girlsfest | Round 1: Quotes

Entry tags:

2023,
quotes

Round 1: Quotes

Each prompt should be centered around words that have already been said.

Possibilities include a quote of any kind:

Existing works (books, poetry, TV shows, movie scripts, video game scripts, song lyrics, articles)
Speech (celebrity, netizen, anonymous)
Anything else that fits!

Example:

Characters/Ship: ITZY Ryujin/Chaeryeong
Tags: alternate universe - fantasy, ryujin is marceline chaeryeong is pb!!
Prompt:

Marceline: I dreamed about you while I was in my poison coma. I was all old and withered, and you were still nice and pink.

Princess Bubblegum: You think I'm nice?

-- Adventure Time 7x12, "Stakes Part 7: Checkmate"

Click here to view the fest rules.

RULES

You are not required to have a Dreamwidth account to participate. There are no signups necessary. You may post anonymously if you want.
There will be 4 rounds of this fest and 1 round will be opened each week of the fest. Rounds will be left open for fills and comments, so there is no deadline for participating.
Prompts do not have to be claimed before you write them, and they can be filled by more than one person.
There is no minimum or maximum word count for fills. In the spirit of the fest, we encourage you to write shorter works!
Users are allowed to crosspost their fic on any other site, such as AO3. However, we ask that when possible, writers post the text of their fills as a reply to the prompt and include a link to an AO3 post if they choose to do so, instead of just linking to an AO3 post in their comment. This helps keep discussion in our community!
Feel free to subscribe and join the comm to keep track of updates and view them on your reading page.

CONTENT
Prompts and fills have to center around K-pop girl group member(s). This includes:

All active and former girl group members
Female soloists
Female members in co-ed groups
Any female idol or trainee affiliated with K-pop (e.g. GP999 contestants, AKB48 members who featured in Produce48)
Slash, gen, het, and trans works are all accepted as long as they involve at least one girl group member

PROMPTING

To prompt, reply to a round post and copy the following template in.

It will look like this when empty:

Characters/Ship:
Tags:
Prompt:

Fill out the form with your prompt. You can also write in "Any" to give the writer freedom to choose their own. For example:

Characters/Ship: Any
Tags: canon compliant, no major character death
Prompt:

Blow all my friendships
To sit in hell with you
But we're the greatest
They'll hang us in the Louvre

- Lorde, The Louvre

FILLING

To post a fill, post a comment reply to the prompt you wrote for and copy the following template in. Title your comment with [FILL] followed by the title of your ficlet.

It will look like this once filled out:

[FILL] still I fall

Characters/Ship: Aespa Winter/Karina
Tags: idolverse, predebut, shared trauma
Permission to Remix: Please ask
-

Content of fill here...

Please provide content warnings for Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, and Underage as well as NSFW/explicit content.

REMIXES

You are welcome to remix fics that the original author has approved for remixing. A remix is a work directly or indirectly inspired by another work.

To post a remix, post a comment reply to the comment you remixed and copy the following template in with your info. Title your comment with [REMIX] followed by the title of your remix.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

"What, are you not entertained? I don't have time to play games with a hero who's losing her touch."

OOF…………. i felt that.

my god i just skdjdknfnckfkf???? girl takes a second to absorb a leo line thought. i don’t even know where to begin. this was so good and your characterization of the two of them was so delicious it blew my mind… i’m a fool for hero aus and one about leo line always felt Too Good To Be True, but here we are. i suddenly love life

thank you so much for writing this and sharing it with us!!

Characters/Ship: Any
Tags: moral ambiguity, love that seems somewhat irrational at least on a surface level
Prompt:

Good and evil people are not clearly distinguished. Good and evil coexist within one person. Even if one seems good, greed and temptation always exist together inside. We simply try to resist from being captivated by evil.

-- "28 REASONS" M/V, Seulgi

Characters/Ship: WJSN Soobin/Luda
Tags: canon compliant, mutual pining to unrequited love, angst, luda-centric. mentions of one-sided exy/seola and exy/bona + pre-exy/luda?
Permission to Remix: Yes

a/n: soobin to luda: we were once as close as soulmates. do you still remember?
luda to soobin: you won’t forget, right? don’t throw me away.
++ ao3 link

-

Luda’s world ends on a Saturday.

It’s raining softly outside, the neighborhood is drowning in quietness, and Luda is drowning in Soobin— in her laugh, in the way she throws her head back, in how she tries to speak quietly but ends up getting too excited halfway through whatever story she chooses to tell next.

This is it, Luda thinks as she watches Soobin put her hair up in a ponytail, marvels at the way her fingers move through the loose strands, wishes it were hers doing the job instead. This is what people write about, this is what people sing about, this is what people cry about.

“Lee Luda!” Soobin calls, waving her hands in front of Luda’s face. “Are you listening to me?”

Luda startles, blinks once, twice. Tries not to burst out laughing once she takes in the offended look plastered on Soobin’s face. “Sorry, unnie. What were you saying?”

“I was saying, we should try to share a room,” Soobin explains again, stretching her body over the couch and leaving some space for Luda to join her. Luda gets up from the carpet and lies beside Soobin, heart constricting inside her chest when Soobin rests her head against her shoulder. “When we debut, I mean.”

Luda laughs, shaking her head. “You mean you, me, and at least three other people.”

Soobin grunts, head sinking further into Luda’s skin. Luda pats her head in an attempt to comfort her. “Yeah, I guess. But even if we end up having to share the bedroom with a thousand other girls, I’ll be satisfied as long as you’re with me. Since you’re my soulmate, and everything.”

Luda is pretty sure she’s never come across any articles about people dying from loving too much, nor has she heard anything of the sort on the news, but if the way her heart is threatening to jump out of her throat is any indicator, she might as well be the first. “I’m your soulmate?”

Soobin beams, in that sweet, disarming way that she always does when it’s just the two of them, then answers, “Of course you are. Who else would it be?”

—

Luda’s world ends again a month later.

It’s three in the morning and everyone in the dorm is asleep— everyone except her and Soobin, who are killing time in the kitchen as if they don’t have to practice in a few hours.

An IU song coming from Luda’s tablet fills the comfortable silence between them, both content to sit next to each other and split an orange without saying a word. Then the song switches to an upbeat one, and before Luda can register what’s happening, Soobin opens the refrigerator door and offers Luda her hand, staring at her with a mischievous smile on her face.

“It’s a homemade dance floor,” Soobin explains and rolls her eyes, as if it’s obvious and Luda is stupid for remaining at the same place, not moving an inch. “Come on,” she urges, tugging at Luda’s wrist. “Dance with me.”

Luda is unsure at first, arguing that it’s late and what if we end up waking up someone and Juyeon spends the entire morning complaining about it, but Soobin is stubborn and careless won’t stop pestering her until she gets what she wants, so Luda throws caution out of the window and decides to join her, struggling not to melt at how beautiful Soobin looks like that, smiling from ear to ear as her skin glows, golden under the yellow refrigerator light.

It all starts as a simple dance. They spin around, let their arms fly in all the wrong directions and whip their hairs once the beat drops. Then Soobin comes closer, wraps her arms around Luda’s waist, sways them side by side, and then, and then—

Luda is being pressed against the counter, Soobin’s cold hands slip under her hoodie, and their lips find each other in a searing, passionate kiss.

Luda clings onto the hem of Soobin’s sweater like a lifeline and brings their bodies closer, chest filling with desire when Soobin moans against her mouth, and Luda knows she has been kissed before, but never like this. God, she swears on her life, never like this. Maybe because they were bad kisses, or because they didn’t mean anything to her, or simply because the people kissing her weren’t Park Soobin— they could never compare to the holy taste of her glossy lips and her soft palms losing themselves along the extension of back, leaving a trace of fire wherever they could reach.

Then, as fast as she ascended to heaven, she was dragged back to the real world when Soobin placed both hands on her shoulders and pulled away as if she had been burnt, leaving Luda confused, anxious, heartbroken.

Little did she know, that was the beginning of the end— the beginning of her demise, the end of something that never was.

“Luda-yah,” Soobin sniffs, barely audible, as hot tears cascade through her red cheeks. Luda wants to reach out, to wipe them off, but she’s terrified of what might happen if she acts on her urges one more time. She doesn’t think she can handle being pushed away again. “We can’t do it.”

“Unnie,” Luda calls, voice cracking, then pleads pitifully, “Don’t say that.”

“We can’t,” Soobin shakes her head, crossing her arms under her chest as she stares at the floor. Then she looks up at Luda, her eyes red, wet, and covered in pain, and murmurs, “Luda, please. You know we can’t.”

The thing is, Luda’s brain knows they can’t. Her heart, slow and naive, struggles to come to terms with it.

Luda looks away, struggling to keep her tears at bay. Her teeth sinks on the inside of her cheeks, and the blood she tastes on her tongue might as well be the only thing reminding her she’s still alive. That and the overwhelming urge she gets to be held, the urge to have someone else’s hands on both sides of her face, telling her that it’s okay, you’re okay, you’ll survive.

What she gets, instead, is Soobin’s hand pressing on top of hers, a hesitant squeeze, and then a broken goodnight, don’t sleep too late, before she’s left all alone in the kitchen, sweeping the cracks of her soul off the floor for the rest of the night.

—

Luda’s world keeps ending, little by little, once Soobin starts getting closer to Hyunjung.

It takes some time for Luda to get used to the new dynamic, to not feel like she’s going to be physically sick when she catches Soobin spending all of her time— time that used to be, for the most part, Luda’s— with a member she barely acknowledged before.

Soobin and Hyunjung sit together in the car, share earbuds, have their own inside jokes, spend the holidays with each other’s families and find their way towards each other during every single variety show shooting— almost as if there was a magnet bringing them together, as if the stars needed them to, as if they couldn’t help it.

It’s obvious. It’s undeniable. It’s love.

And it’s a slow death, to watch their romance blossom from such a proximity. It’s a slow death, to have it confirmed that, to Soobin, Hyunjung is worth the fight— but she wasn’t, not even for a second.

Then, as if the universe decided that witnessing the two of them fall for each other wasn’t enough of a punishment, the scene that greets her once she steps into the living room pulls the ground from under her feet, makes her insides crumple and bleed and burn and, at last, sends her straight to hell like the worst of sinners.

She’s pretty sure she hears Soobin calling out her name, but the ringing in her ears and the voices in her brain urging her to run, leave, go to the end of the world but don’t stay here are loud and insistent, so she puts one foot after the other and, before she can process what she saw, she’s in the rooftop of their building, lungs burning and legs aching.

“Don’t cry,” Luda tells herself, hugging her sides and attempting to take deep, calming breaths. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t fucking cry—”

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” Sojung comments, materializing beside Luda by the railing. The night is cold and unforgiving, the wind causing the tree branches to shake violently and the teenagers coming home from school to find shelter inside the nearest stores they can find. Sojung hands Luda the coat she was wearing to stop her from shivering, and Luda doesn’t have it in her to deny it, not after everything.

Had it been anyone else seeing her this broken, she would’ve glared at them and told them to leave her alone because she’s completely fine, thank you very much, but Sojung is the only person who genuinely understands what Luda is going through. She’s been in love with Hyunjung since they were in that awkward pre-teen phase, innocent and lost but still full of hope, training together at another agency.

The only person other than Jiyeon, of course, who’s been silently in love with Sojung for three years now, but made Luda promise to keep the information a secret.

And so she did.

It’s a depressing sight to see, Luda thinks bitterly, the trail of bloody bodies left in the wake of someone else’s happy ending.

“That’s rich coming for you,” Luda retorts, stroking her wet cheeks with the sleeves of the coat as she raises an accusatory eyebrow. “Didn’t you spend, like, fifteen hours stuck inside the studio yesterday?”

Sojung bumps her shoulder against Luda’s. “Do as I say, not as I do.”

Luda shakes her head, her first genuine smile of the day appearing on her face. “You’re ridiculous.”

Sojung nods, opening her arms as an invitation for Luda fall into them. “Yeah, but so are you.”

Luda hesitates for a second, then her lips quiver, the corner of her eyes start to water, and before she can come up with an excuse to deny the affection Sojung’s offering her, she’s being pulled into a warm, comforting embrace.

She’s being held. It’s not Soobin there with her, reminding her that things will be okay with time, but she’s being held, kept from falling apart. And there, trapped between Sojung’s strong arms, she allows herself to sob the pain out of her chest, allows herself to feel.

Sojung hums a soothing melody under her breath, still holding Luda close, refusing to let her go until there’s not a single tear covering her skin anymore. She’ll probably never admit it out loud, but Luda doesn’t know what she would do without a friend like Sojung by her side. The thought alone makes her feel weird, helpless, a little all over the place.

Sojung pokes Luda’s cheek, chuckling to herself when her hand gets swatted away by a mildly annoyed Luda, then asks. “Feeling better?”

“I don’t know,” Luda answers honestly, closing her eyes and sinking further into Sojung. “I can breathe now, at least.”

“Come on, let’s get you inside,” Sojung whispers against Luda’s hair, patting her back before she breaks the contact between their bodies, taking Luda’s small hand in hers instead.

—

Later that night, when Luda finally lies down on her bed after spending countless hours in front of the computer to numb her mind, Soobin’s laugh echoes throughout the quiet dorm. Luda can tell she’s on the phone with Hyunjung, the giddiness in her tone and the word soulmate slipping so easily from her mouth leaving no room for wrong assumptions, and her heart shatters all over again.

Luda swallows the lump forming inside her throat, hides her entire body under the covers, and attempts to slip into a dreamless, painless sleep.

—

It didn’t work, Luda comes to realize the next morning as the tears running down her face remind her of the river where she was swimming with Soobin in her dreams, it never does.

Edited 2023-04-06 02:19 (UTC)

Characters/Ship: WJSN, Bona/any
Tags: Any
Prompt:

And you pointed your headlamp toward the horizon
We were the one thing in the galaxy God didn’t have His eyes on
- Jenny, The Mountain Goats

Characters/Ship: WJSN, any/any
Tags: idolverse, can be hurt/comfort or also hurt/no comfort :3c
Prompt:

”I sat with my anger long enough, until she told me her real name was grief.”
- C.S. Lewis

Characters/Ship: WJSN, Seola/Soobin
Tags: any
Prompt:

She gets dressed, she looks her best with her hair, like, everywhere
And it comes to me in a moment of clarity

She’s a god
- “she’s a god”, neck deep

"in front of my mother and my sisters, i pretend love is cheap and vulgar. i act like it's a sin- i pretend that love is for women on a dark path. but at night i dream of a love so heavy it makes my spine throb- i dream up a lover who makes love like he is separating salt from water."
- "salt", Salma Deera

I WILL PASS AWAY..... "and Ryujin had pulled her back in, and she'd laughed, and she'd kissed her on the cheek, sloppily and quick, and Ryujin had given her a look so violently tender that the laughter died in her throat." i love your portrayal of chaeryeong always watching rj and the differences between them and the pace at which each develops in different ways... love it thank you for sharing

Characters/Ship: WJSN Exy/TWICE Nayeon
Tags: canon compliant, meditation on love
Permission to Remix: Yes

a/n: i wrote this in a daze at 3am so i apologize for mistakes .___.

-

It’s almost a half-hour past one in the morning when Sojung finally slumps down over her mixer and gives up. Parts of her jaw and skull and elbow press awkwardly against the various keys, conjuring up a raucous chorus of autotuned samples and MIDI piccolo and 160-something click metronome. The sound is so horrendously jarring and wrong that she curses and immediately unplugs the damn thing. Somehow, it seemed as if it was mocking her, laughing at the fact that she can’t seem to get this stupid, bare-bones, barely-working project to resemble anything close to a song.

“Stupid thing,” Sojung mutters under her breath. She frowns at the mixer until she is sure all of the life is sucked out of it, then flings it towards the side cabinet for good measure.

(Gently, of course. No matter what she thinks of the mixer, she’s not stupid. She has to finish at some point, and she can’t afford to spend another 3 million won on another one somewhere in that process.)

She flips her phone over; when the screen faces her in all of its bright, blinding glory, Sojung shuts her eyes and shuts it off flimsily, cursing under her breath again. Her thumb fumbles by the home button, swiping up and scrabbling around as best it can with her eyes closed, until the light seeping through her firmly-shut eyelids lessens and she chances her luck again.

17 unread messages from KKT. Sojung quickly scans through them. A message from someone in the company’s creative team, something about slightly changing the colors on their album design. Honestly, Sojung’s 1 am eyes can’t really tell the difference between the two shades of purple attached, so she files this away to ask Jiyeon or Soobin about later.

Two messages from Jihoon, two minutes apart and each with multiple audio attachments. Sojung files these away to sift through later, when she knows she’ll have more time to pick apart Jihoon’s samples and see if any of his ideas work well enough to stick.

A string of messages in the group chat— likely Dayoung, all facts considered. These Sojung decides she will ignore, for better or for worse.

The last chat consists of one single unread message.

you still up?

Sojung types out the responsible answer, then deletes it before she even finishes the sentence. Instead, she finds herself typing something shorter, more impulsive. Her thumb hangs over the send button for a few seconds as she thinks, then decides that she doesn’t need to think, not about this.

yes

Fifteen minutes later, Sojung slides into the passenger’s seat of Im Nayeon’s car and lets out a long, drawn-out sigh.

“Everything okay?”

Nayeon is parked under a streetlight, just as she said she would be; under the orange-gold haze, her irises glimmer, two bright, white North stars against the milky-dark shadows around them.

This is Nayeon, so Sojung decides on the truth. “I think it will be,” she says, “after tonight.”

Nayeon smiles, softer lines rounding out the edges of her face in smooth strokes. “That’s good.” Sojung recognizes this for what it is: empathy, warm and genuine. Then Nayeon chuckles a bit, a moment later, a sound that is soft and a bit hoarse from the hour. She nods at the time on the dash, analog white against grey and black. “We can’t really call it ‘tonight’ anymore, can we?”

“Tonight, this morning, whatever,” Sojung faux-rolls her eyes. “It’s all just semantics anyway.”

“It being this late is your fault, by the way,” Nayeon says, “for locking yourself in that studio all day.” Her grin shines bright, reaching up to the corners of her eyes.

“And yours,” Sojung shoots back, “for having the shittiest sleep schedule I’ve ever seen.”

Nayeon laughs; the sound comes again from further back in her throat, soft and high and hoarse. “High praise. I hope I can live up to it.”

Sojung means it. For it being past midnight, bleeding into the hours of the morning, Nayeon is fully alive, glowing with a radiance that is softer around its edges than the shine of an idol come into their own on stage. That Nayeon feels barely approachable, untouchable, a force of nature; Sojung has experienced this first hand.

This Nayeon is more personal, more real. More hers, a voice in Sojung’s head thinks before she pushes it aside.

“Where are we going?” Nayeon asks. It’s only then that Sojung realizes they’re still standing in place, the car in park and hugging the edge of the cement curb.

“Anywhere. You’re driving.”

“That I am.”

Sojung grins. “Surprise me, then.”

Nayeon looks away for a moment, eyes staring through the windshield at something on the horizon, lost in thought. It seems to be a good one, at least, because Sojung sees the corners of her lips start to tilt upwards and recognizes how fondness sounds in Nayeon’s voice before she hears it.

'“Do you trust me?”

Sojung doesn’t need to hesitate to answer this one. “Yes.”

Nayeon switches the radio on and hums as she pulls the car out of the street. Her fingers dance on the steering wheel, delicate, intricate, intentional. Sojung watches them and tries to figure out the pattern they tap out, then finds herself envying the leather on the wheel for being infinitely better at remembering it.

Her phone buzzes again. Nayeon tilts her head to the side, enough to show interest without taking her eyes off the road. Sojung tells her that it’s from Jihoon, an attachment with another audio file. Nayeon nods, an acknowledgement of familiarity— she’s had overlapping promotions with Seventeen on many occasions, Sojung knows. When she asks Sojung to go on, Sojung tells her that she has a song she’s struggling on, that she asked Jihoon to help her figure it out, that it’s been nagging at her for weeks and she hasn’t quite been able to figure it out.

“What is it about?” Nayeon asks.

Sojung starts to speak, then stops. “About” is a heavy word, full of intention and meaning deeper than she’s considered so far. She quickly realizes that she isn’t quite sure herself.

“Some kind of love,” she decides on, “but I haven’t quite figured out what.”
Nayeon nods again, somewhat preoccupied as she makes a left turn onto another empty, orange-gold road. It’s only once she’s made the turn that she turns back to Sojung, hints of another grin on her face.

“You should write it about me.”

Sojung groans. “In your dreams.” Then she joins in Nayeon’s laughing and lets Nayeon steer the conversation again as they ride further into the night.

In the end, they stop by the side of the road and watch the sun come up together.

“This isn’t what I imagined us doing,” Nayeon admits when she pulls over.

“It sure isn’t,” Sojung agrees, but she is content with Nayeon and can’t find it in herself to mind.

The first rays of the sun burn streaks of auburn into Nayeon’s dark brown hair. They make Sojung think of sunrises, of heartstrings tied together, of the finality, the resolution of perfect intervals falling together in harmony.

She softly sings the first few lines of a new melody; Nayeon might not recognize it, but she nods, hums in approval all the same.

Huh, Sojung thinks. Maybe I don’t need Jihoon’s help after all.

Edited 2023-04-06 01:47 (UTC)

Characters/Ship: twice, any/any

There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Sensible Thing”

Characters/Ship: rv, any/any (wenseul?)

I know that’s what people say— you’ll get over it. I’d say it, too. But I know it’s not true. Oh, youll be happy again, never fear. But you won’t forget. Every time you fall in love it will be because something in [that person] reminds you of [them].
— Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

oomf i owe you my entire life and so much more for this… thank you for writing it this is a dream come true ;_;

Characters/Ship: Kep1er Yujin/Xiaoting
Tags: when selflessness is selfishness, imbalanced power dynamics, op i am sorry for screwing with your prompt like this
Permission to Remix: Yes
-

Xiaoting woke up from a nap to a plate of sliced strawberries on her bedside table. Yesterday it was medallions of cucumbers with a sprinkle of sea salt. The day before it was a cup of jasmine tea, carefully covered to preserve the heat.

She opened the door to her room with a forkful of strawberry in the other hand. Yujin immediately powered off the TV and turned around to face the wrong way on the couch. She’d risk falling off if she wasn’t more careful. “Oh, you’re awake!”

“Mmm,” Xiaoting sounded through the chewing. “Thank you.” She pointed at the plate in the room behind her.

“Of course,” Yujin said, her cheeks flushed red. It always sounded almost like worship, the way she’d thank Xiaoting for the opportunity to perform kindness for her. It was egotistical to think that way, but Yaning said the same thing, albeit facetiously.

FU YANING

Voice Call ✆ [01:04:59]

yeah yujin unnie is in love with you lol

no…

my sweet summer child

At the end of the day it was less that Xiaoting didn’t believe it was possible and more that she simply did not want it to be true. Yes, she’d said over the phone, Yujin openly confessed to finding her beautiful; yes, she regularly flouted the duties of a leader to be impartial in favor of, well, favoring Xiaoting; and everyone in the group was well aware of this. But that was the thing. Isolated atop her pedestal, what did it really mean to be loved by anyone at all?

“We should talk,” Xiaoting said reluctantly, the bright afternoon sunlight feeling entirely inappropriate for the incoming downer of a conversation that she had been dreading.

“About what?” Yujin asked. She was humming as she did the dishes, her orange rubber gloves scrubbing away at the food scraps Hikaru and Hiyyih had left on the coffee table last night. Xiaoting got cold feet just watching her. It was like Yujin was born to labor, she thought. It was like the selflessness of motherhood was her destiny.

“I don’t think you should be so nice to me anymore.” Xiaoting looked down at her feet, almost regretting having said it. Yujin seemed so innocent that talking about this might just hurt her instead of providing any benefit. But it was the right thing to do. Wasn’t it?

Yujin peeled the gloves off and washed her hands before answering. “Why?”

The callousness of it almost startled Xiaoting. I think you like me so much that you don’t see me, she wanted to say. “I’m afraid the others think you’re playing favorites.”

“Did someone complain to you?”

“No,” Xiaoting said. “I can tell, though.”

She leaned in closer to look her deeply in the eyes. “Are you getting bullied?” Yujin looked, possibly, genuinely concerned for her.

Xiaoting shook her head frantically. The scapegoat wouldn’t work any longer. “No one is doing that,” she said. “I think it is a bit burdensome.”

“What is?”

Your form of love. “The weight of popularity,” Xiaoting said. It was crushing her to say this.

Yujin pulled her into a tight hug and it crushed her more. Xiaoting was frozen in place at first, taken aback, her body relaxing slowly in Yujin’s arms. It was dangerous, to succumb so easily to the warmth of another person.

“I will always be here for you, to help hold you up,” Yujin whispered. Yujin did not understand. Xiaoting could not hear any trace of insincerity in her voice.

Characters/Ship: any
Tags: non-idolverse, mcd (unless you can find a way to not do that)
Prompt:

"You think your wife can hear you?"

"No."

"Then why bother?"

"Maybe I'm wrong."

— John Wick: Chapter 4

Edited 2023-04-06 04:32 (UTC)

Characters/Ship: (G)I-DLE miyeon/minnie
Tags: alternate universe - cheerleader au, college au, casual sex, drunk sex, open ending? (sort of)
Permission to Remix: yes!
Content Warning: smut/pwp (NSFW)
-

This room should be off limits. It probably is. That only occurs to Miyeon once they’re inside and the door is closed and her back is pressed against it. The party is still alive on the other side, just not as loud now that all of Miyeon’s senses are devoted to the tall figure of the new member of the cheerleading team looming over her.

Like her sweetest nightmare. Like her deadliest dream. Her lips curl at the thought.

“Out with it.” There’s tiny little diamonds at the tip of her sharp eyeliner. They seem to shine in the semi-darkness, drawing all of Miyeon’s attention before a pretty drawl pulls her back. “Open your mouth, come on. Tell me what you meant downstairs.”

Downstairs. Miyeon had a drink in her hand when she was downstairs. Oh, she shouldn’t be drinking. Everything that occurs to her materializes in her voice in an instant, because alcohol loosens all her fears and lets herself slip through.

“I said,” she recalls, “that you don’t scare me.”

A feline grin. The girl comes closer, and the diamonds on her skin pale in comparison to the glint in her eyes.

“Yeah. And what did you mean by that?”

Her breath tickles Miyeon’s upper lip. Miyeon wets her lips, presses her legs close together. The room expands and shrinks at once, because there’s no space left between them and Miyeon can’t remember what the room looks like.

It’s only her. She is all Miyeon cares to see right now.

“That I’d let you close,” Miyeon says. She giggles when the simile comes to her. “I’d let you hunt me down and keep me alllll to yourself. I’d marry you and tell everyone I married the scariest girl on the cheerleading team.”

Miyeon gasps when cold lips find her flushed neck. Teeth graze her skin, and she can’t possibly press her legs any closer together, throbbing, losing herself to the hands around her waist that remind her of why she came to this party in the first place. She’s melting, she’s on fire, she’s drowning, and she can’t believe she wore jeans but it doesn’t matter because the button is open now, the zipper is down, and she feels, hears herself being touched.

Her moan sounds exactly like the name that has been on her mind all night.

“Minnie.”

-

The bed Miyeon wakes up in is not her bed. She looks around, but her head is splitting in a dozen different ways and her eyes hurt with the sunlight streaming in through open blinds. With a grunt, she sits up. Her jeans are unbuttoned, her crop top slightly askew. It’s as she uses a hand to brush her hair over her shoulder that she feels it, the tender flesh on her neck where she vividly remembers teeth sinking into the night before.

She winces when she tries touching it. Miraculously, her phone is still in her pocket so she opens the camera to check and yeah, that’s a bruise. It’s purplish, red around the edges, and there’s two darker dots right at the center of it, as if shadows of teeth. As if—

As if shadows of fangs, of the monstrous kind.

For a split second, Miyeon entertains the idea. Then she laughs at her own foolishness, wincing again when she remembers her headache, and busies herself with finding her shoes.

Edited 2023-04-07 00:51 (UTC)

sick and twisted how you get to the heart of the matter in 500 odd words with such piercing focus....(also sick how you got formatting into this, not me frothing at a box) but thank you as always, risa <3

Characters/Ship: SNSD Tiffany/Sooyoung
Tags: canon/canon divergence, bonus points for sooyoung/kyungho and any (explicit/implicit) infidelity but not necessary!
Prompt:

And no one can ever figure out what you want,
and you won't tell them,
and you realize the person who loves you isn't the one you thought it would be,
and you don't trust him to love you in a way
you would enjoy.
- Richard Siken, A Primer for the Small Weird Loves

Characters/Ship: any/any
Tags:
Prompt:

“I guess it's easy to make a deal with the devil when you're not the one paying the price.”
— The Walking Dead

Characters/Ship: aespa giselle/winter
Tags: post disbandment
Permission to Remix: Yes
-

There is an afternoon Aeri couldn’t seem to forget.

They are walking back to the dorm after a grocery run and not for the first time, Aeri wonders what exactly she’s doing here. The cherry blossoms pours like a cloudburst and none of this is her type of scene to be in. But the flowers are singing and everyone looks peaceful, basked under the pink warmth of spring.

This is their last grocery run before the news would break, and she wasn’t sure where a farewell would fit in a space so alive like this.

“Do springs in Tokyo look like this?” The question is asked as idle talks, but Aeri is familiar with this, the way Minjeong asks loosely of significant matters it’s almost easily brushed off.

“You’ve seen it before.” They have, when time had permitted the line of spring and their Tokyo concerts to meet.

“Yeah, when we were still a group.” Minjeong answers with a blade and Aeri accepts it in silence, holding her gaze steady. “I wonder if it will all be different after.”

[End of an Era: Aespa Addresses Disbandment and Gratitude for Fans’ Support for the Past 7 Years]

Somewhere in her second year of living alone, Aeri finds herself thinking of her last year in their old apartment unit. The floor of her home is slightly darker and the light doesn’t stream in as much in the morning. The distance between her bed and the kitchen seems cut short that it makes her wonder when has this changed so much.

She thinks about Minjeong, whom she hasn’t spoken to in a year, and has not seen in two. The last contact she’d had from her was a new year’s greeting, Minjeong’s friendly text wishing her a good year ahead. She had sent a reply, equally merry yet distant.

Amidst all, Aeri writes, phantom words waiting to be given a melody of life. She keeps writing even when she’s uncertain for whom these words are written.

At last she lets these words hang, settle where they will do so. It was always Jimin and her knack for words, Ning with her easeful ones, Minjeong with her honest blade, and Aeri is struggling to find hers right now.

Do you think we could go back to the way we were?

I don’t want to go there again, but I want to be with you, with everyone. To when everyone laughed freely and Jimin didn’t look like she’d carried the weight of the world on her shoulders, before Ning looked so lost and your eyes took on that cynical edge I am unfamiliar with, and I

I

We lost so much that year, even though we kept winning.

She doesn’t finish it, slips it within the scattered music scores on the table. These are hers to keep.

Three years in and Aeri visits Seoul. The week before she leaves for Tokyo again, Minjeong asks to meet her. It’s late as they walk along the sidewalk, and Aeri realizes the corners and turns of the street.

“I am really happy for you.” Minjeong declares. “You seem happy."

Minjeong will not lie to her. She will say, you are happy, or you are afraid, or you are too slow. She will meet you where the fight is, blade meeting you head-on. She will spare no tender mercies. This is how Aeri learns and wants to be honest too. It is because Minjeong is kinder than she knows.

"I am. I have everything I always wanted.” says Aeri. “Almost."

“Almost?”

“I don't know, I just missed being with everyone.”

There was momentary silence before it drops:

“You know, I think I could have loved you, all those years ago.” She says suddenly. The words startle Aeri, making her steps falter briefly.

“During aespa?”

“It’s weird to hear that name again.”

“What about now?” Aeri asks.

“Hm,” Minjeong is quiet for a moment, contemplative. “I could still, might yet.”

“I did once.” Aeri confesses. "During aespa."

Minjeong’s smile is sad and knowing, the passing years showing in the shadows of her face. “I know.”

Aeri knows regret when she hears it, when she sees it—after all, she’s written all about it. Regrets weigh on people in indefinite ways that need an eyeful to see. In Minjeong, she sees it lean along her shoulders, the lines of her lips, hanging there in the faint creases of her eyes.

Aeri thinks it over, considers the years that have passed and she cannot claim to know Minjeong now, not the way she did at twenty, with the arrogance of youth and the assurance of a place in Minjeong’s life.

“Perhaps,” she says, finally. “I might still do, just not the same way I did all those years ago.” We changed, from those days. I changed, and you, too. Those are the words she doesn’t say, but Minjeong nods as if she heard them.

“Can we still be friends, unnie?” Minjeong asks.

That one draws a rueful smile out of Aeri. “Are we not friends now, Minjeong-ah?”

Minjeong’s smile makes warmth bloom in her chest, and reminds her of long ago days.

They keep silent for the rest of the walk and part ways at the mart in the intersection. Aeri pauses to watch Minjeong disappear slowly, engulfed by the buildings and leaving a space where she once stood. She looks so far away it makes Aeri want to reach out and reassure herself that she is still and will be there.

Aeri thinks of her writings, the words that sit heavy on her floor, her desk, waiting in Tokyo. They can't go back, only forward.

There still will be words worth the write, but Aeri will stop looking for the Minjeong and everyone she once knew. Maybe when they meet again, it will be easier to reach out and bridge this distance.

Tokyo drowns in pink in a way that’s different from Seoul, and Aeri turns another year older.

🔗.jpg
its raining sakura 12:40

jiminie
AHHHH
tokyo-saitama-osaka trip when? 12:40

ning yizhuooo
all of you give me your schedule 12:41

yangsan
🔗.mp4
there’s a lot of cherry blossoms here too ㅎ 12:42

Characters/Ship: itzy, any ship
Tags: superheroes au, hero/rival (optional: morally grey characters)
Prompt:

I do not understand you. But neither do I understand fire, or starlight, or storms, and I love them.

- Max Gladstone, The Ruin of Angels

Characters/Ship: any
Tags: canon, inter-group relationships
Prompt:

I have observed friendships as one observes high holy days: breathtakingly short, whirlwinds of intimate behavior, frenzied carousing, the sharing of food, of wine, of honey. Compressed, always, and gone as soon as they come.
— This Is How You Lose the Time War

Characters/Ship: Sana/Nayeon
Tags: Assassins!AU, Hurt/Comfort
Permission to Remix: Yes
AO3 Link
-

In this disorder, a flower is blossoming
It's a sweet chaos
Ever since you entered
My life, my dreams, my future
Everything has changed
― Day 6, Sweet Chaos

Sana is about to turn in for the night when there’s a quiet knock on the door of her Osaka apartment. Sana frowns. It’s just edging past three in the morning – too late for the knock to mean anything other than trouble. So, she picks up her gun and a switchblade from the side table in her foyer and creeps stealthily towards the door. She takes cover behind the large antique vase her parents gave her as a housewarming gift years ago.

The knocking only grows louder, taking on a frantic cadence the longer it goes on. As if the person on the other side is seized with unrestrained impatience or urgency.

Sana draws her gun, aiming it right at the door, and holds her breath. And then, strangely, she hears the muffled sound of her name, in a voice she recognises immediately.

She moves right away, tucking the gun into the waistband of her sleep shorts, and unlocking the door. Leaning heavily against the frame is Im Nayeon, looking worse for wear. There’s a sheen of perspiration on Nayeon’s forehead and the way she’s holding herself, with a hand resting gingerly on her side, makes Sana suspect broken ribs.

Surprise bubbles in her chest when her eyes catch Nayeon’s weary gaze. But Sana is a trained assassin, one of the best in her field, so she only raises a cool eyebrow. “You could have rang the bell.”

“It’s three in the morning,” Nayeon mumbles, shuffling past Sana into the apartment like all of this is normal. Like her turning up at Sana’s door unannounced in the dead of night is something she does every day.

“You should have called,” Sana says pointedly as Nayeon settles on her sofa with a ragged sigh.

She watches as Nayeon starts removing all the weapons strapped to her body: two semi-automatic pistols land on Sana’s coffee table, followed by a dagger and then several vials of liquid that Sana knows is either lethal poison or potent sedatives. Nayeon likes having options whenever she goes out on a mission.

“I just needed a place to crash,” Nayeon says, wincing as she leans back against the cushions. “Your place is the closest to Tennōji Station and I have an early train to catch in the morning.”

They both know that’s a lie. Sana’s apartment is twenty blocks away from the station. And there are a handful of other agents that live closer; Mina even has a safe house just across the station.

Sana sighs. She doesn’t call Nayeon out on her lie. Instead, she heads for her bedroom and pulls out the softest blanket she owns from her closet. Then, she makes her way to the kitchen for a cup of water and some painkillers, before walking over to the sofa again.

Nayeon looks up at her with dark glass in her eyes, somehow inscrutable and oddly vulnerable at the same time. Sana can’t help but wonder what it would be like to let herself drown in Nayeon’s eyes. She wonders if the glass will shatter around her or if she’ll emerge unscathed on the other side, like light refracting through the surface.

“Is it just your ribs?” she asks instead, handing Nayeon the pills. She watches carefully as Nayeon swallows two pills and gulps down some water, gaze raking over Nayeon’s body, trying to catalogue any other injuries Nayeon might have.

“I’m fine. They’re not broken,” Nayeon says, wincing again as she shifts on the sofa. “Just bruised I think.”

“Okay.” Sana drapes the blanket over Nayeon, gently tucking the edges around Nayeon’s body. “If you’re still in pain tomorrow, I’m taking you to the hospital.”

Nayeon only hums, eyes fluttering closed. She’s asleep in a heartbeat.

Sana lingers for a few minutes longer, taking in the way Nayeon’s breathing ebbs and flows. The peace lining her face in slumber reminds Sana of the serenity of a silent lake, of quiet ribbons of pale grey light slowly warming the floor of her bedroom as the world wakes.

In the morning, Sana wakes up long before her alarm rings. But Nayeon is already gone. If not for the half-empty cup of water and perfectly folded blanket on her coffee table, it’s like no one was in Sana’s apartment at all.

It takes Sana two days of agonising and countless hours training in the gym to not wonder what it all means.

When she’s not on a mission, Sana prefers to spend her free time out with her friends. She enjoys hanging out in a cafe with good food and the joy of intimate conversations. It allows her to be just Sana, human and ordinary, instead of the heartless killer she’s trained to be. And after a day out, she enjoys taking a long bath to unwind before she sleeps.

Today, the appearance of Im Nayeon derails all of Sana’s plans for the evening. Nayeon offers her a small smile which dissolves quickly into a pained grimace. Sana notes the way Nayeon’s left arm is hanging slack at her side, the bruises on Nayeon’s jaw and cheekbone. There’s also a nasty cut just shy of Nayeon’s temple and dried streaks of blood all over the side of her face and neck.

“Finish this,” she says in greeting, handing Nayeon the last of her Lavender Mocha, as she keys in the passcode.

“Thanks,” Nayeon murmurs. She follows Sana into the apartment and doesn’t say a word as Sana guides her into the bathroom. She stands quietly, sipping on Sana’s drink, as Sana busies herself with running a warm bath.

“I’m going to help you set your shoulder and then you’re taking a bath,” Sana says, taking the empty cup from Nayeon’s hands and peering at her seriously.

Nayeon only nods. She takes a deep, shuddering breath and Sana braces herself for the violent scream that tears out of Nayeon's throat when she jerks Nayeon’s shoulder back in place. Nayeon is panting harshly in the aftermath, face grey with pain. But she nods again and Sana helps her to undress, carefully manoeuvring Nayeon’s arm and helping her into the tub.

Sana watches as Nayeon sighs at the warmth, and waits until Nayeon turns to her, eyes liquid. She kneels beside the tub and tilts Nayeon’s chin towards her. Nayeon lets her, closing her eyes with another weary exhale as Sana uses a warm cloth to wipe away the streaks of crimson from Nayeon’s skin.

“I’m giving you the passcode,” Sana says, dipping the cloth into the water and staining it with incarnadine swirls. “So, next time, you can let yourself in.”

Nayeon’s eyes flutter open and Sana’s breath hitches at the way Nayeon’s gaze glimmers, brighter than the light from a million faraway stars.

She takes a chance, throws caution to the winds, and leans in, pressing her lips against Nayeon’s forehead. She feels it, the way Nayeon exhales slowly, like Sana is solace made out of skin and bones, like Sana is a balm that has the power to soothe all her pain away.

Weeks later, Sana comes home from a mission in Madrid and finds Nayeon on her sofa. Nayeon offers her a crooked, sun-soaked smile. Other than the butterfly bandage on her cheekbone, Nayeon looks healthy and whole, and every bit like she could be the love of Sana’s life.

“Hi,” Sana says, just before she leans down and steals the taste of sunlight right from Nayeon’s lips.

Edited 2023-04-06 17:30 (UTC)

Characters/Ship: any
Tags: supernatural au
Prompt:

"The only immortality is a story, said the old man. The only incorruptible substance in all of creation is an idea. The only hope of eluding death is the poem."
- eve, ladysisyphus

Characters/Ship: WJSN Bona
Tags: unhappy ending
Permission to Remix: Yes
-

There's a monster living under her bed. It leaves fur all over the dark skirt of her uniform and has the gall to steal her chips, leaving only empty packaging to peek out from under the bed. The monster must have moved in last week when Jiyeon headed off to class without warding her room; just half a minute of carelessness, and now she has a new headache on top of fiendishly-difficult classes to deal with to deal with.

School regulation two hundred and ninety nine says it is the personal responsibility of all students to keep their residences pest-free. Jiyeon burns lemongrass incense and leaves fresh screw pine leaves in her room, and still returns from class to find her new box of snacks from home opened and empty. It's an annoyance and insulting to her prowess as a witch.

Her vexation only lasts until the dreams come: A warm body under her own, pressed so close they might melt into each other. When Jiyeon wakes, flushed and flustered, there's the sweet scent of flowers lingering in her sheets.

'Who are you?' She finally chances a note after a fortnight of intermittent dreams, though half the guides she consults caution against doing so lest she inadvertently makes her uninvited guest feel welcome. The only reply she receives is a doodle of a cat- a cat with a grin and a cheeky devil's tail.

Jiyeon starts buying dried fish snacks after that. School regulation two hundred and ninety nine is unforgiving and non-compliant students risk expulsion- despite that, and her own shame, the tug of desire that pulls her into sleep every night now is addictive. And maybe something in Jiyeon changes too, because her friends say she's gotten prettier and boys stop their conversations to stare at her when she walks to class.

The new admirers mean little to her. She stays in her room under the excuse of finishing homework, watching for the flash of a second shadow from the corner of her eyes. Jiyeon's intent must be clear enough, because her monster lingers even in the day now. It leaves its fleeting touch on her wrists and traces her jaw playfully, and on some days, when she's really, really lucky, she can feel the weight of invisible arms encircling her waist and hugging from behind.

"Is everything okay? It feels like you don't talk to us anymore." Poor Sojung. Jiyeon can't tell her about her new friend - some undefiable instinct tells Jiyeon her monster is a precious secret that she can't keep once shared. Poor Sojung has no idea how Jiyeon's days are filled with joy that defies the mundanity of boarding school life, nor does she know how sickly dull every minute Jiyeon spends outside her room is in comparison to lively conversations with her monster. Only Jiyeon can comprehend this bright, fresh desire to possess and be possessed.

"Give me your name," Jiyeon musters up the courage to ask one day.They've never introduced themselves for so long, but they're practically full-time lovers now. She deserves this much. Doesn't she? She's ready for the bargain. Jiyeon's monster laughs, high and sweet.

"You can have mine if I can have yours," it says. Jiyeon doesn't blink before nodding a decisive 'yes'.

Kim Jiyeon is different from the start of term, her classmates say. More confident and, the gossips whisper, there's something sultry about her. Practically a whole different person.

There's still a monster under her bed though Jiyeon doesn't speak to it any more. Sometimes it weeps with rage; other times it begs prettily and calls Jiyeon's name.

Mine. You're mine. Give Kim Jiyeon back, she's mine.

you got me kicking and screaming over here, this is so good!! hits all of the right spots so hard. i love how you very easily get the sense that aeri has stayed in one place (despite physically leaving to tokyo) while it seems like the others have moved on, and how it ties into the seasonal phenomena of the cherry blossoms. the cherry blossoms!! thematically i love how they're used in moments of nostalgia/and retrospective, a pretty scene but not without bringing up these strong feelings of longing (for minjeong and the group dynamic as a whole). it's like those emotions are raining down on her here with the cherry blossom petals, which is really not that strong of a rain but because of the amount it could be overwhelming, maybe i'm reading too much into that anyway i love this so much it's so wonderful

Aeri knows regret when she hears it, when she sees it—after all, she’s written all about it. Regrets weigh on people in indefinite ways that need an eyeful to see. In Minjeong, she sees it lean along her shoulders, the lines of her lips, hanging there in the faint creases of her eyes.

Aeri thinks it over, considers the years that have passed and she cannot claim to know Minjeong now, not the way she did at twenty, with the arrogance of youth and the assurance of a place in Minjeong’s life.

love this part so much. i love the idea of knowing someone once but as time passes and you grow distant you don't necessarily know the new version of them that's in front of you. and coupled with this sense of regret that aeri can see in minjeong's body language because she knows it well herself. waugh!!!

“I am really happy for you.” Minjeong declares. “You seem happy."

Minjeong will not lie to her. She will say, you are happy, or you are afraid, or you are too slow. She will meet you where the fight is, blade meeting you head-on. She will spare no tender mercies. This is how Aeri learns and wants to be honest too. It is because Minjeong is kinder than she knows.

my god!!! gut wrenching thank you for writing!!!

Characters/Ship: any
Tags: idolverse, post-disbandment/survival show/scandal/etc (canon divergence ok!)
Prompt:

You got a lonesome road to walk
And it ain't along the railroad track
And it ain't along the blacktop tar
You've walked a hundred times before

I'll tell you where the real road lies
Between your ears, behind your eyes
That is the path to Paradise
Likewise, the road to ruin

— Wait for Me (Reprise), Hadestown

To know how it ends
And still begin to sing it again
As if it might turn out this time
I learned that from a friend of mine

— Road to Hell (Reprise), Hadestown

Some flowers bloom
Where the green grass grows
Our praise is not for them
But the ones who bloom in the bitter snow
We raise our cups to them

— We Raise Our Cups, Hadestown

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 4 of 8

Round 1: Quotes

Re: [FILL] heart stop, kill shot

I ruin you and save you

[FILL] i’ll be getting over you my whole life

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: [fill] hang fire

[FILL] perfect intervals

no subject

no subject

Re: [FILL] perfect intervals

[FILL] idolization

no subject

[FILL] scariest girl on the cheerleading team

Re: [FILL] idolization

for you i would ruin myself

no subject

[FILL] spring, you must have been spring to me

no subject

no subject

[FILL] sweet chaos

no subject

[fill] Can't stop thinking about you (I'm sinking alone)

Re: [FILL] spring, you must have been spring to me

no subject