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
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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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Characters/Ship: WJSN Exy/Bona
Tags: canon compliant, predebut, chu sojung's trainee slump, this one grew to 6k by itself im sorry
Permission to Remix: Yes

ao3 link
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Sojung is just nineteen when they tell her she can’t sing anymore.

“Vocal nodules,” the doctor says, pushing his spectacles further up his nose and peering down at his notes. He barely even looks at her. “Be careful not to strain your throat for the next six months or so.”

Sojung stares at him uncomprehendingly. “Six months,” she croaks. “I can’t sing for six months?”

“It could be more than that.” His pen taps against his notes. “And you shouldn’t be talking at all for the next five days.”

“Are you sure?” she tries. Her hands are trembling faintly. “What if I just sing a little from time to time, or—or what if I just didn’t sing vocally intensive songs, as long as I don’t strain my voice it’s—”

“No.” This—finally—gets the doctor to look up at her. His voice is sharp. “You’d risk permanent damage. You wouldn’t want that with a career like yours, would you?”

A career. Sojung isn’t sure whether she even can call it that anymore.

Starship doesn’t let her go on the spot like Sojung thought they would.

“You just need rest,” their vocal trainer says kindly. She pats Sojung’s shoulder. “You’ve been over-exerting yourself. Your body needs to heal.”

Sojung doesn’t want to rest. Being a trainee is an endless struggle of grasping for more time, trying to learn everything you can and hoping the other trainees don’t get better before you do, trying to do all of it before you age past the socially acceptable cutoff for debut. At nineteen, she doesn’t have time to rest.

They might not have let her go then and there, but when the time comes for this batch of trainees to debut and Sojung’s voice still isn’t what it used to be, she doesn’t think anyone would think twice before removing her from the debut lineup, vocal nodules or otherwise. Replace her with someone else who can actually sing, probably.

As it stands, among the current pool of trainees there are many girls her age—and younger—who can actually sing. Sojung would debut them all if she could, even the ones who can’t sing, but she’s old enough to know it doesn’t work like that.

Six months. Six vocal evaluations failed before she can even try.

Given that she’s forbidden to speak, Sojung resorts to carrying around a whiteboard around the building for the rest of the week for communication’s sake. She’s been given the week off following her diagnosis, but some part of her recoils at the idea of staying cooped up in the trainee dorms with nothing to do, no one for company except her own festering anxiety.

Right now she’s cross-legged on the practice room floor, staring into space as Miyeon-ssaem teaches some of the younger kids a new routine. It isn’t their turn for dance practice yet, and Sojung certainly can’t join the others for vocal lessons, so here she is, morosely waiting for their turn with Miyeon-ssaem.

Someone sits down beside her. Sojung glances up, then frowns. She grabs her whiteboard and marker.

Why aren’t you at vocal practice with the rest?

“Had an acting lesson that clashed.” Jiyeon shrugs. “Figured I’d find you here.”

Jiyeon is the only one so far who hasn’t asked why she’s refused to take the week off. At nineteen in this late a stage of their trainee period, Sojung knows they share a lot of the same apprehensions, including hating feeling like they’re not doing the most they can, like they’re running out of time whiling away the days before the debut lineup is finalised.

She knows what Jiyeon’s schedule is like. Dance and vocal practice, acting lessons, Chinese classes, early mornings, late nights, coffees with quadruple the amount of caffeine. She’d be the last person to fault Sojung for working without rest.

Jiyeon is doodling something on her whiteboard. Sojung’s eyebrows push together, trying to see what she’s up to.

Jiyeon’s hand shifts away as she caps the marker. It’s a drawing of someone with sad eyes, mouth turned down comically. When Jiyeon starts filling in the lines of her plaid shirt, Sojung realises it’s meant to be her.

She blinks down at it. Her likeness stares back despondently. Jiyeon adds little wrinkles to the chin as an afterthought.

Sojung’s mouth twitches.

She grabs the marker from Jiyeon. kim jiyeon you know i hate it when you draw me like that.

Jiyeon blinks, wide-eyed and innocent, and snatches the marker back. why? i think i did a pretty good job. the likeness is uncanny

Sojung bats her hand away. no it’s NOT

ok ok my bad one second

Jiyeon rubs some of the portrait away and then sticks her tongue out, concentrating. Sojung squints, immediately suspicious. She can’t ask Jiyeon what she’s doing, and Jiyeon has her only mode of communication in her hands, so she settles for jabbing Jiyeon’s shoulder, trying to get her to move. Jiyeon uses her body to block her line of sight, but she isn’t exactly the tallest person around, so Sojung sticks her chin over her shoulder instead.

Whiteboard-Sojung is now pinching her nose, which seems to have grown a couple of sizes.

An indignant squeak escapes Sojung, then her hands fly belatedly to her throat.

Jiyeon is laughing at her in that oddly endearing way of hers whenever she finds something really funny, the kind where her nose scrunches and she half-squeaks, half-inhales her way through an actual laugh.

Sojung grabs the marker. kim jiyeon my doctor is going to kill you!!! and then he’s going to kill me!! i’m not supposed to talk!!!!

Jiyeon just draws a smiley face on her whiteboard. It looks like her, smiling crescent eyes and a mouth wide open in laughter. Sojung pulls a face.

i hate you, she scribbles just under it. Her cheeks feel odd, like they kind of ache. Sojung realises she’s smiling. She looks up to see Jiyeon watching her, chin in the palm of her hand. Their eyes meet, and Jiyeon sticks her tongue out at her, then snatches the marker from her again.

no you don’t ^^*

Despite Kim Jiyeon’s best efforts, Sojung survives her five days of not talking.

But she still isn’t allowed to sing, and everyone won’t stop telling her she should rest, instead of wearing her body out even more on workouts and new choreography. She can’t sing, so she overcompensates by doing more of everything else, ignoring the way her body protests.

One month of “resting” passes, then another. Sojung drags her feet back and forth between the trainee dorms and the practice room. She spends most nights with her covers drawn up over her head, earbuds stuffed in her ears, listening to music that makes her head pound. During the day, she dances until she wears out the soles of her sneakers and her muscles scream from the exertion.

She can’t use her voice to sing, so she takes the past three months of bottled-up frustration into the recording studio and lays it out verse by verse, fast and angry and raw, into tracks she’ll never show anyone.

They can stop her from singing, but they can’t keep her out of the studio.

Hyunjung finds her one day, tucked away in the recording studio, brooding over her latest track. Sojung thought she’d locked the door.

She sits wordlessly next to Sojung, listens to the mess of a song she’s been piecing together.

“This is good,” Hyunjung says, surprised. “I didn’t know you could rap like that.”

Sojung isn’t used to Hyunjung not opening without some affectionate jibe or other upon seeing her. “Is it really?” she says. “You’re not just being nice, are you?”

This slump Sojung is in hangs over her like a raincloud, thick and oppressive and dismal. She’s well aware everyone is walking over eggshells around her, doesn’t readily tease her like they normally would.

“No.” Hyunjung frowns. “It’s raw, but after some refinement I’d put it in my playlist.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Hyunjung replays the track, absentmindedly looking over the changes she’s made. Sojung watches the cursor move around the screen dully, legs drawn up to her chin.

“Unnie,” she says hoarsely. “I don’t think I can sing with you anymore.”

Back when Sojung’s voice still worked like it should, she and Hyunjung used to practise singing duets together. A new release Sojung was excited about, or a nostalgic throwback stuck in Hyunjung’s head, one so old they’d have trouble finding the right audio track to practise with.

Hyunjung pauses the track, looks at her. “It’s only been two months.”

“But what if—”

Hyunjung bops her with her mouse, lightly. “Don’t even think about it. Talk to me about this again in another four months and we’ll see whether you’re still saying the same thing.”

“But—”

Hyunjung lifts the keyboard this time. (She’s been spending far too much time around Soobin.) Sojung closes her mouth. “Okay,” she mumbles.

“Besides,” Hyunjung says, putting the keyboard down and peering at the screen. "Listen to this. Maybe you should try rapping more often.”

One muggy day in July, Sojung’s knees give way beneath her as she’s dancing. She hears more than she feels herself thud clumsily to the ground, where she stays sprawled on her belly for the next few minutes, just staring at the scuffs and scratches in the wood grain.

Somewhere behind her, the door opens and closes. Sojung is just in the middle of deciding whether or not it’s worth the bother to get up and check who it is when she hears the sound of panicked footsteps hurrying towards her. In the next second, small hands land on her shoulders and start shaking her, none-too-gently.

Jiyeon’s face appears in her vision, pale and frightened. “Sojung? Sojung-ah! Are you—” Mid-shake, she meets Sojung’s eyes.

Her fist connects with Sojung’s shoulder, hard. “Don’t scare me like that. I thought you fainted or something. Dummy.”

“Ow,” Sojung complains tonelessly, pretending to clutch at her shoulder. “You’re so mean. What if I actually fainted? You were shaking me around and hitting me—”

Jiyeon just shoves her again. “Well, you didn’t.”

Sojung heaves herself up off the floor. These days she moves slowly, lethargically, like she’s trying to walk through glue. Jiyeon watches her, her face unreadable.

“You look like shit,” she says finally. “Take it easy. You’ve been practising non-stop for weeks.”

Sojung slouches against the mirror that lines the wall of the practice room, tips her head back, lets the chill soak through her thin shirt. “I can’t.”

Jiyeon moves to sit next to her, bumping her shoulder with her own. “Why not?”

“Too much to do.” Sojung bumps her shoulder back half-heartedly. “I need to learn this routine, I can’t get it right, then I want to work in the studio a bit more. Dawon asked me to look over some lyrics for her. And Dayoung asked me to help her with her homework.” She shifts, raking a hand through her hair tiredly. "And—crap—Miyeon-ssaem asked me five days ago to go over the new choreographies we have to learn—”

“—and put everyone in groups?” Jiyeon says. “I settled it with her.”

“Yeah, the—” Sojung blinks at her. “Huh?”

“You’re not the only one who knows everyone’s dance styles, you know.” Jiyeon prods her shoulder. “I haven’t been here as long as any of you, but I pay attention.”

“Oh. Then—”

“I put Juyeon on Dayoung homework duty,” Jiyeon says. “She asked me too, but I can’t remember anything about Chemistry and I didn’t think you would either. And you told me about Dawon needing help last Thursday, so I tried helping her with some of her lyrics today and—” she pauses here, preens like a self-satisfied cat “—I think she actually liked my suggestions. Though she might ask you to look over it one more time. You’re the expert.”

Sojung stares at her, speechless.

Jiyeon just punches her shoulder. “Stop trying to do everything by yourself. Idiot.”

She has this defiant, obstinate look on her face, eyebrows drawn and lips pressed together as if to say Chu Sojung I’ll murder you in your sleep if you ever bring up the fact that I did these things for you, so Sojung (wisely) swallows past whatever she thinks she’s going to say and settles for leaning back against the mirror again. Grinning stupidly to herself, this time.

“Jiyeon-ah,” she manages, through the lump forming thickly in her throat.

“What.”

“Thank you,” she says, earnestly. She can’t look at Jiyeon right now for fear the tears that have gathered in her eyes will spill over, so she settles for nudging Jiyeon’s knee with her own.

Silence.

“Stop smiling like that,” Jiyeon sniffs. “It makes you look ugly.”

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cont'd on ao3 - i exceeded the character limit, sorry admins!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Round 1: Quotes

[FILL] wherever you stray (i follow)