girlsfest | 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!

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 3 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.
Once a round is open, you can continue submitting prompts for it until the end of the fest moderation period. (Ex: On February 17 after Round 3 opens, you’re still allowed to submit prompts to Round 1 and 2.)
There is no minimum or maximum word count for fills. In the spirit of the fest, we encourage you to write shorter works, but any length is welcome and appreciated!
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: itzy ryujin/aespa ningning
Tags: sports au
Prompt:

Though, I do admit, it came on fast
Still, I do believe that it can last
And I will be loathing
For forever
Loathing
Truly, deeply loathing you
My whole life long

— What is this Feeling, Wicked

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] when the time comes

Characters/Ship: lesserafim sakura/lee chaeyeon
Tags: post-produce48, canon compliant
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.

Fills with NSFW/explicit content should have (NSFW) at the end of the comment title.
Example: [FILL] love hangover (NSFW)

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: Any
Tags: baldur's gate 3 or high fantasy/dnd-adjacent AU, angst
Prompt:

“You know, soldier, we’re so fucked. I am not sure anyone has ever been more fucked than this. And yet… we’re fine. In this moment, we’re fine. Here I am. There you are. Breathing. Talking. Even laughing, if we want. Is it very precious to say that, despite it all, I'm… happy?”

- Karlach, Baldur's Gate 3

Characters/Ship: IVE Rei/Liz
Tags: dnd AU, babblebrook setting (as in goodnight moon asmrverse), light angst
Permission to Remix: No

[ao3 link]

-

Rei most remembers her humanness when she's scared.

It's been easy to forget in present company—over the past two years, the six members of her party have performed incredible feats of magic and strength, seeing and doing things she'd only heard rumors of during her time apprenticing at an apothecary, and in bedtime stories before that, as a young child sheltered deep in the kingdom of Lancaster.

In the margins of her sketchbooks, like guardians of her literature homework and medicinal plant sketches, she drew long-limbed elves like Kazuha and elemental beings like Jinsol, druids like Yoona and wizards like Minji. Even after her own tinctures and remedies became renowned throughout the center city for their rapid effects and lasting boosts to one's vitality, work that brought suspicion to the shop and became what Minji recruited her for, it took time for Rei to envision herself as someone who belonged in another dreamer's notebook. But only a couple months into their adventuring came the party's first brush with death, and it was Rei whose innate power made the difference and saved their lives. A switch flipped in her head that day, and the mundanity of her mortal coil stopped being a mental block. No mere human would have survived what she had, what they have.

This mantra remains Rei's anchor amid stormy seas. But on nights like these, spent alone on the second watch shift, looking through the magical dome of their camp in the flat lands between the Glenham Mountains and Brunswick Lake, her confidence sloughs off her skin and leaves her exposed, shaking.

She traces a finger down the line of her silver staff, following the rising ridges and sloping knobs of the handholds up to the ornate, heart-shaped crown. Though, to the outside world, they are hidden within an opaque hut, glimmers of moonlight pierce through the ceiling and dance on the cut facets of the oval citrine set in the center of the staff's heart, just enough to be lively without disturbing anyone's rest. Jiwon chose the gem; it contrasts the cool aluminum Rei insisted on wielding and is easy to spot from a distance.

But most importantly, Jiwon had said, pointing to the gem then herself, it looks like honey, which means it pairs well with Cheese.

It's Jiwon's quest they're trying to fulfill, the most high stakes of all. For the first time since she and Minji escaped center city limits, Rei has returned to Lancaster, the seat of the crown, to kill the queen.

A pale hand with sharply pointed nails drapes itself over the gemstone, snuffing the light. Rei glances at Jiwon beside her, still awake despite Rei's insistence she take no watch tonight. Jiwon is only ever plain in her nightclothes—soft, solid-patterned, the same cornsilk shade as her skin. The two features that break up monotony are her peachy lips and inky black eyes. When younger Rei imagined her fantastical characters fighting devils and demons, she hadn't known they could look so girlish, like a friend.

Rei keeps her own hand at the base of the staff's crown and drums up a bit of energy, warming both their palms. Without need to open her mouth, she sends Jiwon a short mental message: I told you to rest. We have a long day of travel tomorrow.

Jiwon's magic is different from hers, and she does have to speak and roll her wrist in a flourish, but by grace of whatever deities watch over them, Jiwon's attempt at a whisper is quiet. I would, but you think so loud! Her eyebrows scrunch, affecting exaggerated emotion as if she were on stage at a tavern performing one of her tales, but then she relaxes and pauses, as long as the spell allows before dissipating, before finishing her response. Are you thinking about the Nightshade Witch? She's scary, isn't she? Even I can't get her out of–

Her message cuts off, as expected. Rei shakes her head anyway. She quite likes Belladonna, actually. Though, if she has to choose, she'd say Evangeline the Willow Witch is the more welcoming presence in the woods.

Jiwon blinks meaningfully. She presses her lips together, then pushes herself off her side up into a seat, her back and long, cane-like horns pressing against the dome's boundary so she can face Rei. Her outstretched legs graze Rei's knee and hip where she sits crisscross.

It's Jiwon's magic keeping them comfortable and protected every night, the same way it's her silver tongue that talks their way in and out of trouble throughout the lands outside of the kingdom. The same way it's her stricken body Rei can't help but recall from that early combat, prone and ever-so-briefly visiting the afterlife. There's not much Rei wouldn't do for Jiwon, but as they've gone further into the kingdom, closer to home and the people who raised her, it's gotten harder to pretend she wouldn't rather turn tail than risk a visit becoming a permanent move.

Jiwon's foot taps Rei twice, drawing her eyes up from the ground. Hey, Jiwon's message starts, remember how I said no at first? Laughed at the proposal because, well. Look at me. Weak as anything. Would crumble into dust, easily.

Rei grins, close-lipped. You wanted to rest after we took care of that giant spider.

I always want to rest. Jiwon shrugs. But I wasn't ready to do this yet. You all make me feel like we can really make things better.

But what if...? Rei drops the message thread because she notices a change in light, as Jiwon's hand uncovers the staff's heart. Despite the tight angle, the moonlight dances on the citrine again and refracts into Jiwon's eyes, creating almost a six-pointed star where pupils would be.

There are signs that are little more than wishful thinking, coincidences given undue meaning, and then there are reassurances, laid out clear as day. If Rei truly believes they are on an impossible mission, there is nothing stopping her, or any of them for that matter, from backing out. She has a life in another apothecary somewhere out there waiting for her, and Minji could wield her wealth of knowledge as a member on a wizard council, and Yoona, Jinsol, and Kazuha can find another party pursuing the very human desire to protect the Material Plane and all its peoples for centuries to come. And Jiwon can continue her life as a traveling performer, wandering from town to town despite her laundry list of fears, in search of good stories to tell and songs to write about them, not unlike Rei with her drawings.

Jiwon isn't wrong to say she's fragile, because she is. They all are. Yet, they fight.

Jiwon places her hand over Rei's where it still covers the join between crown and body. Their hands are similar sizes, but Jiwon's nails stretch that much further; dome aside, it isn't often she can give Rei cover. Then we did the best we could, she whispers. But we won't die. Bad inn food could kill us, and so could bugs, and lightning strikes, and–

Stay up with me, Rei replies breathlessly. I'm on watch for another hour. You can keep running me through more ways we could die.

Jiwon beams. She noisily hoists herself around to fall in line with Rei, reaching her left arm over the base of the staff to fit in the space next to Rei's black wool-covered thigh. "I'm good," she says without cover of magic. "It might put you to sleep, and we can't have that, now can we?"

"Exactly." Rei slides her arm back and interlocks their hands, warm like metal.

Round 1: Quotes

no subject

[FILL] frighten me into the present