#pdw: min~ji seong

[plantdonutwrites]

happy new year! sooo some context: i started my own 365 days of writing challenge (i created myself for myself, so i can’t link to it) and i thought i would post at least some of them on here when they are directly relevant to one of my fandom ocs, since that is what this blog is for. most of them are just going to be (kind of unedited) streams of consciousness or little passages or small scenes without much context outside of them. so, without further ado, enjoy!

🌿 🍩 🌿 🍩 🌿

Laying the large and worn down coat on the back of her desk chair, Min-ji took a step back and properly inspected the old thing. It had been her uncle’s, and he had lent it to her a few years ago, and for whatever reason, he never asked for it back. She wasn’t quite sure if it was an oversight on his part, or if it was simply an article of clothing he wasn’t particularly attached to. Either way, by all pretenses in her mind, the coat was hers, and it almost never left her person. The old thing was a deep, cool toned brown with half a dozen deep pockets, possibly more than that. The collar of it was creased but in a way that flattered the rest of its shape; whenever Min-ji washed it, there was a very obvious line on the collar where it was folded, and she made no attempt to change it. It had a sturdy zipper and a few buttons that snapped into place, and the cuffs were thick and ribbed as well as the bottom of the coat. Obviously, being a men’s coat, it was rather large on her, swallowing up her form and reaching down to mid-thigh, the cuffs easily covering her hands when she wanted them to.

Min-ji was no seamstress, but she did her best to keep the coat in good condition, learning the bare minimum steps it took to sew up small holes that developed in the seams of the pockets or the sleeves. The coat felt like its own person, some days; someone who always embraced her and quite literally always had her back. The coat, to her, embodied safety and security. She thought back to when she first became closely acquainted to it… the day or at least the week of the subway bombing. Many parts of the timeline of her ‘accident’ was still blurry to her, but she remembered when her aunt and uncle visited along with her cousin Yunsol, her uncle had left his coat with her, grumbling about how hospitals were always so cold. And she was very, very cold back then. How much of it was due to her severe injury, her mental state, or the actual functionality and frequency of the hospital’s air conditioning system, she couldn’t exactly say.

She remembered being helped into the coat, how the interior fabric was so warm and how it had absorbed the smells of her uncle’s cologne and her aunt’s cooking… how one arm fitted into a sleeve as the other remained empty. The sensation, or lack thereof made her on edge, nauseous. But that hospital room was so… so cold. She remembered Yunsol used a couple of her hair clips to fold and tuck the empty sleeve of the jacket so that it remained out of the way, unobtrusive… out of Min-ji’s immediate line of sight. The coat also felt incredibly heavy, even as the pillows behind her back kept her upright despite her complete dead weight on them. The coat felt like an interlude and an epilogue all at once. Even now, thinking about its proper introduction into her life made her uneasy. She picked the coat off her chair and hugged it to her chest, tight enough to feel the zipper and buttons press uncomfortably into her ribs and chest. She inhaled deeply, burying her face into the coat. Nowadays, it smelt of old paper, something like vanilla, and either cooking spices or lemon-like varnish.

Min-ji went to sit on her bed, and dropped onto it heavily with the coat in her lap and in her hands. One of them felt the material of the coat while the other only presented that it could, in theory, if you didn’t look too closely. She looked at her left hand, splaying the cybernetic fingers there and rotating it to scan along her wrist. A conscientious inhale as she slowly lifted her arm, not made of flesh until it hit her mid upper arm. It was as close to her skin tone as the builders of her prosthetic could manage—however, no one could make up for the fact that alloy and metal and plating wouldn’t properly reflect the way flesh looked in person. More rigid, slightly more luster, less soft and curved. She smiled faintly as she recalled Yunsol’s suggestion to draw a few moles on the prosthetic limb, to more closely resemble her right arm. Part of her wished that she had thought to make that request before her surgery, if it was even doable to begin with. Though… even only a few mere years later, cybernetic prosthetics continued to advance and be honed in ways she still barely understood. Perhaps at her next appointment, she could broach the subject; a few small cosmetic changes would surely be on the table in some way. Plus she didn’t know if permanent markers would quite appease her occasional dysphoria.

A prominent buzzing resounded from under one of her bed pillows, and Min-ji leaned and reached back to rifle a hand through them until she found what she was looking for: a shell-cell. She sat up again and inspected the surface of it before opening it up and checking the group chat. She smiled as a wave of warm calm washed over her, the stream of emojis and all-cap messages bringing her comfort in the way watching loved ones from a distance always did. Another message separate from the group chat caught her attention, and she backed out and opened it up. It was Leo asking if she would be ready to be picked up in a half hour. Min-ji blinked and glanced out her window, brows rising as she realized it was already sunset. She smiled lopsidedly and hummed, nodding to herself and typing out a text to answer him in the affirmative. Placing the shell-cell on her bed, she stood up again and pulled the coat on, with both sleeves. She picked up her guitar and placed it in its case, setting it on the bed as well and beginning to get ready for whatever evening ahead of her and her friends would unfold.

[plantdonutwrites]

spooky season question 👻 your ocs. do any of them believe in ghosts? are they at all superstitious? or do they tend to be skeptics? is there a difference between ghosts and demons, or are they one and the same? any other spooky details you'd like to share?

Oh my~, what a spooky and appropriate question for this time of year~ 👻

Bree

Bree's belief in ghosts is circumstantial; fickle, if you will. She is someone who doesn't really believe in pre-established superstition, but she definitely has her own unique ones that only make sense to her. Like if you leave your acrylic paints out for too long, it's bad luck and it'll ruin your entire canvas, or if you wash the graphite or charcoal off your hands before you're finished with a piece, it'll somehow act as self-sabotage. If you abuse your stuffed animals, you'll succumb to the worst kind of karma: and other stories.

As for her specific belief in ghosts or demons, she doesn't really differentiate (aka, thinks they're both close enough to each other and doesn't understand the difference). If she finds herself in an old, dilapidated building, it'd be easier to buy into the notion that it could be haunted rather than being in an apartment building that's been around for 10 years. Also, when she gets done watching a scary movie, she'll be "freaked out" and probably end up sleeping on someone else's floor for a night or two.

Yunsol

When it comes to the supernatural, she doesn't really give it the time of day. Ghosts, demons: it's all the same to her. It's mostly creatures and stories crafted by parents and grandparents to scare children into behaving: into eating their vegetables, coming home before dark, going to bed when they are supposed to. Up until Yunsol is introduced to Gwyn and the Turtles, she couldn't be bothered to think critically about these things. Outside of the morbid, gothic tales her cousin Jian writes, or the rpg-maker games her brother Junwoo creates as a hobby, that is. And that's all it is, in her mind: a creative outlet; it's all for fun. Not her kind of fun, but whatever works for other people.

Min-ji

I left Min-ji for last for a very specific reason. She does believe in ghosts, but she does not like to think about it. She doesn't really know what to make of demons--since that's more religiously charged and she's not religious--but ghosts... she goes back and forth on whether or not she has seen them before. She used to not be very superstitious either; even as a child, similar to Yunsol, she thought it was a quirky way to try and scare people. But that changed.

When the incident happened when she lost her arm, she was trapped in the subway for hours... with people who were injured, and with people who were dying and dead. Maybe it was the emotional stress; the mass hysteria, panic, fear, and suffering in the train among people who were trapped with her, counting down the minutes until they were dug out and rescued. Maybe it was whatever gases or fumes were released from the bomb in the subway, or the train itself. But at some point, Min-ji could have sworn she saw things down in that tunnel, beyond the horrors of what were actively happening in the foreground. She still doesn't know whether any of that was based in reality, or if her mind was playing tricks on her to protect itself... but she doesn't let herself think about it often.

[plantdonutwrites]

FOR MIN-JI: obligatory 🔵 Blue; but also 🪩 Disco Ball and ⚪️ White

OC Ask Meme (with the Colors) 🌈

🔵 Blue - How would your OC spend a single day of [un]interrupted peace? Where would they go or who would they be with?

The most 'boring', Occam's razor answer would be that she would be reading in bed. All day. Min-ji is one of those people who will read an entire book trilogy in one 24-hour sitting and be like "Hell yeah, day well spent." And good for her! But assuming she would want to be slightly more active than that: She would want to spend time outdoors near the water, be it a creek or a river or a lake (i.e. at the farmhouse probably). Maybe she'd bring her guitar, practice playing it, write music, all while sitting under a large, leafy tree that would provide shade. In terms of who she would spend such a day with, if she wasn't alone... probably Leo. Not just because they're dating, but because he wouldn't mind the quiet and sitting in stillness for a while. 🪩 Disco Ball - What was an achievement that your OC felt worthy of celebrating? Was it a personal victory or a big impact on everyone around them?

The one area of her life where Min-ji feels completely confident and empowered is her music. Whenever she finishes a concert, a recital, or some other big event where she is featured as a pianist... the high from that is exhilarating. Post-music related events is the only time where she may come off as more extraverted; more social, more charismatic... it's just an amplifier for personality facets she already has, but are usually softer and only reserved for her closer ring of friends and family. So musical achievements are definitely things she does not shy away from celebrating; she feels very worthy of those. And those sort of victories and accomplishments are contagious, as though Min-ji's post-performance high spreads to everyone else and gets THEM excited even though they weren't performing themselves. It's a nice change of pace for her loved ones, I'm sure!

⚪️ White - When was a moment in your OC's life that they felt the most vulnerable and exposed? Were they alone or surrounded?

Oof--the answer to this one could actually be its own dissertation, deadass. I'll try to sum it down to the cliff notes:

The first time was when she was on a train in the subway when said subway was bombed. She and hundreds of other people were buried alive in the tunnel and platform, and it took almost a full day to unearth all of them... some were alive, some dead. And she saw a lot of it firsthand. You can imagine how vulnerable and exposed that would make anyone, let alone an 11 year old child. She lost her arm, and her recovery--both physical and psychological--was hard, and at times brutal. It still lingers in her to this day, and how could it not?

The next time was a few years later--she was caught in a confrontation between the Foot and the Purple Dragons. All because someone who she was coming to trust decided to use her as a form of deflection from said confrontation, and ended up getting her involved. She was followed, stalked, attacked, spied on from all sides, to the point where she had no where safe to go anymore. It caused her to unravel in front of her four newly acquired ninja turtle friends, who took her in for a while to keep her safe. That's also pretty vulnerable rock bottom stuff, right there.

Sorry to keep a lot of this vague, but it is seriously so much. (I will include it in Min-ji's character profile when I eventually post it here)