new dakgalbi.  
“Is this the cookie monster?” Vernon asks. 
“Ha. Cookie monster.” You snort out a laugh. “Nice one. I should have that somewhere in my title.” 
“Only if you want Minghao to murder you,” Seungkwan deadpans, and Vernon gives a jerky nod of agreement. 
You take a quick bite of your lunch. The gochujang is a little on the sweet side, but the perilla leaves are a nice touch. You briefly contemplate paying extra to have it with cheese next time. 
“I’m just saying,” you say after swallowing. “He’s hiding something.” 
“Everybody’s hiding something,” Seungkwan says loftily, brandishing his plastic fork at you. “That’s why you have to build trust with your interviewee.” 
“This is a story,” you shoot back. “Not a relationship.” 
Vernon, who has gone back to transcribing, grunts. “Most stories are just situationships,” he says absentmindedly, already half-tuned out of the conversation. 
A muscle in your face twitches. “What does that even mean?” 
“He means,” Seungkwan interjects, “that you’re building something with every story. Like one does with a relationship or—fuck it—a situationship. Conversation. Rapport. All that shebang.” 
You’re sure the three of you sound crazy. Such was the life of the newsroom, anyway. Long-winded metaphors, thinly-veiled critique. You’ve all mastered the art of saying things the way each of you can understand, and Seungkwan’s explanation—no matter how insane—makes sense. 
You rub the heel of your palm into your temple. “Okay,” you sigh. “Build trust. Got it.” 
Seungkwan and Vernon share a look. Quick enough that it could be missed, but you catch it. Before the scowl can fully form on your face, Vernon is jumping in to explain. “What if he’s just… dunno.” He gives a half-hearted shrug. “A guy who likes cookies?”
“It’s pretty interesting in itself,” Seungkwan offers as he pops a cherry tomato into his mouth. His next couple of words are muffled. “A dancer with a sweet tooth.” 
“Right.” You hit your Enter button a little too hard. The key gets stuck, and so you jam on it a second time until it clicks back into place. “Interesting.” 
It could be, really. Chan’s attractive enough for the article to fly as one of those cutesy photo essays, and the mission is amusing in that semi-viral TikTok sort of way. 
But you don’t want fifteen seconds of fame. You don’t want fluff about a ‘cookie monster’ dance instructor. You want a capital-S Story. The Story. 
Seungkwan demolishes his salad and makes unsolicited comments about the croutons that came with it. Vernon complains under his breath about Ahn Sung-jae’s lack of decent audio recording despite being filthy rich. 
You nod along as you think about what it means to trust and be trusted. 
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There’s a secret to the perfect chocolate chip cookie, and only Lee Chan knows it.
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The days start to blend together. Cookies. Iced coffees. Cafés and patisseries, places you’d never have thought to visit if it weren’t for Chan. 
He keeps crossing out places on his map. You keep prying, slow but sure, snatching up every little piece of information he drops. Born in February. Came from Iksan. Graduated from Seoul Broadcasting High School. A breadcrumb trail. 
After a productive day (five cafés!) that was ultimately futile (all crossed out!), you find yourself on the same path with Chan. Something about the nearest bus route being the same one you two could take. 
You’re making small talk about the day’s weather when Chan’s ears perk up at a commotion. “Oh?” He cranes his neck in the direction of the crowd. “Let’s check it out.” 
You really, really don’t want to. You want to go home, order takeout, and start your fourth rewatch of Inventing Anna. But Chan is already moving before you can politely deny him, and so you drag your feet towards the loose circle of people gathered in Seoul Plaza. 
The noise hits you first. A The Boyz song on full blast. THRILL RIDE, you think it might be. People squeal, rush to the center. 
Chan smiles. A kind of smile you haven’t seen yet. This isn’t cookie-induced, isn’t a grin given after you’ve made a dry joke. This one is bright and wide with realization. “It’s a Random Play Dance,” he says in explanation. 
You give a small ‘ah’ in response. It’s not really something you care much for. You’ve seen it on your For You Page, sure, but this wasn’t the sort of thing you sought out. Chan, on the other hand, starts to shoulder through the crowd. You follow a couple of steps behind, mumbling apologies to the people you squeeze past.
“Have you ever?” Chan asks once you’ve come up to his side. 
“Me?” A high-pitched laugh escapes you. “God, no.” 
Chan’s grin is lopsided, a little crooked. You really wish he wasn’t so pretty; when he’s smiling like this, it’s so easy to get distracted. “Why not? Shy?” he prods. 
Your nose scrunches on instinct. “Let’s go with that,” you say, and Chan drops it. For now, at least. 
He has his arms crossed over his chest as he surveys the dancers in the middle. You realize he’s leaning down a bit, stepping into your space so he can whisper into your ear. “The girl in red has good form,” he says, his voice taking on the type of quality you personally reserve for discussing the merits of one-pot meals. “And see the guy over there—the one wearing Converse? His footing’s a bit off. Watch.” 
You watch. Chan is right. Budget Juyeon is one step behind for the t-thrill ride, t-thrill ride, how ya feeling. “I wouldn’t have noticed that,” you say, eyes still fixed on the people have Chan pointed out. 
He shrugs, feigning nonchalance. The smugness rolls off him in waves anyway. “‘S my job,” he says. 
A new song strikes up. You’re startled when, only a beat in, Chan is already laughing to himself. Instant recognition. He shoots you a sideways glance before breathing out, “Give me a minute, yeah?” 
And then he’s gone, again, but not somewhere you can’t see. You watch, both awed and mortified, as he skids to the center of the circle with practiced ease. A couple more people follow suit. The new song bleeds into the crowd. Hey girl, take you home tonight. Get that give me, get that give me, give me. 
Lee Chan transforms before your eyes. 
Gone is the boy who said ‘you too’ when a barista told him to have a good day. (Twice.) In his place, somebody else. Someone entirely new. A Lee Chan who moves like water, who hits all the marks. A dancer. 
People make room for him, as if sensing just how much of a force he is to reckon with. Chan doesn’t notice. Doesn’t care, maybe. He just dances—perfect steps, controlled movements, one well-placed wink that isn’t cringe at all.
He’s so happy about it, too. You see it in the looseness of his limbs, the spark in his eye. He laughs with the people at his side, sharing that secret language that only dancers can speak, as he hums along to 2PM’s it’s alright, alright, it’s alright. 
When the song transitions to something by aespa, you expect him to keep going. Maybe you even want him to keep going. He doesn’t, though. Just half-jogs back to you with beads of sweat clinging to strands of his bangs. 
“Ready to go?” he asks offhandedly, and you can only nod. You don’t trust yourself to speak yet. 
The two of you go back on your merry way to the bus station. “That was nice,” he huffs out; you have some vague sense that he’s fishing. 
You bite. He deserves that much. “You were good,” you say. “Like, really good.” 
His grin is very what, me?, but you cut him some slack. “I told you,” he shoots back. “Dance studio.”
Even the way he says it. The word ‘dance’. You notice, now, how his voice lilts a bit. Reverence for the craft. There is no doubt: Lee Chan loves to dance. He lives to dance. Which means—
You let out a groan. “I really thought you were a frustrated baker,” you admit, drawing a breathless laugh from your interviewee. 
“I told you it wouldn’t be something like that,” he sing-songs. 
Your shoulders briefly bump into each other. You put a half-step of distance between the two of you. After he’s caught his breath, Chan catches you off-guard: “What about you?” 
“Hm?” 
“You know. Is journalism just a pit stop before you become Seoul’s genderbent Gordon Ramsey?” 
A laugh bubbles out of you before you can stop it. “No,” you answer without missing a beat. “Journalism is… it.” 
“How long have you known you’d get into the field?” 
You feel it, then. The bricks of the wall, sliding into place. Your next words feel like mortar sealing the cracks. “I’m supposed to be the one asking the questions,” you tease, your fingers unconsciously flexing at your side. 
Chan does that thing again where one shoulder rises and falls with attempted nonchalance. Having spent enough time with him, you’ve started to keep a mental repository of his quirks. How he is when he’s faking it until he can make it. How he is when he actually thinks something is good. 
He doesn’t say anything more. You wonder, briefly, if this is a page right out of your book. Waiting for the silence to stretch unbearably so the other person might be forced to fill it. 
You clear your throat. You think of Seungkwan, of Vernon. Build trust. Conversation. Rapport. 
You will have to give as much as you want to get. 
“I’m a bit jealous,” you admit, your voice low like you’re sharing a secret. Maybe you are. It feels like it. “I don’t think there’s anything I’m passionate about outside of writing. And even that, I’m a slave to, you know?” 
It’s supposed to be light. Supposed to be a joke. But Chan is looking at you like he understands, like he sympathizes. It’s in the wry way he smiles, the way he shoves his hands into his coat pockets as if to keep them from clenching and unclenching. He does that, you realized. When he’s excited about something. 
“I hear you,” he says, and it strikes you that he means it. 
So you keep going. It might not be the most ideal situation—could this qualify as trauma-dumping?—but Chan listens well. He nods in all the right places. Throws in a joke or two himself. The two of you are still discussing the whole turning-what-you-love-into-your-job debacle by the time you get to the bus stop, and the conversation is good enough for you two to linger by the benches and let at least two buses pass. 
“Yeah,” you say as the conversation comes to its natural end. “It’s just—I guess I want to write something that matters.” 
You don’t expect Chan to meet you halfway on that sentiment. You don’t doubt his dancing has its own legacy-making end goal, but story-telling is in an entirely different league of its own. Chan understands that much. 
He looks at you, his smile softer at the corners. “Let’s hope I can give you that, then,” he says, the teasing dulled by the sincerity he can’t tamp down. 
A story that matters. 
--
The cookie list is halfway conquered now, sugar and flour and cocoa powder a familiar terrain you navigate with something bordering on affection. Each crossed-off name feels like a mission completed. Almond crinkle from a hole-in-the-wall near Hapjeong that melted on your tongue, a New York-style chocolate chip so thick it could double as a doorstop, a miso caramel that you and Chan argued about for a full subway ride.
You’re walking side by side, crumbs on your sleeves, when Chan, entirely unprompted, drops the bomb like he’s been carrying it in his pocket all day.
“Buttery. Chewy. Thick.” He ticks each word off with a finger, eyes trained straight. “Semi-sweet chocolate chips, probably. Definitely not milk chocolate.”
You stop mid-chew, blinking. “Wait. Are you—are you just now telling me your cookie criteria?”
He nods with all the gravity of someone revealing state secrets. “Yes. I’ve decided you’re ready.”
Your phone is in your hand within seconds. Notes app open. “Say that again,” you prompt. You’ll transfer it to your notebook later. “Slower.”
Chan repeats himself, voice low and deliberate. You transcribe dutifully, thumbs flying over the screen, but your brow pinches at the word thick.
“Thick?” you echo, narrowing your eyes.
“You can’t trust a cookie that flattens like a pancake.”
You honest-to-goodness gasp. “That’s slander. Thin cookies are elite,” you argue. “They’ve got edge crisp. They shatter when you bite in. That’s half the joy.”
He looks at you like you just confessed to liking soggy cereal. “And no raisins,” he throws in for good measure. 
The indignation rises in you like steam. “That’s a hate crime. Raisins have their place!”
Chan grimaces theatrically. “In oatmeal, sure. But not in cookies.”
“But oatmeal is a cookie. It’s nostalgic! Textured! Wholesome!”
“It’s betrayal disguised as dessert.”
You snort. A full, undignified laugh escapes you, loud enough that a couple of people passing by glance over. You duck your head, pretending to examine a croissant in the bakery window. Chan, of course, is utterly unbothered. He’s basking in the win. In riling you up after days of indifference. 
And then—
“See?” he half-joked. “You’re passionate about other things, too.”
You’re not ready for it. The words land like a thud in your chest. You blink, trying to play it off.
Because it’s such a throwaway thing for him to say. A casual observation. Still, it knocks something loose.
You’ve been clawing at meaning lately. 
Tired drafts. Half-finished essays. Interview transcripts that go nowhere. You thought writing about food would save you, would make it matter. That if you turned love into narrative, maybe it would give you something to hold onto.
But here’s Chan, not even trying, reminding you of something you forgot: it’s okay to love something without needing to spin it into something useful. To just love.
You let the thought settle. The warmth of butter. The snap of a crisped edge. The comfort of chewing something that tastes like your childhood.
Maybe you’re allowed to love food for food’s sake. Maybe you’re allowed to love writing separately, too. And maybe—maybe it’s okay not to love them both at the same time.
You glance sideways. Chan’s attention is on a chalkboard menu now. He has no idea that he’s just pulled the rug out from under your existential crisis. No idea that you’re reordering your worldview between bites of cookie.
“I’m gonna grab a coffee,” he says, already stepping toward the register. “If we’re about to argue for another hour, I want to be awake for it.”
He grins at you before he leaves, a flash of teeth and a crinkle of eye. Easy. Unbothered.
You nod mutely, still holding your phone like a lifeline. The cursor blinks at the end of your note.
Buttery. Chewy. Thick. Semi-sweet.
You tuck your phone back into your pocket. Some conversations should be off the record. 
--
You’re supposed to be writing about Seoul’s independent café renaissance. Instead, you’re staring at a blinking cursor and a blinking Chan.
Well. A photo of Chan.
He’s mid-bite in this one, cheeks puffed out slightly, eyes wide with theatrical delight. The cookie in question is half gone. There’s a second photo, blurry, of him doing a little wiggle in place, what you’ve now internally dubbed The Happy Dance. You remember the exact sound he made, too. Something like a muffled mmmph! that might’ve been embarrassing if it weren’t so endearing.
You exhale through your nose, set your phone down screen-first. Focus.
You pull up a different document and try to switch gears. An interview transcription. A listicle about croffles. A half-finished pitch about post-pandemic dessert trends. You give each one a valiant 30 seconds of attention before your mind veers off course.
Back to Chan.
Your fingers sift through the pages of your notebook. It started structured. Professional. Clean. Now?
hates raisins in cookies
buttery chewy thick semi-sweet ONLY
says thank you to bus drivers. every time.
does the happy dance when cookie is a 9.9/10, but will still cross it out on the map wtf
crinkles by the eyes when he laughs (every time??)
once said “i think choreography is just storytelling with muscles”??? what does that MEAN???
You stare at the last one for a second too long. You shake your head, as if that will rattle the thoughts loose.
You have a Google Doc named [Writer’s Close] Lee Chan Cookie Tour. You open it. Read the first sentence. It’s fine. Serviceable. You could probably write four more paragraphs after it, waxing poetics on Chan’s criteria and the fifty cookies you’ve seen him try so far. 
It wouldn’t matter. It doesn’t say anything. 
It doesn’t say that Chan cares deeply and easily. That he notices things like foot placement and poor form in a crowd of strangers, not to nitpick but because he believes people should move like they mean it. That he lights up when he talks about his students. That he grins with his whole body. That he likes cookies the way some people like vinyl. Specific, devotional, particular.
It doesn’t say that he’s surprised you.
You chew your bottom lip, flipping through your camera roll again.
Chan, reaching for a cookie with both hands. Chan, trying to stuff half of it into his mouth at once. Chan, dramatically pretending to faint after a good bite. You catch yourself smiling. Oh no.
You sit back in your chair, stretch your arms above your head like it might pull you back to objectivity. Like the physical act of recentering your spine might recenter your heart, too.
The blinking cursor waits. So does the draft. And you, God help you, are still thinking about the boy who hates raisins.
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How many cookies can a man have before he starts to go insane?
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Coconutbox Cafe & Gallery smells like burnt sugar and acrylic paint. It’s the seventy-something café on Chan’s map—an exact number he could recite in his sleep but one you stopped trying to keep track of after number forty-three. 
Today’s pick is sun-drenched and quiet, tucked between a pilates studio and a bookstore with faded signage. The playlist is indie enough to make you feel cultured but familiar enough not to distract you. Mismatched furniture fills the space in organized chaos: chipped wooden stools, velvet armchairs in colors that were probably fashionable once, and a swing bench that no one actually sits on. 
Chan seems to like it immediately. He always does. There’s something about the newness of a place that makes his face go soft at the edges.
You’re halfway through your drink—something frothy and complicated that you didn’t mean to order but didn’t correct the barista on—when he leans across the table. Chin in hand, eyes curious. “Can I read it?” he asks.
You don’t look up from your laptop. “No.”
“Aww.” He drags the syllable out, mock-wounded. “Why not?”
“Because I want it to be honest,” you say. “No preconceived biases. No shifts in behavior. You might start… posing more.”
He glares at you, dramatically offended. “You think I’m that self-conscious?”
“You wore a beanie for three days straight because you didn’t like how your ears looked in that one photo.”
“Wow,” he mutters, sitting back like you’ve physically wounded him. “Low blow. Personal foul. Yellow card.”
You glance up. He’s pouting, full-lipped and cartoonish. You don’t feel bad about it.
“Just give me a little spoiler,” he pleads. “One sentence.”
You don’t tell him that one sentence is all you have. That you’ve written and rewritten that first sentence countless times in the past couple of months. To be fair, it’s the golden rule of journalism. 
An article is only as good as its hook. With all the time you’ve spent with Chan, you want that hook to be foolproof. The kind they give a Pulitzer to. 
Met with silence, Chan amps up his act. He gasps, clutching his chest like you’ve just told him he’s being cut from the final edit. “Am I that boring?” he bemoans. 
You roll your eyes. “I’m still trying to find the right angle. The perfect execution. I’m biding my time.”
He narrows his eyes. “Uh-huh.”
Then he leans back, and you can see it happen. The spark. The tiny gleam of mischief in his expression. You’ve come to fear it. “Oh,” he says ominously. “Well, if I’m not interesting enough as is, maybe I just need to give you material.”
“Chan—”
Too late. He’s already on his feet. He grabs the empty coffee cup from your tray and balances it on his head like a crown. Then, he plucks a single dried flower from the centerpiece and tucks it behind his ear, like he’s a painter’s muse from a pretentious student film.
“This,” he announces in a deep, solemn voice, “is my artistic era.”
You stifle a laugh. It doesn’t work. “I’m a tortured soul,” he goes on, arms wide, spinning slowly in place. “Fueled only by caffeine and existential dread.”
“Please sit down.”
“Would a boring subject do this?” He strikes a pose in front of the gallery wall, back arched as if he’s modeling for an extremely niche fragrance ad. The dried flower falls out of his ear and lands in his sleeve.
You cover your face with your hands. When you peek through your fingers, he’s still going. Shuffling dramatically across the floor like he’s in a modern dance interpretation of heartbreak, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to make sure you’re watching.
You are.
You’re even laughing now, full and real and impossible to suppress. Your stomach starts to ache in the way it does when you laugh too hard and too long. The barista looks vaguely concerned. Chan doesn’t notice, or maybe he does and just doesn’t care.
Eventually, he returns to the table. Smug and satisfied, like this was all part of a well-rehearsed plan. He sips the last of your drink without asking.
“I take it the writer’s block is gone?” he says, not looking at you as he adjusts the empty cup back onto his head.
You shake your head, trying to steady your grin. “You’re insufferable.”
“Mm,” he hums. “But useful.”
You glance down at your laptop. The sentence still blinks, alone, on the screen. But your fingers twitch. The weight that’s been pressing into your ribcage for days now loosens, just a little. 
You think, maybe, you’ve got your second sentence now. Maybe even a third.
--
You meet Minghao at a tiny place near the newsroom, the kind of café with two outlets per table, quiet lo-fi playing through ceiling speakers, and a chalkboard menu written in both English and a half-hearted attempt at French. It’s clean, minimalist, and exactly the sort of place he’d approve of. Muted palette, simple typography, no nonsense. Even the pastries are geometrically intimidating.
Your coffee arrives first. His, second. Then, without thinking, you add a chocolate chip cookie to your order. It’s not until the cashier bags it that you realize what you’ve done.
Minghao raises a perfectly groomed eyebrow. “That for you?”
You stir your drink like it’s suddenly the most fascinating thing in the room. “No.”
He watches you for a beat, then nods. Like he already knows, but he’ll let you say it anyway. He’s good at that. Letting you inch your way to honesty instead of forcing it out of you. It’s what makes him editor material; you both adore and despise him for it. 
“It’s for Chan,” you finally admit, not meeting Minghao’s gaze.
The corner of his mouth twitches. Just barely. “You’ve grown to care for him.”
“No, no,” you say quickly, too quickly. “This is just—part of the mission. A gesture. Fuel for the fieldwork.”
“Sure.”
You glance at Minghao. He sips his coffee like it’s nothing, like he hasn’t just called your bluff in six syllables or less. “It’s okay,” he says after a moment, voice neutral but not unkind. “It’s not a sin to care about your story and the people who comprise it.”
You nod slowly, but wait. There’s always a but with Minghao. You know it’s coming. He’s not the type to leave things at kindness. You sip. You brace.
“But,” he says, as expected, “remember why you’re here.”
There it is. The bucket of cold water. No dramatics, just clarity. The kind that slices right through the comfort you’ve been pretending isn’t there.
You look out the window, where a new wave of commuters spills onto the street. People moving with direction, with purpose. Everyone headed somewhere. No one wondering if they’re already too close to what they’re supposed to be observing.
You came into this story ready to dig. To get close enough to see the seams and the flaws, to understand what drives a person to visit dozens of cafés in search of the perfect cookie. You thought it would be clinical. Interesting, maybe even charming. But not this.
You didn’t account for how Chan would worm his way in—through humor, through dance, through the moments between café visits. You didn’t expect to memorize the sound of his laugh or learn the difference between his fake pout and the real one.
And now, you’re too close. Not just to the story, but to the boy at its center.
“This is work,” you say as firmly as you can manage.
“It is,” Minghao agrees. He doesn’t press. He doesn’t need to. “So do the work.” 
You nod, even if part of you bristles. Not because he’s wrong, but because he’s too right. You hate how much sense he makes.
The conversation mellows from there. You finish your coffees. You talk about deadlines, the new layout for the online features page. You trade stories. He tells you about the intern who once spelled sablé as sable and defended it with a passionate monologue about endangered animals. You laugh, and the sound is not forced. Minghao smiles, rare and real, like a crack in glass that somehow makes it prettier.
When you stand, he reaches for the cookie bag, peeking inside with an appraising eye. “Thick. Buttery. Semi-sweet,” he observes. He’s seen your notes. He has the memory of a goddamn elephant. “You remembered.”
You snatch it back with a roll of your eyes. “It was a coincidence.”
“Oh, I’m sure,” he says, tone dry.
He lets you go with a knowing look. Doesn’t say anything more. He doesn’t have to. That’s the thing with Minghao. You always leave with more questions than answers, and a better draft because of it.
Late afternoon has dipped into early evening, and you pull your coat a little tighter around you. The cookie bag swings lightly at your side. You walk toward the train station, footsteps steady.
When you pause at the corner, waiting for the light to change, you glance at the nearest trash bin. The thought creeps in: maybe it would be simpler to toss the cookie. Make it a clean break. Cut the thread before it knots.
You hover. One step closer, maybe two.
But you don’t throw it out.
You grip the bag a little tighter instead.
The light changes. Green. You cross the street, the lines, until your feet are taking you where you have to be. 
--
The park is quiet, brushed in soft gold. Everything is painted in warm tones. Leaves, benches, kids on scooters, the worn path beneath your shoes. A dog runs off-leash in the distance. There’s a couple on a blanket sharing earphones. The air is warm, but not oppressive, touched by the early edge of evening.
You spot Chan before he sees you, and for a second, you don’t move. He’s crossing the field, steps light, head tilted slightly like he’s listening to music only he can hear. That same bounce in his gait. Hoodie sleeves pushed up, hair caught in the breeze. The sight of him tightens something in your chest.
You hate that it does.
You’re supposed to be the one in control. The observer. You even practiced the speech in your head on the train ride over. Professional boundaries, clarity, distance. Reminders of what this is and what it isn’t. You swore it wouldn’t get messy.
But then he gets closer, his joy unrepentant in the face of your internal conflict. “I got you something,” he says, lifting a small paper bag like it’s a peace offering.
Your hands tighten around your own little gift. “What?”
“Oatmeal. Thin as cardboard,” he sings. “Thought of you when I saw it.”
Your fingers close around the bag when he offers it, but you don’t look inside. You look at him. You were just about to tell him. Just about to say all the things you rehearsed. How this needs to stay professional. How you can’t afford to blur the lines any further. But now you’re holding this ridiculous cookie, and he’s looking at you with the kind of warmth that comes with preheated ovens.
The bag smells like raisins. He remembered, too. 
You don’t think. Your body moves before your mind can catch up.
You kiss him.
The bag falls, forgotten between you. The cookie, you suspect, is probably flattened beyond salvation.
He freezes for half a second. Just half. Then one hand finds your waist, tentative but sure, while the other slides up to cup the back of your neck. He kisses you like he’s catching up. Like he’s been holding back and didn’t realize until now. There’s the briefest hitch in his breath, then something else takes over.
He kisses you like he means it—and for a second, you let yourself mean it, too.
But it doesn’t last.
Reality crashes in all at once. Too sharp, too loud, too late. You pull away fast, like the kiss burned you. Like the world has snapped back into focus and left you gasping for air. “This isn’t—” You inhale sharply, taking a step back. “God, it’s not right. Fuck!”
Chan looks stunned. “Wait, what?”
“I shouldn’t have done that,” you say, still backing up, swiping your hand over your mouth like it might erase the taste of his Chapstick. “It’s not appropriate. I shouldn’t have—”
“But you kissed me.”
“It was a moment of weakness,” you say, harsher than you mean. “It didn’t mean anything.”
His face falls, just a little. “Didn’t mean anything,” he repeats.
You can’t look at him. You start to turn, hoping maybe the wind or the silence will carry you away from this. “Don’t do that,” Chan says. His voice cuts through the stillness. More steady than you expect. “Don’t walk away like that didn’t just happen.”
You whirl back around, jaw tight. “You don’t get it.”
“Then explain it to me.” 
He’s not screaming. Not really. But his voice rises just enough for a couple of heads to turn, and your stomach churns at the thought of this being some teenager’s tweet of the day. saw a couple breaking up at seoul park lol omg frfr. 
You’re not supposed to be part of that. Part of anything, really. 
“I can’t care about you,” you say. Your voice isn’t steady anymore. “I’m not supposed to. This is a job. You’re—”
You stutter. He waits. You wish he wouldn’t.
“You’re just a guy who likes cookies,” you finish, flat and hollow. “You’re nothing but a story to me.”
Silence follows, thick and immediate. 
You can practically hear the rush of your heartbeat in your ears. The pain doesn’t register on his face all at once. It unfurls, slow and soft, like paper tearing. Chan nods once. He swallows. His mouth curves, barely, into something that might look like a smile if you didn’t know better.
“Okay.” He swallows hard. His shoulders are tight, drawn inward. As if he’s keeping himself from unraveling. 
You want to claim you’re not being cruel. This was just the way of the world, the unsigned contract you two had drafted up. You were the journalist; he was the interviewee. You’re not cruel. You’re not cruel. You’re doing your fucking job. 
Right? Right? 
“Well,” Chan says, his voice quieter than you’ve ever heard it, “if a story is all I am, then I’ll make sure it’s one that matters.”
Your own words, thrown back at you. You dare say you deserve it. There are some lines you can’t uncross, and this feels like one of them. 
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You’re back on the trail. Kind of. Not really.
Chan’s walking beside you, but the lightness in his step is gone. You feel it before you see it. Something dulled at the edges, like music with the treble turned down. The city hums around you, oblivious. There’s a café on every corner, but none of them look promising. They all look like endings.
You try to make conversation. About the weather. About the new seasonal menu. About how one of the cafés you visited last week now sells espresso in waffle cones. Chan nods, polite but absent.
The cookie tasting continues. Technically. The first café’s cookie is overbaked. Dry. Crumbles like disappointment.
The second one has promise—a good smell, a nice shape—but too sweet. He barely chews before passing you a napkin to spit it out. The third café? He doesn’t even bother tasting. One glance at the chalkboard menu and he’s out the door.
You finally say, “I’m sorry.”
Chan cocks his head to one side. “What?”
“For earlier. The park. The kiss. The... everything.”
He doesn’t stop walking, but he slows. Just enough to let the moment catch up. “Let’s just finish,” he says. Not cruelly, but measured in a way that indicates he is truly done with all this. He’s just… going through the motions. “One more left.”
The final café is small and tucked between a laundromat and a nail salon. It’s got a handwritten sign and a cinnamon-heavy smell. There’s a single cookie on display.
You both get one. You eat in silence. It’s chewy, at least. You observe Chan carefully, wondering if this is it. It would be a nice climax. The one hundredth store being the one.
Chan pulls the map from his back pocket. 
You watch as he crosses off the last location. 
He stares at it for a second too long. The whole thing is covered in tiny red x’s, like battle scars. You swallow your bite of cookie, tasting the weight of the world in the chocolate chip that’s not what either of you needed. “So,” you say delicately, “what now?”
He folds the map neatly, tucks it away. “You write your story.”
“And you?”
Chan exhales through his nose. A humorless little breath. “I never eat another cookie again.”
It’s supposed to be a joke, but the punchline never lands. You laugh anyway, the sound unconvincing and weak, because it’s better than silence. It’s better than the look on his face, the one a man gets when he’s lost something. When he hadn’t gotten what he wanted. 
It’s beginning to feel like neither of you are about to get what you want. 
“I’m sorry,” you say again, this time softer. Not for the kiss. For this. For the empty hands and crossed-out boxes.
Chan doesn’t speak right away. His jaw flexes. Then he turns to you, eyes catching yours—and this time he doesn’t look away.
There’s a beat. Two.
His gaze lingers, and it does something to you. “Yeah,” he says at last. “I’m sorry, too.”
And that’s it. That’s all there is.
You stand there beside him in the dying light, two people who went searching for something sweet and ended up with something else entirely. You don’t ask what that something is. You’re not sure you want to know.
--
The cherry on top is that you get tonsillitis.
Not metaphorically. Not poetically. Not the kind of ache that curls under your ribs or hides behind your ribs or flares to life when you pass a bakery that reminds you of a certain boy who used to smile like he’d invented happiness.
No. This time, it’s literal.
Your throat is on fire. Your glands feel like someone slipped rocks into the hollow of your neck. Your voice is gone, your sleep disrupted, and you can’t even swallow without it feeling like glass.
And of course, of course it had to come after all of that. After the story. The kiss. The silence that followed. The slow disintegration of something that was never meant to be more than an assignment.
You sit slouched in a hospital hallway, head tipped against the cold wall, wondering if you’ve somehow earned this. Tonsillitis as divine retribution. An inflamed throat to match an aching heart. An article that hasn’t even gotten past the first sentence.
The fluorescent lights buzz overhead. Someone down the corridor is watching a mukbang on full volume. You are seconds away from shoving a tongue depressor in your own ear just to make it stop when a familiar voice cuts through the din.
You freeze.
It can’t be.
You look up—slowly, cautiously—and there he is.
Chan.
He’s standing not far from you, wearing a navy baseball cap and an oversized hoodie like he’s trying not to be noticed. He’s not alone. There’s an older woman beside him. Elegant. Unsmiling. Her features are drawn in that unmistakable way of someone with experience in the art of shutting people out.
You don’t catch everything they say, but you see it. The subtle tension. The way Chan follows half a step behind, reaching out like he might steady her. She brushes him off. Keeps walking.
Something twists in your stomach.
You don’t know what she is to him. A relative, maybe. His mother? An aunt? The resemblance isn’t glaring, but there’s something in the posture, the deflection, that feels practiced.
Chan calls after her softly. Not loud enough for anyone else to hear. You watch as he jogs after her, gentle hand at her elbow. She doesn’t stop. He falters. He looks around, helpless, and that’s when he sees you.
It’s a split-second flicker of recognition. His eyes widen, just a little. The barest twitch of his mouth. You can’t tell if it’s surprise or guilt or something else entirely.
But you look away.
Because it’s none of your business. Because whatever this is, whoever she is—you’re not a part of it. 
For once, the Universe is on your side. The receptionist calls your name. You scramble towards the doctor’s office, the feeling of Chan’s gaze burning into your back. Dr. Jeon asks everything you expect him to, but all you can really manage are a few choice words that feel like barbed wire being dragged through your throat. 
“It hurts,” you tell your doctor, voice broken and raspy. “It really, really hurts.” 
--
Joshua pokes his head into your cubicle with a grin that immediately puts you on edge. “You have a visitorrr,” he croons. 
You glare at him, throat still raw from last week’s tonsillitis-adjacent hell. “What kind of visitor?”
“The attractive kind.”
You already know who it is.
Still, you don’t expect to see Chan standing in the lobby of your workplace, hands tucked into his jacket pockets, eyes trailing absently across the ceiling like he’s rehearsing something in his head. When he notices you, he straightens. Offers a small, careful smile. Not his usual one. This one’s dimmed, as if someone turned the dial down on him.
You don’t say anything as you lead him to the cafeteria. The air between you carries the ghost of too many almosts.
The coffee here is terrible. The cookies are worse. Neither of you bother.
Chan settles across from you at a small table scratched with initials and hearts carved by interns who fell in love with the wrong people. His hands are clasped together on the table, thumbs twitching in search for rhythm. You realize you haven’t seen him this still in a long time.
“After everything,” he begins, voice forcibly steady, “I think I deserve to ask you one question.”
You suck in a breath through your teeth and ready for impact. For something heavy. Something that might break the room in half.
Do you love me? Why did you kiss me?
Instead—
“What’s your story with food?”
You’re not sure you heard him right. You stare for a minute too long, and he stares right back, as if saying yeah, that’s what I want to know. When you laugh, you’re surprised by how much it aches.
“Do you have the time?” you start, your heart rattling in your chest.
He nods. 
You tell him about your childhood kitchen. The yellowing linoleum, the faded recipe cards, the way your mother used to hum while slicing scallions. You tell him about the little step-stool you stood on to watch her stir soups, how you’d sneak pinches of dough and get scolded half-heartedly.
You tell him about the messes you made trying to bake from memory. About the apple crumble that turned into applesauce. The birthday cake you forgot the sugar in. The ramen experiments that ended in smoke alarms.
You tell him that food was love before you ever had a word for it. That it stitched you and your mother together in ways language never quite could.
Then you tell him about your first story. The one that got you published. A noodle shop three blocks down from where you grew up, run by a ninety-two-year-old widow who spoke in proverbs and gave out extra toppings when no one was looking. You wrote about her hands. Her children. The lineage of flavor passed from one generation to none, and how storytelling, like cooking, could preserve things.
People. Taste. Time.
You tell him about the guilt, too. The constant, low hum of it. How ridiculous it sometimes feels to write about something so soft in a world that feels like it’s made of broken glass. How food writing isn’t just about what’s delicious. It’s about what’s been lost. What you’re desperate to hold on to.
Chan listens. He buys you a bottle of water when you start to stutter. He never looks away. 
When you run out of breath, out of steam, he exhales slowly, like he’s been holding his own this whole time. His turn. 
“I guess,” he says, “if I had to pick one story to explain me, it’s her.”
You don’t need to ask who. You already know.
“She always had this chocolate chip cookie in her purse. Same brand. Same crinkle on the packaging,” he says, and the look on his face shows he’s already half-lost to memory. “I don’t even think she liked them, but she made sure I always had one. She’d hand it to me at the end of every visit. Channie, for you.”
His eyes are glassy, but not wet. Not yet. “I know it was store-bought. She wasn’t a baker,” he goes on. “She burned toast. But that cookie—it stuck. It was her. A kind of love language, I guess.”
“And that’s what this was all about?” you ask. Gently. So gently. “Finding it again?”
He nods. “I thought if I could find that exact one, maybe it would… I don’t know. Bring her back. Even for a second. Maybe time might crack open a little and let her through.”
The implication hits like a truck. Your voice lowers. “She’s sick?”
“Alzheimer’s.”
He doesn’t say it for sympathy. He says it like he’s still talking about the weather. Inevitable. Slow and cruel and impossible to predict.
“She started forgetting where she put her keys,” he narrates. “Then names. Then faces. I thought it was just age catching up to her. I didn’t… I didn’t think it was this.”
He glances away for the first time, and you don’t demand he keep his eyes on you. You don’t ask if you can pull out your recorder so you can get all this verbatim. This isn’t that kind of moment. 
“And now, she barely knows who she is,” Chan goes on. “I visit. I talk. Sometimes I sing old songs she used to like. Mostly, I just sit. I just sit there and hope. I sit with my hope, you could say.”
There’s no drama in the way he says it. Just grief. Lived-in. Paper-thin. There is no teeth in your silence. Not this time. There is only space for Chan to be, and that’s exactly what he does. What he gives you. 
“I thought maybe if she tasted it again—just once—it’d click,” he finishes. “She’d remember me. She’d call me Channie again. I thought that would be enough.”
You want to say something. Anything. But there are places that words don’t reach, where no degree in journalism can help. Where you can hear the quiet, It was not enough. 
You do what is second best. 
Your hand rests over Chan’s. He doesn’t pull away, but he doesn’t reciprocate either. He just lets the warmth of your palm stay there. In fact, he stares at it as if the answer might exist in the spaces between your fingers. You have taken what he’s come to give. You’ve given what he’s asked. 
He stands after a long while. The chair scrapes back with a reluctant sigh. “I should go,” he says, tight-lipped and dry-eyed despite the waver in his voice.
You rise with him. “Chan—”
“Thanks for listening.” It’s plain and simple. No frills. An echo of affection, maybe, but not the kind that demands. 
You draw back. You give him grace. “Thanks for trusting me with it,” you respond.  
This is where the sentence should end, where the line should break. But Chan offers you a rueful smile, hands stuffed in his pockets, head tilted just slightly. “You’re missing the point,” he says.
He walks away before you can ask what the point is. What’s the point of anything, really. 
You’re left there at the table with its long-forgotten initials and hearts, feeling like something else is carving within you. 
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Food is magic, because food is memory. A man named Lee Chan has tried to chase that magic for over half a year.
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Minghao reads your first draft in silence.
You hate that you’re watching him instead of looking over your own work. Every flick of his red pen feels like a personal attack, even when it doesn’t land on anything at all. He’s halfway through page three when you realize you’ve been holding your breath.
You pick at your thumbnail. Regret it instantly. It throbs under the pressure, but the pain feels easier to manage than the tension building in your chest. When Minghao finally sets the pages down, you sit up straighter and prepare for carnage.
“It’s good,” he says simply.
You blanch. “Good?”
He nods. Crosses his arms over his chest. “Solid structure. Strong voice. A little long, but it’s got bones.”
You know you should be relieved. Instead, there’s this twisting in your gut. It’s like you ate something bad, and you try not to let it show on your face. 
Minghao narrows his eyes, immediately catching on. “But?”
You try to deflect. “No but.”
“Liar.”
You deflate. “I’ve been so scared of screwing this up,” you blurt out. “Of letting you down. When you said ‘remember why you’re here,’ I thought... I don’t know. That maybe I wasn’t doing enough. That I was getting too close. That I was crossing a line.”
Minghao tilts his head. The sharpness of him softens, just a little. “You misunderstood me.” 
He leans forward. Taps a finger on the table between you. “What’s the most important thing about a cookie?” he asks. 
Your eyes twitch. “The... flour?”
He stares. “Okay. No,” he rephrases. “Let me rephrase. What’s the most important thing about food?”
“Salt?”
“God.” He presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “People. It’s people.”
You stare. He continues, more gently now. “Vernon’s story about candy shone because it was about tradition. Culture. Community. The way a single sweet tied together generations. Seungkwan’s was about food tech, but really, it was about ingenuity. Human innovation in the face of resource scarcity. Even Joshua’s piece about AI ramen wasn’t just about automation. It was about how technology still tries to mimic human intuition.”
His voice is measured, but there’s something in it. A belief. The kind that only comes from loving something deeply, and for a long time. You’re silent, letting it wash over you. Letting it settle in the hollows of your chest.
“At the root of food,” Minghao continues, “behind every recipe that’s unwritten or winged, every craving, every comfort—there’s people. Someone made that dish for someone else. Or remembered it. Or passed it down.” 
“The food we love is only as good as the people who make it,” he says. “The stories we tell are only as good as the people behind them.”
You don’t realize you’ve stayed quiet until Minghao looks at you with that familiar editor’s patience. The kind he uses when he knows you’re on the edge of a revelation, only needing a push.
You think of Chan. Not the cookie-searching version. Not the boy who tried and failed to track down a taste from his past. Just Lee Chan. His grin. His terrible jokes. His self-assured rhythm. 
The corners of his eyes, the crumbs underneath his nails. The way his voice wavered when he talked about his grandmother. The weight he’s carried all alone. The hope, still flickering.
“I made him a punchline,” you murmur, the horror settling low in your gut. “I made him a mission.”
Minghao shrugs. “You made him a start,” he says, forgiving in a way you’re not sure you deserve. “Now you get to decide where you finish.”
You exhale. A long, unsteady breath. There’s a beat of silence. The air feels different now. Lighter, but charged. Like the moment before a storm breaks, or the second before a leap.
“I need an extension,” you declare. 
Nobody asks Minghao for extensions. He runs the newsroom with military precision, and you can’t blame him. Journalism relies on clockwork—press cycles, deadlines in red pen. But you’ve come to understand that some things are bigger than that. More important. Worth going against everything you believe. 
“Yeah.” You meet Minghao’s gaze, steady and unwavering. “I want to tell the story right.”
For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. Then he taps the table once. When he smiles, it’s slow and small. Real. 
“Okay,” he concedes. “Go write something that matters.”
This time, you know what that means.
You just have one thing to do before that. 
--
You show up to Chan’s studio and immediately wonder if this was a mistake.
He answers the door in a hoodie too big for him, sleeves pushed to the elbows, hair damp like he’s just showered or maybe it’s sweat-slick from rehearsal. There’s a beat of surprise in his expression before it hardens, folding in on itself like wet origami.
“Hey,” you try, voice quiet but even.
“Hey,” he echoes, flat.
It stings more than it should. A hollow ache opens up in your chest, sharp and cold. You shift on your feet, offering a small, uncertain smile. “I have something for you.”
He raises a brow. “Unless it’s the cookie I’ve been looking for, I’m not sure I’m interested.”
You breathe through your nose. “Give me one chance,” you say, wincing at the sound of your own begging. “That’s all I’m asking.”
Chan looks at you, unreadable. For a second, you think he might actually shut the door in your face. You’d deserve it. 
But then he sighs, grabs a jacket hanging from a hook behind the door, and mutters, “Lead the way.”
You’re not sure why he agreed, but you’re not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe he took pity. Maybe there’s still some residual respect from the moment shared in your company cafeteria. Whatever it is, you know it’s temporary. Fleeting. One shot to get things right. 
You take Chan to a co-baking studio tucked into a homely alley in Mapo-gu. 
The air inside smells like vanilla and ambition. Stainless steel counters stretch out in clean lines. There’s sunlight pouring in through high, smudged windows. Rows of labeled jars—sugar, nutmeg, semisweet chocolate chips—stand like small sentinels. It’s industrial, but cozy. Clean. Bright. Full of possibility.
Chan squints. “What is this?”
“A baking studio.” You gesture around with a tilt of your head. “I booked us a session. You have everything you need to try again. One last time.”
His head snaps to you. “You want me to bake?”
“Yes.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“You do realize I don’t know how to bake, right?”
“That makes two of us.”
You see it, then. The tiniest crack in his demeanor. The corner of his mouth twitches, the beginnings of a smile surfacing, then retreating like a wave too nervous to reach the shore. He gives you the ultimatum you were already half expecting: “I’m not doing this without you.” 
You sigh, mostly for show. “Fine.”
The instructor gives you two a brief rundown, gesturing toward the pre-measured ingredients and the recipe card in bold type. Then, mercifully, she disappears, leaving you alone. 
The two of you pull on aprons that are slightly too big and immediately begin fumbling like contestants in a reality show neither of you signed up for. The butter isn’t soft enough. The sugar spills. Chan nearly drops an egg on the floor, and you burn your hand lightly on the oven door.
There’s flour on the counter, on your sleeves, in your hair. The vanilla extract sloshes over the measuring spoon. The dough looks more like cement than something edible. 
It’s a disaster, but it’s yours.
You glance at Chan after a particularly clumsy attempt at whisking, and the two of you dissolve into laughter. It bubbles up from your chest, full and warm, like something you’d forgotten you still had in you. Chan looks startled to hear it, like he hadn’t expected joy to make an appearance.
“This is terrible,” he says, grinning despite himself.
“Objectively,” you agree, shaking your head.
His smile stays this time. 
You lean over the counter to scoop a bit more flour, and in doing so, you miss the look he gives you—soft, open, maybe even wanting. He reaches out without thinking. His thumb brushes your cheek, slow and sure, wiping away a smudge of flour you didn’t know was there.
He doesn’t say anything about it. Neither do you. You don’t have to. The moment stretches, unspoken and delicate, like a string pulled tight but unbroken. There’s something in his eyes when you finally meet them. Something fragile and fierce all at once.
You look away first.
The cookies make it to the oven. You’re both perched on metal stools, watching the timer count down. The smell starts to fill the room. Warm, chocolate-laced, a little too sweet.
It’s not quite forgiveness. Not quite love, either.
But it feels like it could be.
--
“You don’t have to do this,” you say, which translates loosely to I don’t have to be here for this. 
Chan shakes his head, as if to say, You should be here. 
The fluorescents of the hospital lights are unforgiving. The only warm thing in the hallway is the tupperware of cookies nestled in Chan’s death grip. Your fingers instinctively brush over his knuckles, and he loosens his hold enough to let the plastic grip. 
You’re standing in front of the hospital room. Once again, you have that striking feeling that you don’t belong. That this isn’t somewhere you should be, not a story you should be a character in. 
But Chan is looking at you with please written all over his face, and who are you to deny him? 
Your throat works around the words. “Ready?” 
He takes a shaky breath. “Give me a minute.” 
You would give him the world, really, if he asked. The two of you stand side by side for a couple more moments, until Chan breaks it with words that are edged with a healthy dose of nervousness. “Do you remember the conversation we had at the cafeteria?” 
You nod wordlessly in response. His eyes dart skyward for a moment. “I said you were missing the point,” he notes. 
Right before he’d left. You’re missing the point. 
You think of Minghao’s claws retracting enough to tell you about the people behind food. You think of the stories you’ve written, the voices that bleed into every single one of them. You think of your own mother. 
You think of kitchens you’ve outgrown, and people you’ve loved, and you understand. You know, now, what the point is. To Chan’s mission. To your article. To everything. 
Your hand rests at his elbow. You give it a gentle squeeze. This story is bigger than the two of you. It’s always been, hasn’t it? 
Chan nods and pushes the door open. 
It’s all a little clearer with context. The silver-haired woman you’d seen way back then is undoubtedly a blood relative of Chan’s. The same nose, same set of lips. She’s still unsmiling, still closed off, and the knowledge of what she’s gone through has the puzzle pieces in your mind falling into place. 
She looks up when you and Chan walk in. She says nothing, though, even as Chan pauses by the door. As if he’s waiting to be yelled at, to be told to leave. It makes your heart clench in your chest. 
Chan’s voice is impossibly soft as he pads further into the sunlit room. “Halmeoni,” he greets. “It’s me. I’ve brought… a friend.” 
She glares at Chan, face devoid of recognition, before glancing at you. You raise your hand in an awkward wave before folding into a clumsy bow. Chan’s grandmother says nothing about your abysmal manners. 
You’re a stranger to her. That adds up. But Chan being a stranger to her—
You feel the sudden urge to cry. You have to glance away from this shell of a woman lest you actually do start sobbing. This moment is not supposed to be about you.  
Chan approaches her as if he were nearing a particularly skittish animal. “I’ve brought you a snack,” he says, already popping the top off the Tupperware. His fingers are shaking as he says, “Do you want to try one?” 
The smell of chocolate and sugar wafts through the room. Something shifts in the old woman’s expression. The slightest twitch. You watch, wretched, as Chan perks up. 
His grandmother reaches into the Tupperware. Her bony fingers bring the cookie to her mouth, and she takes the smallest of bites. 
Despite having already said earlier that the cookie is nothing like the one he used to have as a kid—too sweet, too crumbly, too obviously made by someone without experience—Chan looks devastatingly hopeful. He doesn’t look his age. He looks like a child waiting in the pleats of his grandmother’s skirt, hoping to be handed the love that was his since the moment he was born. 
His grandmother chews, careful and slow. Considering, you want to believe. 
She keeps chewing. She takes another bite. 
Nothing in her face changes.
Chan’s shoulders fall. 
You’re at his side in the next moment. You don’t say anything, don’t do anything drastic. A hand at the small of Chan’s back. That’s all you offer. A reminder of what has been done, who has been loved. Despite, despite, despite. 
Chan looks towards you and breathes. In, out. An inhale that bears the weight of memory. An exhale that lets the grief unravel. 
“Well,” he says, managing a smile, “I guess that’s it.” 
You smile back at him. “It’s okay,” you say, even though it’s not, and Chan nods, even though he doesn’t think so, either. 
Chan lingers for just a couple minutes more, giving his grandmother updates about his day even though she says nothing in response. She just works her way through the cookie, blank eyes fixed on Chan as he talks about his parents and the dance studio. 
Eventually, Chan catches your wrist and gives it a gentle squeeze. “We should head out,” he says. “Visiting hours are over soon.” 
You nod. You look to his grandmother who still has crumbs at the corners of her mouth. 
“It was nice meeting you, halmeoni,” you say, and though you’re not quite sure why, you feel compelled to add, “Thank you.” 
That, at least, makes Chan’s smile a little more genuine. Like he understands the weight of you thanking her. He keeps his hold on your wrist as you two turn away. 
When his grandmother speaks, it’s with the musicality that undoubtedly runs through Chan’s veins. You catch the way her eyes crinkle—a joy that is inherited, passed down. Pressed into a grandchild’s hands at family gatherings. 
“Where did you get this cookie, boy?” she asks Chan. “I think my grandson would like it.” 
--
The cashier offers you a free cookie at the register—some kind of promotional thing—and Chan immediately shakes his head.
You glance at him. He glances back. A shared look. A brief pause. Then, unbidden, a laugh slips from your lips. It startles you in its ease. He chuckles, too. 
You take the cookie, cradling it like something precious. “Old habits die screaming,” you say as the two of you slide into your seats.
Chan grins fondly. "Some things are worth keeping alive."
You sit across from each other, mugs nestled between your palms, steam curling into the space between you. The café hums around you. Low music, clinks of cutlery, snippets of conversation that blur into background noise. It acts like a privacy screen. Cocooning. Comforting. There’s a subtle stiffness to it, like a page that’s been folded one too many times.
It’s been a couple of months.
After the hospital. After your deadline. After you had to text Chan that the story was being banked for a bit, and he responded with a GIF of a cartoon otter sobbing. Romance didn’t click into place like you thought it might; it’s not like you were owed that, either. The two of you didn’t really keep in touch, but the tension nonetheless lingered in every pastry listicle, in every dance video, in every article about being one step closer to a cure for Alzheimer’s. 
You were the one to eventually invite him out for coffee. You made it a point to choose a place that hadn’t been on his map, which had been a near-impossible feat. 
“I’m sorry for disappearing,” he says first, thumb grazing the lip of his mug, his voice pitched low.
“You didn’t,” you say quickly. “Life just shifted.”
Shifted. That’s one way to put it. Chan nods, taking the grace. “My grandmother’s back home now. Out of hospice,” he tells you. 
Your breath hitches a little at that. “That’s good,” you say, and there’s nothing feigned about your enthusiasm.
“It is. I’m with her most days now. She doesn’t always know who I am, but…” He cracks the smallest of grins. “Sometimes, she smiles when I sit beside her.”
Your chest aches in that quiet, bruised kind of way. You reach across the table, let your pinky hook against his. The contact is small. It feels monumental. “I’m glad she has you,” you say.
He gives you a look you can’t quite name. It lands somewhere between gratitude and grief. “And you?” he asks, pinky curling around yours like muscle memory. “What’s the story these days?”
You shrug, take a sip of your coffee. It’s a little too hot, but you welcome the burn. It grounds you. “Got assigned something called The Joy of Food.”
Chan’s face lights up. That same rare brightness you’ve always been drawn to, like a match flaring in the dark. “That’s your Story.”
You tilt your head, smile lopsided. “You’d think so. But I’ve spent more time polishing yours.”
He mimics you. Head tilted to one side, grin crooked in an endearing, confused sort of way. “Mine?”
“It’s not ethically sound to show an interviewee the final article,” you say, trying for professionalism. Failing miserably. You’re nervous. More nervous than when you pitched the sugar conspiracy article to Minghao. 
“But—” you say, “I could show my boyfriend.”
Chan’s brows shoot up so high they disappear behind his bangs. Then, he laughs. Really laughs. Wide and real, the corners of his eyes crinkling in that familiar way you’ve come to adore. It makes something in your chest loosen. “Are you asking—”
You shrug again, casual in that not-so-casual way. “Depends,” you say, too quick to be casual. “Are you saying yes?”
He leans across the table, hand sliding over yours. “Let me have a taste first,” he hums, “and then we’ll figure out the rest.”
You meet him halfway. 
His lips are soft, a little coffee-warmed, a little sugar-slick. There’s a stillness to it, the kind that comes after a storm. You feel the curve of his mouth against yours, and so you let yourself smile, too. Let the kiss be nothing more than a kiss. Not a story to tell, not a metaphor for anything else.
He pulls back just enough to murmur against your mouth, “Sweet.”
“Like cookies?”
“Even sweeter.”
You groan, but it’s affectionate. He kisses you again just to prove a point. You pull back this time, breathless and just the right amount of dizzy. “Don’t you want to see my first sentence?”
“Let me kiss my girlfriend for a little more,” he argues, mouth already chasing yours.
The Google Doc glows faintly on your phone screen beside the mugs, open but unattended. It bears the title you agonized over for weeks. The cursor blinks after the last sentence. 
You don’t care if a thousand people read it, or if only one does. You don’t care if it wins awards or garners likes or clicks. It holds everything that mattered, all in a few thousand words. 
It’s not your story anymore.
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In a Seoul hospice, there is a grandmother who loves her grandson more than anything in the world—even if she may not remember him.
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prettieinpink · 2 years ago
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NEW YEAR, NEW ME
( A collab with thee lovely lele @bloombabydoll )
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If you want to reinvent and rebrand yourself, or just continue to make positive improvements in 2024, the first thing is to evaluate your current year. 
EVALUATION
Reflect on how things went for you. Was there continuous growth? Were there many difficult times? Did you discover anything major about yourself and so on. Try to summarise your year in (a) paragraph(s) at least. 
Oversee your goals. Which ones you didn’t, did achieve, difficult ones, easy ones and the impacts it had on your life. 
Compare your dream girl then and now. Is your visualisation of your life currently different to the one you have now and why? 
List any major losses or successes you’ve had in your life, and how they have helped you or why it matters to you. 
This evaluation can be as detailed or simple as you like, but as long as you have a decent outline of your year. 
PREPARING & PLANNING
To prepare for 2024, you want to know what you want life to be like in 2024. Something realistic to a point, but still is a growth journey. 
Think of something that you can associate with 2024. This can be a word, a symbol, art, a song, a book, a movie, a place, or even just all of these things. When you think about your goals and your journey, this is your theme. This is something that should relate to your goals or your dream girl somehow. 
For me, I chose a word and a song. My word is growth because, for me, 2023 was a year for just being able to shed my old self which I did achieve however I just felt there wasn’t much growth as an actual person and not just in my environment. 
For my song, it is Mayflowers by Proleters and Taskrok. This song is the epitome of what I would imagine, is the most polished mindset. I would say perfect, but having a perfect mindset is near impossible. I want to have a mindset glow up because I’ve just been hard on myself lately which has caused my confidence to plummet. 
Before we get into the fun part of the preparation stage, we have to do some organisation in our life. I want you to take a look at your daily lifestyle and your habits, and be completely unashamed about this. 
Then categorise these habits into two sections; Leave and Leap. Leave habits are habits that you are leaving behind in 2023, leap habits are habits that are leaping into 2024 with you. 
Any habits that are self-destructive, addictive or generally harmful are leave habits. Beneficial habits and self-building are leaping with you into the new year.
I want you to do the same for people in your life, all environments (school, work, online etc) and anything else you believe needs to be sorted out. 
This works better if you can reason with yourself why it is a leaping or leaving habit, but don’t try to convince yourself a bad habit is good or vice versa. 
Now, I want you to document an honest paragraph about who you are right now. List your bad and good habits, your strengths and weaknesses and your behaviours. This one requires a bit more detail. 
Then, write a paragraph about who you will be in 2024, your dream girl. List her habits, lifestyle, behaviours, mindset, strengths and anything else extra. I’ll explain later but do not include materialistic desires in this your dream girl. Once again, this one also requires details. 
Stemming from those paragraphs, I want you to create specific and achievable goals. SMART goals are best, but I want to introduce you to how I set goals. 
I divide my year into quarters. For each 3 months, I have 3-5 goals for those months. Usually, it’s one from each area of my life. Then, I break down these goals. 
Questions and How They Help 
Why do I want to do this goal - For motivation and commitment. 
How it’ll benefit me - For the sake of improvement. 
How can I involve myself in this goal - To achieve your goal.  
I prefer this method because it is a lot simpler for me, as I am just a young girl and my bigger goals are more in the future in which I’ll utilise SMART goals. 
To create good goals; Make sure they align with your current values and life principles first. Try to avoid creating goals that you have just taken from the internet. Those goals just aren’t it and you most likely won’t follow through with it. 
Be specific. Don’t say you want to eat more healthily, instead say you want to include (a certain group of veggies/fruits) in your diet and reduce the intake of ( food/drink). 
E.g using eating healthy example
I want to eat healthy -> I want to start including foods that boost my immunity system and support my skin while reducing those that have the opposite effect. 
Then break down those quarterly goals into monthly, weekly and daily goals. Make these habits that you can establish in your lifestyle and have a way in which you can refer back to your progress. 
EXAMPLE GOAL BREAKDOWN
Quarterly Goal - Read 6 books.  
Monthly Goal - Finish 2 books.
Weekly Goal - Be or near half way of one book.
Daily Goal - 20 minutes of reading per day. 
AREAS TO SET GOALS IN YOUR LIFE
Academics
Spiritual
Fitness/sport
Health and wellbeing
Mental health
Personal life
Relationships
Hobbies and recreation
Now for the best part- vision boards! Collect all of your favourite images that embody your quarters or the whole year, then put them in one place where you can see them regularly!
Some ideas are a scrapbook, Pinterest boards, mood boards, playlists etc. 
Choose your theme; It can be your healthy girl era, your academic come back or whatever you want. You can have more than two btw.
Use quotes! Then actually say them in your daily life as a way to shift your mindset to reflect said quote.
Include inspirational people. It doesn't even have to be a millionaire or a very well established person, it could be your friends or someone on the internet.
Be imaginative. Your vision board doesn't have to realistic in my opinion, as the whole point of it to me is that viewing it daily and considering it to be part of your life one day allows for you to open up to those opportunities.
Materialistic Wants
I feel obligated to make this a separate section. This section is practically tangible objects that you want.
However, when choosing this said object that you want, mindfully think about why you want that thing specifically.
It doesn’t have to be meaningful, but as long as each thing on that list has got a purpose to you, and will serve you, I think it’s all good!
Conclusion
If you want, you can definitely start implementing habits before January. However, I believe that as long as you go into 2024 at least knowing who you want to be and shedding away any limiting beliefs, you’ll be fine.
Make sure to incorporate some self care rituals into your daily life as well✨
To end this, I hope everyone has a very merry Christmas! And that 2024 they will achieve to close that gap with their current selves and their dream girl selves! 💖🙏
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throughtrialbyfire · 8 months ago
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NoSkipNovember
in light of the NaNoWriMo… trash fire, i decided i'd make my own event for myself. and if you want to participate, feel free! i know i'm making this post late as it's already november 1st here, but it happens AHAH. this is just a personal challenge i thought up yesterday evening, and it may help some other people!
Rules of NoSkipNovember
write every day of november, whether 1 word or 10,000.
that's it.
the point of NoSkipNovember is to build the habit of writing, even things that are small. it's to get you to sit down and, in whatever medium you write, to get in the habit of continuing to write.
what can you write?
anything! poetry, songs, outlines, plotting documents, books, short stories, as long as it's creative writing in some form, you are doing it right.
can i set a word goal?
yes!! if you want to set a daily word goal or the usual month goal, go for it! mine is the traditional 50k words, but you could set it for 500 or 500,000 or whatever you want. just be sure to take your time, and take breaks to stretch and move around.
does it have to be original fiction?
not at all, fanfiction is what i'm going to be focusing on, so if you wanna write that, you should!
i have another question
feel free to leave it in the replies or my inbox! i'm always happy to help. this is a very spur-of-the-moment, loose challenge, so feel free to make your own personal rules or stipulations. as long as you are having fun, getting some writing done, and feel accomplished, that's what matters.
that's it. have fun, hope you have a lovely NoSkipNovember!
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odileeclipse · 1 month ago
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So…I supposed it’s fair to say you’re an outstanding author and so I’d like to ask for some advice! I wanna get into writing for fun in my free time but whenever I write I just kinda make it up as I go…and I’d like to know how you go about planning how a story goes? And how you lay it out and such. It would really help! Ps THANK YOU FOR TWO CHAPTERS IN A DAY YOU’VE BLESSED US 🫶🫶🫶
HEY! First of all thank you so much for being kind, and I'm thrilled on your behalf for writing for fun! That's how it should be!
So I just want to start of by saying there is no wrong or right way to write, the act of writing is learning, we gain new knowledge as we go, and any form of it is building resilience.
Making it up as you go is a valid and powerful method called discovery writing, I've done it too before, but I find for me I need a lot more structure, well personally I tend to make it up as I go for one-shots since they're short formed and don't require as much structure. In the sense that I can complete Freytag's triangle easily since everything would happen in one small story.
When I start planning a story I begin by asking what I want to accomplish with the story, and what I want the tone to be. I write out the characters I know will be in the story, I try to read up and write everything I know about them and then once I have that in mind and written down on a doc I can begin to outline my story.
I often keep a loose three-act structure in mind, but never let it box me in. The first act sets everything up who they are, what they want, and what’s missing. The second act brings tension, conflict, secrets, or obstacles. The third act is the shift: a choice, a change, a moment of clarity that echoes everything they’ve been through. Even if I deviate, that structure is a comfort. It reminds me what kind of journey I’m walking the reader through.
But above all, character drives everything. Before I even touch plot, I ask What does this character want? What are they afraid of? What do they believe about themselves, rightly or wrongly? A well-built character will naturally create story through their actions, reactions, and contradictions. That’s where real plot comes from people, not just events. (this is just my biased opinion)
From there, I usually write a “zero draft.” Not a first draft just chaos. No pressure to be pretty, coherent, or even readable. It’s where I let myself play and explore, knowing I’ll shape it later. (not always but sometimes) Alongside that, I open up a little ramble document where I talk to myself “Okay, what happens next? What’s her deal? Why would he react like that?”
Being your own co-writer your own curious narrator helps you break through blocks without feeling like you’re failing.
And honestly, the best thing I’ve learned is to be flexible. A plan isn’t a prison. If I fall in love with a different ending halfway through, I let myself follow it. If a character surprises me, I let them. Changing your mind isn’t giving up it’s discovering what the story really wants to be.
But I know what really helps is to learn rhetoric, and rhetorical appeals. It's not required at all but it does help, I'm sure you've already learned it in school before but it doesn't hurt to watch a short video on it.
If it helps, here's a mini template I use sometimes when planning chapters
Chapter X
Purpose: (What is this chapter doing? Revealing something? Deepening a relationship?)
Setting: (Where are we? Where will we go?)
Mood/Theme: (Soft? Tense? Bitter? Bittersweet?)
What changes: (By the end, what’s different?)
Key moments: (Write them out as bullet points.)
Sorry this was super long but my writing process mainly goes like that but of course I'm never confined by it, so I always can just go as I want but I make sure I write down what I changed and how I deviated from my original plan.
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erinwantstowrite · 2 months ago
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might seem a bit out of nowhere
but i wanted to ask how you get started in writing. and i mean like how do you get into the ✨️flow✨️ of it after sitting down. 'cause i just tend to stare at my laptop
i struggle with getting into the flow a lot. which sounds crazy with how much i write, but it's true. usually when this happens, it's because i have a lot of inspiration, but no energy to complete anything. i have to make sure i start writing when i'm feeling good, after taking a break from my writing space. sometimes it's because im so exhausted from outside sources, which is more annoying than if i just needed a break from writing
but sometimes that writer's block hits HARD. sometimes i'm also staring at my document and not writing for hours on end. and when i do write, im in a constant state of "i don't like this" where i rewrite a chapter or just a singular scene over and over and over again. THIS is where i'd say i struggle the most with getting myself into the flow, and i can share what i do to guide myself out of it (here's a post i made a while back with other tips)
IMPORTANT: notice how i said GUIDE. you can not FORCE yourself into a flow. I repeat, you can not. it's impossible to force a flow, and if you try, you'll only make yourself hate writing. however. you can help yourself to get into a flow
-i take the time to go outside and/or get some exercise. i also mentioned that in the linked post but it's important so i talk about it a lot. i've recently decided to take up photography and birdwatching, and I got myself a hammock. as someone who's struggled with finding ways to enjoy being outside (I live in Louisiana and it's like i'm being slow cooked to death during the spring and summer), that's what gets me out there. i also make sure i hydrate and eat well because our bodies need fuel in order to create
-i read something new or i go back to something i haven't read in a while, and that (usually) helps TONS. i recently read some Sherlock adventures and I had a blast. right now I'm picking apart a "psychology" book (this author should be glad we will never meet, my annotations have not been kind), and i'm reading a book about fashion history. and my friends and I are going to start reading Dracula in our book club soon, which is exciting!! i have a lot of books on my to-read shelf and i annotate all of them. the annotations aren't necessary for this if you want to try but it's fun for me
(^ that being said, i'm gonna add on: sometimes i go reread fanfics that i like, and that's all well and good. there are very talented writers who only write fanfic!! but it's important to also read published works as well. if anyone wants a random recommendation for a book to try, hit me up. i'll give you a book that i have on my shelf or that i've been wanting to read for a while)
-i make a playlist or listen to a playlist to get in the mood before i try writing. specifically, i need something that i can imagine some scenarios to. i can't listen to music while i'm writing cause i'll get distracted, but doing so before helps me figure out the vibe im going for
-drawing. oftentimes i need a visual of what i'm trying to write. whether it's something like a character interaction or something like "i have no idea where everything/everyone is in this scene," it helps to have some paper nearby
-journaling!! i've talked about this a lot on here but i journal more than Ford in Gravity Falls. I'm not joking. I have a bookshelf dedicated to literal decades of writing and learning about writing. i have two notebooks for LoF, one for my DnD campaign, one for my personal records, etc. I have a new notebook ready for writing essays about the books i recently bought and am reading. my LoF notebooks are dedicated to messily writing up brainstorms or writing through scene ideas, i've written partial chapters in them by hand, etc etc. this helps me when im not in a writing mood to at least be doing SOMETHING. i rewrite my outline a LOT. also it helps me keep track of my timeline (i still fuck it up sometimes)
-actually forcing myself to sit down in front of the computer.
this sounds like the most obvious thing, but i'm talking i close out all my other tabs that i don't need for writing, i put my phone away across the room or in a different one entirely, i put on headphones and listen to only brown noise OR i get on a call with my friends to make myself not want to open Youtube or anything else. i'd rather sit there and stare at my computer than sit there and scroll on my phone or get distracted with something else and then be upset that i didn't write. even just staring at the document and working it out without writing a single word is better than that, because it means i was still working
in all honesty, you don't know you're in a flow until it Clicks. you could go do all of these and gain experience and knowledge for months on end and not write anything that whole time, and then one day you sit down and you knock out an entire chapter like nobody's business. it's just important to take care of yourself in the meantime and keeping your mind fresh
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little-one-eyed-monsters · 8 days ago
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So, I'm breaking my silence.
Hello friends from the BL side of Tumblr!
To my followers and mutuals, this blog has actually been on hiatus for a few weeks now. Aside from the occasional reblog, I haven't been posting as frequently as I used to.
I didn't mean to go on hiatus, but the primary reason I went on a much-needed break is because for the past couple of weeks, my asks and inbox have been plagued by some members of a particular solo fandom hell-bent on accusing me of spreading hate towards their artist in favor of another. These star-adjacent sasaengs apparently saw one of my "Hot Takes" here shared on X, and got it in their heads that I was hating on their "blonde baby" and siding with the "grandpa" (words THEY USED in the ACTUAL message! It would be so funny if it wasn't so convoluted).
Now, I don't know how a 24 year-old fully grown-adult became so helpless and infantilized in their eyes that they started calling him "my baby", and how a 34 year-old in the peak of his physique and career got labelled as a grandpa, but hey, what makes sense to these people right? I also don't understand how my Hot Takes, which stated verbatim that it's their agencies at fault, and labelled BOTH artists of the ship as victims (with me outlining how bad the backlash will get for each of them), could be seen as me "hating" on either actor. Just because I said that one artist, who is TEN YEARS YOUNGER than his former ship partner, doesn't have an actual criminal record, and has not been blacklisted on Thai media yet, will... recover his career? That I'm forecasting that he will... be okay in the long run? What do y'all want me to say, that your bias is SUFFERING MORE than his partner? That he needs our pity and protection?
Well yeah, he probably is suffering. But you lot isn't helping him any, with the way you're pitting them against each other. It seems you all have gone meta yourselves, too.
Anyway, I'm not new to the hate and drama that comes with delulu solo stans--this really isn't my first fandom rodeo, and with me working in media the way I do, I know hate is par for the course. But what really upset me most was that they came after me here on Tumblr-- the one social community I've been trying to keep as positive and as fun for myself and for my peers.
I love the discussions being done here, as they range from the random to the unhinged to the very introspective.
I love that I get to learn so much from other people who are self-professed (and actually professed) experts of this genre that's so new, unique, and highly unpredictable. I love that, even if I'm not a member of a fandom or actively voice my misconceptions about certain artists, some people take the time to correct my information and respectfully engage in communication. I love that I can say my honest opinions on here and be met with open and healthy discussion instead of hostility.
To have this safe little haven be taken away, just because some fans wanted to live out an RPF fantasy is unimaginably heartbreaking to say the least.
But what really took a toll on me was the doxxing. I posted here that I finished my PhD a few weeks ago, and attached a carefully cropped photo of my Master's thesis and Dissertation side by side. I wanted to keep my anonimity here on Tumblr (the same way these haters couldn't even turn off anon just to flood my inbox), so I removed my identity and the name of the universities I went to, but I also wanted to share this huge career milestone that I was genuinely proud of, so I posted that photo thinking I would be safe. One of the little shits reverse-searched the image and found my personal X and Facebook accounts, and started spamming me on there, INCLUDING COMMENTING ON MY PROFESSIONAL POSTS. My fault for keeping my security features lax I guess, but seriously, just because I said your fave should leave his company? You want to destroy me for documenting the very public downfall of a three week-old fandom?
Anyway, after I cleared all that mess up, reported who needed to be reported and almost filed lawsuits of my own (but just reverted to tightening my security and taking advantage of socmed's block features), I spent a few weeks unplugged to take time for myself. Spend time with friends and family, eat some good food, get some sleep. Watch my shows without the audience, enjoy media again the way it's supposed to be consumed.
And I'm back because as the dust settled, I realized I shouldn't let others' negative behaviors impact the way I engage with the media that gives me both joy and emotion in equal measure. I can't let them take that away from me and from others who also view these small communities as a safe space. At the end of the day, we're supposed to consume media not through merch and trends, but through discussions and shared experience.
And if keeping my blog the way it is--introspective and HONEST-- is the best way to combat toxic fandom culture, then so be it.
I refuse to refute my Hot Takes or opinions. These are mine and you're free to make yours, but you don't get to come after me just because you don't agree with what I say. I'm not even going to mention you all or give you the exposure you so clearly desire, and since you follow me I'm sure you'll see this post either way. Keep your negativity while I keep my positivity on my little corner of the internet.
Anyway, that's my piece posted and settled. It's also my official return to Tumblr blogging (but maybe in small increments, this whole thing really took a toll on me). I'm accepting asks once again and will work through the proper ones already sent my way. All my love and thanks to wonderful friends @silverquillsideas, Kat and Dori over at @dramalove247, Key of @thebroccolination, and the people over at the KristSingto and BossNoeul discord servers for being such bringers of joy, even though I wasn't exactly opening up about what I was going through. You guys are rockstars and thank you for being such good people.
That's all and stay kooky folks (but not too kooky 😅)!
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exaflux · 6 months ago
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BTAS pre-production stuff/official designs and artstyle stuff
Don't mind the title, I'm a bit naff at titling things...
I'm sure people have made posts about it before, but just in case there's anyone that doesn't know, there's official documents on BTAS floating around the net. Things covering episode writing, bios, a bunch of art that animators would have used. Whole lot of stuff.
I've seen people ask questions/have discussion on things like imitating the style/character heights/other general things. These documents are all official and might be helpful so, hey, might as well share for those not in the know.
Gonna keep it short (I'll provide some links so you can check out for yourself as there's a lot I won't cover) but I'll outline some stuff that catches my eye (first bit is about pre-production and ideas they had, second bit is stuff about how they went about drawing/designing the characters)
Pre-production
In animation, it's standard to have a thing called a writer's bible, also called an animation bible. They include everything from plot synopsis, character/concept art, character bios, episode ideas, basically the whole nine yards. These are used mainly in the early stages to pitch ideas and get projects greenlit, but are also kept around as a handy shortform thing to summarise the whole project as much as possible.
As it turns out, the BTAS writer's bible has been extensively documented! There's a PDF of it actually! And if you don't want a PDF, there's a website that covers all the contents too.
As per writer's bibles, it has a ton of their ideas and direction they wanted to take with the show, from episode structure to joke writing right down to how much settings should be able to change per-episode. There's a whole lot of art too! Here's a snippet about some of the changes they wanted to make with the Dark Knight himself:
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And just for fun let's also leave some info about how they approached writing Bruce Wayne:
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Anyway! On a more interesting topic- some of the rogues. The bios of most of the rogues are included, as are some art of earlier designs. Riddler looks like a sleezy car salesman and Joker is kinda just missing his lips and has stripy pants is seems.
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Also of note: in some alternative timeline somewhere we could have had Calendar Man and Gentleman Ghost in BTAS...
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As for character heights... The height chart is sectioned into "head" height for Batman's head. The uppermost line is Batman's height, so Batman is 8 Batman heads tall. While it can be hard to make out some of the character heights due to the poses, it'd be safe to guess that you do take poses into account on the height chart. Two-Face is shorter on the chart than Harvey is for example but you'll notice that Two-Face's art shows his head tilted down slightly, so Two-Face isn't actually shorter it's just his pose.
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You'll notice these characters are uncoloured. The colour palettes featured are an interesting point that deserve their own post. I'll touch on them another time.
Style Guides / Character Sheets
Style guides tell animators how to correctly draw characters. Can also be applied for things like backgrounds and props and the likes though, whatever feels needed to be noted to keep consistency even if other people are drawing the characters.
Character sheets are character sheets. 'Nuff said. These just show off a character looks from different angles. Expression sheets showing how character emote, art on full-body posing and sheets on hand poses are things that also tend to be covered in animated productions.
Can be found here and here. A lot of overlap in the art shown between the two links but they're absolutely full of character sheets and turn-arounds. There's definitely a lot more design documents I've seen about in other places, but alas, I can't track them down for the life of me.
Here's some highlights:
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(When Twoface blinks only his good eye closes completely. His injured eye only partially closes)
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("John Crane")
Some early character art:
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~~~
If you made it this far then congrats here's some Batmen for your troubles
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silverphoenix212 · 1 month ago
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hey! just a question on your recent post: i understand and agree with the whole 'don't like, don't read' sentiment, especially when things are easily filtered and avoided so long as you keep off sites like tumblr/ao3. but i'm curious if you think a line exists with it. like if a cc explicitly says they are uncomfortable with its existence, should it still be a case of just 'well, it's their responsibility to not look'? /genq
No worries! Genuine questions are good, I think it’s good to talk about this stuff.
This sort of gets into what boundaries technically are. You can never control what other people do. Boundaries are about how you react to something. So if a cc has a boundary that they don’t want to see, say, smut. Then they are well within their rights (and encouraged!) to block anything and anyone to do with that. Even better if they do so before they see anything related to it. And of course, it would be very rude to shove it in their face or post it where you know they can see it.
But no one gets to control what exists. For one, it simply won’t happen. Content will always exist that any given person is uncomfortable with, that’s the nature of fandom and the internet in general. And it also leads to a slippery slope of policing each other and the fandom that leads to a very toxic environment and makes people afraid to post. It has happened before in mcsr. It wasn’t fun. People interpret boundaries differently, we end up with huge documents outlining rules, and suddenly no one wants to make content for fear of being cancelled over it.
Mcyt in particular is an odd example of fandom, since ccs tend to be way more involved. It’s something we’re all figuring out how to deal with. And I think it goes both ways. We should be respectful in how we share content and display it, especially if the cc has communicated a specific thing they’re uncomfortable with, but ccs also need to respect that not all parts of fandom are For Them. We can archive lock fics and keep things away from a cc’s direct view, and in turn, I think it’s reasonable to expect that ccs avoid interacting with parts of fandom they don’t want to see and know would make them uncomfortable, rather than policing what can and cannot exist.
I hope that answers this! Other people please feel free to add on if you think I missed anything.
(Also as a side note, being uncomfortable with something simply existing is setting yourself up to be uncomfortable, in my opinion. Things will always exist that you don’t like. Part of life is learning how to curate your own experience and be okay with that. But that’s a whole other rant.)
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seirindono · 1 year ago
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two questions.
one, HOW DOES ONE COMIC/STORY BOARD??
IM OBSESSED WITH HOW YOU DO IT ITS SO BEAUTIFUL
two, HOW DO YOU SO IT SO FAST( that’s question is more just me being super impressed oh my goodness)
you’re very good😳
Aw, sweet, a board question *puts on serious glasses*
Ok, bring it on anon.
So, the first thing to ask yourself when starting a comic, as I see it, is what type of board are you dealing with. Webtoon? A4 pages? 4 panels? There are many ways to go about it, and each involves different processes. For example, pages will allow for more superfluous scenes, whereas the webtoon format has to be super succinct because of the reading direction. I personally think that's the main reason I do pages, among other advantages: •narrative density •variety •Tumblr-friendly format
There are quite a few disadvantages too but you have to go through the process of trials and errors to really find out what suits you best!
Then there's the ambition of the sequence you're boarding for. And it goes from 1. how used I am to boarding this kind of sequence/drawing these characters/setting and backgrounds, to 2. is it an emotional sequence? Dialogue-heavy? Or more contemplative?
It changes the way you work and how you should approach your board! For example, in TMS, the very wordy chapters (4 and 5 for ex) generally called for simple and narrow framing. Of course, you don't want to bore the reader so you can spice things up to match the characters mood and reactions once in a while, but you have to bear in mind that the sequence aims to provide dialogue and information = the text bubbles are key and WILL take a lot of place. So let them.
( then again, it's all about pacing and balance. A page full of dialogue and one with too much happening are equally hard to read and boring to do)
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Only dialogue, simple squares, no compostion, the focus is on Mel's reaction
On the other hand, parts 7 and 8 are all about action and atmosphere! This makes for wider and more varied shots!
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They're fighting, things are going fast so why not use a single line to show many actions! They're still basically squares and rectangles but the pacing is totally different!
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Or why not give the action a full page to really show its sheer impact
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You can also split things, with a zoom or small time gap, depending on if it's a gag or if you want to put the focus on a reaction. Here, the asymmetry helps reinforce the unstable, jerky aspect of the scene. The situation is getting out of hand, and visually, the pages are affected too.
Now, these are case-by-case examples. And I never work on my pages separately.
For context, this-
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-is the "first" board I did for part 8.
The drawings are very small and frankly difficult to make out, but the intention is what matters at this point lol I have the script (very important) next to my canvas, and I scribble the pages one after the ither. This allows me to see if the actions flow well, if the compositions are varied and also whether certain passages are too long or too short in regard to their importance. Which scenes can be merged? Removed? Toned down or if they deserve more bite?
This is a really fun and creative part but, I'll say it again, made a lot easier with a solid scipt. And I'm talking about a text document with clearly defined dialogues (or at least outlines) and actions.
I can't really explain how to write a script, it really depends on your work flow and how confortable you are with writing, but it's too important to just rush through it. No matter how much it changes before, during or after your finish boarding (cuz you gotta break your own rules sometimes and you'll often realize some things don't work as well once you put them on paper/sometimes art block can be resolved by writing the scene and just taking the time to imagine) but it's still your one guideline.
Aaaand, that's about it.
Other than that, I can only highly recommend reading lots of comics, Webtoon, books, watching movies, paintings, illustrations, animatics or listening to music, to inspire you and expand your own "personal library of references". Professional or not, anything your find inspiring and well executed. Boarding is at its core, telling stories. No art skill involved, just pure subjectivity. At the end of the day, it's all about squares, rectangles and bubbles so you gotta work on your creativity. The rest is gut feeling!
Constantly ask yourself how to tell this story, and how you want to tell it. How this sequence should be perceived? What do you need to show to make pages and pages of words appealing and interesting.
Be patient, be bold. Start with easy stuff to get some confidence if you need to. Accept that "boring" pages are smt necessary and that it's up to you to build up tension for a scene to really pop. Try new ideas and be ready to scrap many of them, the result will be worth all the work!
Now, concerning the "fast" part, I'm flattered but I personally think I'm super slow xD You prbly get that impression bc I finish the whole chapter before posting it, but behind the scene, I'm just working at a very regular pace.
Thank youuu anon ♡( ◡‿◡ )
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stephofromcabin12 · 3 days ago
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There's less than six months till I turn 25, so here's some unsolicited advice I would want to tell myself at 15, in no particular order:
You absolutely need to listen to your body. Like yeah, yeah, you're young and you can tough it out, but I have bad news about what happens after twenty. Sit properly when you work, stretch, take breaks. Oh, and look into stretching your eyes. You'll feel like an absolute idiot but it will give you less headaches.
Stop being embarrassed about liking something. It's infinitely more pathetic to make fun of others for liking something earnestly than it is to be a fan of something. AND you liking things enough gives you creative ideas, and that'll benefit not just you, but bring joy to others as well. Don't try to be cool, it's exhausting. Try to be yourself.
Forgiveness really is a virtue. You should, like, do it as much as possible. Especially when you get into petty fights with your friends over something extremely stupid and your weird ADHD senses kick in and make you want to keep fighting just cause it's giving you adrenaline. Stop it. Apologize, move on.
Your shitty 9 to 5 is not worth nearly killing your body over, trust.
You know a good idea is good when it won't leave you alone. If it's constantly at the forefront of your mind, it's probably worth putting on paper. Hank Green said: "Your ideas are of no help to anyone if they're just in your head." And that's true.
Write it down. Write it down. Write it down. You need to write it down. Or talk it into a voice note but you will forget if you don't.
Good characters need surprisingly little fun facts and tidbits of lore. What they absolutely must have is a direct tie to the conflict of the story. They're a tool to tell the story, so make them the right tools. Can't build a shed with an ironing board and hairdryer, etc.
People online will try and tell you otherwise, but the only thing that actually will improve your writing is just reading a lot (including things you might not have normally picked and old books, they don't have to be classics but they should be from before you were born) and then writing a lot. Writing for fun. Writing in all the different tenses and perspectives. Writing non-fiction. Writing journal entries.
You'd be surprised how many artists hold themselves back out of fear of doing something badly. Which is awkward because in order to do the good thing you have to do the bad thing first. It's an essential step on the journey. It's not called a sparkling, clean, perfectly executed first draft for a reason.
Creative blockages aren't real. You're either physically or emotionally compromised. 9/10 times taking a nap, eating something, going for a walk, crying, taking a shower, and or drinking more water will fix it.
They say creativity is a muscle. Why are you not stretching and warming up said muscle? You think athletes just jump right in? *Spraying you with a spray bottle* No! Warm up. Ease yourself into whatever you're doing.
There's no rush. (No, really.) There's no rush.
Your story can't be forced unfortunately. Fortunately, it can be coaxed rather heavily.
It's deadass impossible to be a good storyteller if you're not willing to be a little insane about your story.
Comparison is the thief of joy *Spray spray spray spray*
Yk that scene in your outline that doesn't work and doesn't want to be written? Cut it?????? Just don't include it. It'll be fine. If it was that important, you'd have figured out how to write it by now.
You can delete, you can start a fresh document. You can rewrite and revise until the cows come home. There is no rush.
There's no big secret to getting people to like your story. There is no such thing as advertising fanfiction. There is no way to magically get people invested. It's just dumb luck.
The good news is that having a thousand people (hi!) liking your story, or none at all, won't affect how YOU feel about your stories etc. if you're in it for the right reason, which is blind passion and being a little insane.
If you're obsessed with numbers, imagine people in the same room as you, and suddenly those 'measly' low numbers aren't so small. You're gonna need a bigger room after, like, ten people. Adjust accordingly.
Your younger self was kind of onto something with their special interests, go back to them as much as possible. It still fucks heavily.
Set money aside from every pay check. If you can afford it do half, if you can't do a third or fourth. Anything counts.
Don't touch that pimple. Don't do it.
Some things are better if they're expensive. The trick is finding the better expensive alternative that also lasts long enough to be worth it.
You're gonna be the bad guy in some people's stories. That's okay. Call it your villain au. The dark sidestory. If you regret what you did and wish you could go back and change it, that means you've grown and have, in fact, changed. That's enough.
Turn your phone grey scale if you can't stop looking at it.
Set timers on your social media.
Work on something you want to achieve at least 90 minutes a day. Doesn't have to be 90 consecutive minutes but work on it every day. If it feels like it's killing you, it's not for you.
Sometimes the key to getting through a hard/boring thing is to just admit that it sucks, and then keep going.
You don't need that much clothes. Also literally just buy bulk of the items you DO want to wear everyday. Be honest. You want to wear that shirt every day. Buy three. Now you can wear it every day and rotate clean ones.
You should be wearing 100% cotton underwear. I don't care who you are or what you've got going on. 100% cotton.
Hey, when you snap out of hyperfocus for a second and realize you need to drink water, pee etc. What you're not supposed to do is go "Oh wow, I really need to pee." And then go back to what you were doing. You're supposed to– and this is crazy – get up and go pee?
Dancing is clinically proven to be the most effective antidepressant, so shake that ass.
You don't have to be good at something to enjoy it. Why should you be good at music, singing, drawing, dancing, writing, etc etc. to do it and have fun? Why the fuck not, bitch? Have fun, or die miserable.
You can either look older when you age, or you can get plastic surgery and look like a fucking political caricature. Your choice.
Wear sunscreen. Yes it sucks. Yes its a sensory nightmare. You know what's also a sensory nightmare? Skin grafts. Wear sunscreen.
You only get one life (until proven differently) so maybe have fun with it.
You can't kill yourself, you have to outlive (XYZ shitty person fill in the blank)
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north-noire · 10 months ago
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what's your process for writing? :3
my writing process: I stare at my document file for hours and weep, repeat until writing gets miraculously done.
In all seriousness I tend to already have outlines ready for future chapters and stuff like that ready (and an idea of what I'd like to happen in the arcs/timeline of events). I've already had like a vague outline of my entire fic as a whole, but that's just kind of my own version of what happens in FNAF LMAO. I also just sometimes brainstorm, imagine new scenes that seems fitting for future chapters and list it down for me to write!
Though sometimes, even my writing execution just sometimes makes me have to divert/change plans up for chapters since sometimes writing's a bit unpredictable and sometimes some ideas I have just come out of nowhere/don't work anymore!
I talk back and forth about ideas with some friends/my alpha reader and bounce back ideas between them! It's really fun brainstorming with people and being able to put my ideas into words before writing it down. I also sometimes draw it out as concept art since it's fun visualizing some of my ideas!
Of course I still base most of the ideas from the actual source material (the games, some parts of the book trilogy) but since this is an AU I'm allowed to explore some "what-if" ideas and be able to have some creative freedom with it without worry since it is an AU after all! I get to do/explore things the way I want without worrying about judgment since this isn't really canon-compliant.
I take very long in actual writing stage (for obvious reasons), and after completing my rough/first draft I let it sit for a few days or a week before reading it again with a fresh pair of eyes and edit/revise/add new scenes accordingly. Sometimes I just make scenes out, no matter how bad it may be at first, and then just let revising/editing do my work for me. Sometimes I also have readied drafts for some scenes of future chapters that I can come back to, put it in the document and just rewrite it/rework it to be better suited for the narrative.
I tend to take my time longer during the editing/revising stage for a lot of things; I'm a perfectionist, I tend to sort of heavily criticize my work, and I worry a lot about its quality at the end of the day, and sometimes I realize that I need to fully revise the scene or fully rewrite a scene since it's lacking something/I'm missing a scene that should essentially be there. It's a hard battle, and an admittedly frustrating process.
That, and irl responsibilities makes it hard to just read through it sometimes.
During those breaks I sometimes read books/literature so that I can come back to editing/revising with fresh new knowledge on how I can improve or be able to know how I'll handle writing again.
After editing/revising is done, I just hand off the beta-reading to my beta readers, which also takes a while; we're all having irl responsibilities after all, and I mostly go to them back and forth about their feedback since it is nice having fresh eyes on your work WHILE also getting feedback from "first-time readers" of my work and what the readers might think of it when I publish it. They also help me with minor editing stuff since I'm not an English speaker (English isn't my first language) and their feedback really helps!
And then I usually draw out the cover chapter, and when my chapter's published, I do a nice little celebration for myself, since I take very long on chapter updates/making the actual chapters! It's important to celebrate the little victories we have, after all :]
Sorry for the SUPER long post, but since it is the writing process, I might as well share the ups and downs of my own writing process anyway XD Hope this helps?
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c-c-cherry · 1 year ago
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Return of the king!!!!!!
For the ask game, you know I’ve gotta ask about the slayage #beachepisode
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Hello everyone. I got two asks on this one so it's time for a story. (Ask game in question)
"#slay #beachepisode #reigentraintrauma" is the name of a google doc I created around 5am during Fall midterms last year that I never actually filled. This fic in question was manically story-boarded by myself and my roommate in one all-nighter because we needed a fun little reward during exams (but we apparently found some better reward because we never ended up writing it).
I have looked everywhere and cannot find a SINGLE TRACE OF THIS OUTLINE. This document is EMPTY. But the gist of it is under the cut. Buckle up. Does it still have potential?
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Picture this. A well-needed vacation. An expedition to the wonderful Rice Prefecture. A fantastic view of Mochi Mountain. A vacation home on the beachside of (insert another silly rice-related location I've forgotten). The cast is having a well-deserved holiday.
I can't remember how they even got into this situation. I have vague memories of Teru entering some kind of sketchy sweepstakes that won them this place for a few days? I have no idea. All I know is that it's free, they're all invited, and it's definitely not Reigen's idea.
This is supposed to be a calming vacation, but Reigen just cannot relax about it. For some unknown reason, every fibre of his being is entirely against making this trip, and he can't figure out why.
The cheapest transportation option is so clearly the train (which brings up some iffy memories), but he's been okay on them for the most part. Train trips are fine. There's no reason for him to decline a free vacation when everyone is this excited. He's been fine with this before—he should be fine.
The more veiled problem is this goddamn mountain.
Mochi Mountain is supposed to be one of the region's wonders. Instead, even the idea looms over him incessantly during the days leading up to the trip. The mountain is logically harmless. Beautiful, even. But looking out the train window and over to that towering peak on the way to the vacation spot makes everything click as to why this terrible gut feeling of his is so insistent. If you're familiar with the ova, it's no surprise. The combination unlocks some kind of trigger that he didn't even know was possible. Like, serious alarm bells are ringing. The type that tell him, "You are totally gonna die alone staring at this thing." The trip there is torturous, but he conceals it (for the most part).
When they finally arrive, Reigen finds that this holiday was more than a fatal mistake. That mountain did not stay with the train like in his past experience. In fact, he has a perfect view of it from the beach house's lounge, wrap-around deck, living room, kitchen, and is it really possible for the mountain to be in every single window view he can find?
He doesn't sleep. His silly businessman sparkle is gone. He opts to stay home while Serizawa takes the others out to do stupid tourist things that should have been fun. Even the isolation from staying inside is just as suffocating as a train car. He's the worst vacationer ever, and he hates it.
And worst of all? He can't stop thinking about what might happen on the ride back. The dread of the future completely ruins the whole point of this "relaxing" trip. He spends the rest of his time tailing the others on the beach or sitting off to the side while they all watch TV or play games, doom-scrolling on his phone as it seems like the only thing that distracts him from this weird limbo of anxiety (it is doing a horrible job).
The espers and Dimple start to notice, and someone finally has enough of Reigen being half-present. We couldn't decide on this next part. Do they take his phone and hide it? Does someone go way too far and accidentally drop it into the sea? Or maybe they pull some kind of light-hearted prank on him where they've all disappeared from his peripheral, just waiting for him to notice? Or use their psychic abilities to launch him into the ocean for a quick dip?
Whatever it is, it is definitely the wrong thing to do. Reigen totally loses it. Everything (embarrassingly enough) bubbles to the surface, and he starts to dissolve. His reaction concerns the kids the most, who feel like its totally come out of nowhere. Meanwhile Dimple's like, "jeeeez I'm used to talking Shigeo down, but how am I supposed to do damage control with something like this?"
And…Serizawa? Maybe he has no choice but to step up and take control of a situation he'd typically be a victim of.
All at once, this beach episode is in total shambles!!!
◇◆◇◆
And……..I can't remember how it ends. Or if it even had an ending. I'm not sure if we thought that far ahead. It's lost to the ages unless we uncover this outline in an archaeological dig. This would be fun to revisit and write up sometime, maybe as a long two-shot. Beach episode with a little twist? Who knows.
Thanks to anyone who stayed around to read this weird draft!
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venrain · 5 months ago
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hey, i‘m just re-reading staring at the sky (and just saw you just finished another long-form fic! ahh!) and i‘m just curious how you write these intricate, organised stories. reading your writing, it all feels like it comes together so well and elegantly. do you use outlines and take a while to piece all the elements and ideas together or do you write down whatever feels right and go with that?
Aww, thank you, I'm glad my longfics comes across as organised hahaha. I do a few things to help, but I actually am quite free form with planning. I don't like outlining - it's all broad brushstrokes until I get deeper into the story. However, some of the major techniques I keep in mind are: 1) character arcs are planned from day 1. before I even start writing the fic, I have in mind what changes the character will undergo. this includes what flaws they start with, how they adapt (whether for better or for worse), and what deeply motivates them and their choices. I find this technique drives plot extremely well. If I have the character fleshed out from the beginning, everything they do makes sense as the stakes rise. at the end, they must complete their arc. 2) I use google docs to write, and I use section links to jump from section to section (terrible, I know, imagine 500 pages of straight text). I leave comments throughout the doc reminding myself of critical tiny details/foreshadowing. my comments evolve as the story changes as well - I have a big picture plot in mind, but the subtle side plots emerge naturally. I also pace myself by leaving a sentence or two about goals in upcoming chapters 3) sometimes, I go backwards and look for details that I've already written, and then I weave those into the plot as I write. I breadcrumb myself by weaving in lots of dual-usage details that could potentially be used in the plot, but the reader would not be able to tell until later (and its not an issue if I don't use the detail)! this is one of my favorite things to do. however, I am still careful to avoid unnecessary details; even if these details are NOT used later, they still must serve some other critical purpose in the passage. 4) similar to character arcs, I have big themes in mind while I write. as a result, the plot is shaped by these themes. things that happen in the story should a) reflect character development and b) the themes I am trying to communicate and explore with the reader 5) I spend a lot of time thinking/problem-solving for my fic...haha. I will write things that I know will be a problem for myself later, but that's for future me to deal with. I will get stuck on some chapters because I've written myself into a corner. lots of creativity and finagling is required for that late stage stuff. for example, I couldn't pin down the antagonist's primary motivations in the keys you keep until the end, so I had to reread my previous chapters over and over until I found a solution that made sense. -
thanks for asking such a fun question! I've always wanted to document a bit about my process, so ty for giving me the opportunity to do so!
tl;dr - I focus on characters > plot. themes > plot. I then problem-solve my way through the plot, just like the characters in my stories do :)
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laurelsandcats · 5 months ago
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hiii its zewuzhere from ao3 if you recognize me!!!
ive always been curious what your process is for writing a fic. Like if your plan outlines or not, and how you come up with ideas, etc. :)
i know ive said this a million times but I LOVE YOUR STUFF!!!
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Of course I recognize you HELLO!!!! ヾ(^ ∇ ^).
Oh gosh my fic writing process is a bit of controlled chaos, honestly half the time I’m barely aware of what I’m doing, but I can try to break it down!
For ideas I am heavily inspired by music! Both of my Epic fics came to life while listening to the album nonstop, and at some point a line of dialogue/moment grabbed hold of my brain and made it go “what if this, but also…they were all really horny” xD  Over time I also develop a special playlist for each fic to help my brain focus on the vibes. Oh, and I scroll through endless amounts of Poseidon fanart and just… look at him... all day long :P
For plot, I use a loose outline so the story has room to grow.  I typically will start by writing the one or two scenes that originally inspired me, and then build the rest of the story around it. Some of my favorite scenes were not part of my original outline and just... appeared one day because I needed to move from location A to location B and wanted it to be interesting. The Horseidon scene in Cloudburst is a good example of that. The cliffhanger at the end of chapter 2 of Held in the Deep is another. I try to give myself freedom to play and have fun in the middle, but I also always know how I want the story to end, so that I make sure I am always building to the finale and try to make sure all the big moments I want to hit feel earned! 
Finally, I edit very heavily. Once a chapter is fully written, I will re-read it anywhere between 5-10 times and trim down the excess, adjust the language, and sometimes remove entire scenes. I have a document labeled “graveyard” where I have pages upon pages of quippy dialogue, alternate POVs, and interesting narration that I loved but didn't make sense in the moment, so I had to cut it, usually with a very heavy heart.  Some of them make it back later, others I let die in the void.  For example, in the most recent chapter of Cloudburst, the scene where Ody listens to Poseidon’s heartbeat was originally chapter 4, but I ended up removing it because it just didn’t feel right. I later rewrote it and used it in the finale of chapter 6 and I was so happy I waited! I thought it worked much better after Ody and Poseidon’s relationship had developed a bit more.
I hope that answered your question!  Sorry it took a minute, I don’t check tumblr very much. But this was fun, maybe I should drop behind the scenes stuff in here more often. ^_^ 
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mariyekos · 6 months ago
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WIP Folder Game
Rules: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Tag as many people as you have WIPs. People can send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, then post a little snippet or tell them something about it!
Okay so I didn't actually get tagged in this but it crossed my dash and seemed fun so I decided to do it! This does not count fics in my "Unfinished FF" folder, which includes the sub folders of "On Hold" and "Abandoned" (and has at least 3 dozen more fics). I'm also not tagging as many people as I have WIPs because there are uh. 79 of them. Which is a lot of people to tag.
What I've realized is I should really clean out my WIP folder again. A lot of these could be separated out into subfolders of Active, On Hold, and Abandoned. I'm definitely not working on 79 different fics right now. Now, am I hopping between 5 or 10? Yes. Do I have some "finished" fics in here that I might never post? Also yes. Are 2 of these fics actually finished and posted fics that I will be moving to my finished fic folder right after this because they shouldn't be in here? Yes the third! Anyway this is super long so I'll put it under the cut but yeah here are my theoretical WIPs, in order of when I last edited them.
Tagging @dithorba @mrmissmrsrandom @sunshades @basil-does-arttt @whitebeakedraven. Five seems like a much more reasonable number. Hopefully my memory is not failing me and you guys do write fic, but if you don't or would rather not share, no worries.
D/C Confessional
Qliphoth [and Copy of Qliphoth, and Qliphoth Redo]
second time's the charm
Flare VrEs
Clean
FFIV WEEK
Sparda Return
nero early adoption
effigy
Grub
Geryon V3 [and Geryon Outline, Geryon Outtakes, and Geryon]
Vergil TT
dmc ancient au
son's blessing
Ease
Stand-in MV
captive
fV remembrance [and Copy of fV remembrance]
Nelo 2
Mundus Rescue
Nelo Angelo's thoughts on Dante in DMC1
Untitled document
Drabbles - XIV Azemeteor
Raider
Sundae on Spardas
Forgetting / Vergil
Nidstinien
Estinien Drabbles
"Leave me be,"
XVI TT
first brood
Estimeric Week 2022 [there's a multichapter fic inside of this document that's sort of ongoing]
Seat of the Archbishop
Copy of ysenne garden 1 [and ysenne garden 1]
Vrtra Estinien stay
Eric Athena
Azem Meteor
Estimeric Week 2022 [Also has a multichapter fic inside of it!]
Rejoining Fragments [and R. Frag outtakes]
Marriage
Copy of Long AE [and long AE]
marriage nsv
Sleep
To me my knights
dimidue
Fic: first brood
jultena short
Outlines for FFXIV Fics
Estysayle
seteth
overlook side story - outlook
grief for the un(familiar)
[somehow my college honor's thesis made it into my fic WIP folder huh???? can you tell I never clean this out, I graduated 2 years ago]
"Are they not men most sweet, my dear brother
violence
Nid fic notes
obsess/adore
Throne Replacement
Various Fic Outlines
Aymeric Tempering
blood contract
Ysenne
Bygone
blessed
AE Replacement
Airship
Hum
shades
Alberic
Wyrmblood
Guilt and Rage
assassination
Touch
Admiration
Painting
ManaBy
Dimi Long v2.1
Fics
R&R Updated Party [but ironically not the actual fic itself, just the notes for the fic. the actual fic has its own folder]
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steddieunderdogfics · 1 year ago
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This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  MuseumGiftShopEraser! They have 9 works on AO3 in the Stranger Things Fandom, and 6 of those are in the Steddie tag!
Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by @museumgiftshoperaser:
Paint the Devil on the Wall
Conversations About Love
Now I'm A Stranger
An Exercise In Denial
Baby, You Were Meant To Follow Me
Her fics are BEAUTIFUL. When I first read Paint the Devil on the Wall I was so obsessed I immediately recced the fic to everyone I knew who would be vaguely interested in a steddie fic. -- anonymous
Below the cut, @museumgiftshoperaser answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!
Why do you write Steddie?
I stumbled into it immediately after season 4 came out. I’ve felt very attached to Steve as a character from the beginning of the show and I think I was subconsciously waiting for someone to pair him up with. I think they’re both such great characters to explore themes of dealing with expectation (either by conforming, or fighting against it) and that’s something I always love to write about.
What’s your favorite trope to READ?
Absolute sucker for fake dating. Can’t get enough of it.
What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?
Enemies to lovers! Though now that I’m looking through my AO3 I haven’t actually written that much of it. It doesn’t have to be very intense enemies, though. I just like it when characters don’t immediately get along.
What’s your favorite Steddie fic?
My brain has been forever rewired by took you for a working boy by pukner. It’s such a gentle, nuanced queer story. It feels vulnerable to me in a way that really only fanfiction can be. Can I sneak in another one?? Because everyone should also absolutely read the shame is on the other side by scoops_ahoy. It taps into this very specific kind of queer compartmentalizing, that I’ve never seen written this well. It broke my heart and patched it right back up.
Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?
I’ve been stupidly busy with my masters lately so there’s probably not a lot of writing on my horizon. I do have a wip called Doll that I’m slowly chipping away at. It’s a little darker than stuff I’ve written before. I know ‘dark’ isn’t really a trope, but I’m excited to see if I can push these characters a little further. 
What is your writing process like?
Absolute chaos. I write non-chronologically, without an outline, all in the same document. I keep writing snippets and scenes until the whole thing slowly comes together. 
Do you have any writing quirks?
Italicizing words for emphasis. I love it so much, you can rip it from my cold dead hands. It accidentally makes its way into my academic writing for my degree sometimes which is a little embarrassing, but I just love the flair of it. 
Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?
I don’t really do schedules, it doesn’t work for me at all. I try to make sure I have a decent amount of the story written before I start posting to give me a bit of a head start, but forcing myself to finish something by a certain date is a surefire way to kill my motivation.
Which fic are you most proud of?
Probably Paint the Devil on the Wall. It was the first time I’d written the entire story before I started posting so it went through way more rounds of editing than normal. I think you can really tell. It’s also the longest story I’ve ever written (in general, even outside of fanfic). The whole project gave me a lot of confidence as a writer.
How did you get the idea for Paint the Devil on the Wall?
I knew I wanted to participate in the Bigbang and the deadline was coming up, but I still didn’t have an idea. I decided to work backwards and try to think of something that would be fun for the artist(s) to draw. I had a vision of Eddie wearing dungarees without a shirt, absolutely covered in paint and I knew I had to write something to make it happen. I set the story in 80s New York because neo expressionism is really the only kind of art I could see Eddie making. I think it suits him very well. I do actually have a background in art, though! I’m currently getting my MFA, but I’ve worked full time as an artist for several years before that. I had a lot of fun working my passion for art (and all those art history classes I had to take) into the fic.
When writing Paint the Devil on the Wall, what was something you didn’t expect?
All of Steve’s character, to be honest. The fic is written from Eddie’s POV and for a large part of it he has a very hard time figuring out what Steve’s deal is. Right alongside him, I also had an incredibly hard time figuring out his character. It wasn’t until I was working on the final chapter that he finally clicked for me. I realized very late, just like Eddie, that Steve liked him from the very beginning. Most of the enemies to lovers premise was all in Eddie’s head.
What inspired Now I'm a Stranger?
Oh boy, that was forever ago! I remember I started writing it while I was camping with friends because I liked having something to do after everyone went to bed at night. I think I had the idea for that very first scene where Steve doesn’t remember Eddie and it all sort of spiraled from there.
What was your favorite part to write from An Exercise in Denial?
That was the very first fic I wrote, right after season 4 came out! I’ve never written something that fast, I think the whole thing took me less than a week. My favorite part was probably Robin being completely exasperated with both of them. They’re such complete idiots in that fic.
How do/did you feel writing Baby, You Were Meant To Follow Me?
Ahhh… I never got around to finishing that one. I probably never will, to be honest. I wrote the first two parts quite quickly and then the idea I had for the plot spiraled out of control and I realized I didn’t actually feel like writing the rest of it. There were going to be a lot of misunderstandings and I learned that I find that an incredibly frustrating trope to write (when done for drama at least. For comedy, I’m a sucker for misunderstandings.) So I guess I felt a little in over my head.
What was the most difficult part of writing Conversations About Love?
The ending! That fic is so incredibly personal to me and I knew from the beginning that I wanted it to have a very sappy, happy ending. It was important to me to write an aromantic character getting everything they wanted, but I realized as I was writing it that I don’t actually fully know what that means. So it took a bit more soul searching than fics typically do, but it was very much worth it. 
Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?
I still think the short little prologue for Paint the Devil on the Wall is the best thing I’ve written. “You don’t draw on things that aren’t yours, baby” is probably the best summary I have for that story.
Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?
Not really!
Thank you to our author, @museumgiftshoperaser, and our anonymous nominator! See more of @museumgiftshoperaser works featured on our page throughout the day!
Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!
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