Hello to everyone who has passed by this fest, those who have written a fill, yelled in a comment, scrolled through the prompts, or obsessively refreshed a masterlist or the twitter search — hello, well done, and thank you.
We’ve written 101 fics! In a span of 2 months!!! How ridiculous is that! Of the 28 fics in the ao3 collection, there are almost 48, 000 words!!! That’s amazing ;_____;
(On a curious note, the top 3 members were all 97z: Mingyu (31 fills), Minghao (27 fils) and Seokmin (25 fils). 1/3 of the fics mained Mingyu, are we okay? Do we need to talk?)
Above all, there was a countless number of prompts and ideas and points of inspiration that will stay and linger on even if this fest has ended.
As background, the idea for 17hols came in November. There was a dreamwidth renaissance in my circle, friends were doing authors notes and writing reflections and book posts and a few comment fests made an appearance. But there were conversations about fandom, about how we want fandom to be. There was a disappointment towards Twitter, a tinge of burn-out at the fast pace and short lifespan of ideas. Sometimes ideas take weeks to grow and develop into a story, but on Twitter you blink and fandom rushes on. A photoshoot can spark a thought, but then there’s another vlive, another weverse post, another stage.
One purpose of 17hols, was to slow it down. To let people mull over their thoughts, to have room to breathe, write, then come back and carry on the conversation. These prompts, this archive of quotes and pictures and stories — they will will always be here, and they will inspire again.
Some of you know me for writing Weight of Heaven. That AU was inspired by a prompt on a fest very similar to this one, in a different fandom, filled in 2013.
I wrote Weight of Heaven in 2019.
Life happens. Life is hard. Life is long. There’s no rush. Some things take time and that’s okay.
The philosophy of 17hols was always this: make people want to write.
I didn’t want to force people to write. I want to make them want to write. To see an idea and have it burn so badly they must write it out. To build off the ideas of others, to respond to fandom with creativity. To have a community that supports and encourages each other, that’s precious. So thank you for being a part of it.
Through the fest, I saw comments like this is the first time I’ve written in a while or this is the happiest I’ve been writing — these words made me so, very, glad. Because it meant 17hols succeeded. If you written something, anything, that’s a success!!!
Going forward, I wonder how you’re all feeling. I hope you look back on this fondly, and if not, I want you to know that I am so proud of what we’ve made together.
Perhaps, as writers, we are haunted by disappointment because we never achieve the goals we set for ourselves. We go into a project with dreams and numbers and word counts and visions stitched upon visions. We will never achieve everything we want to, but that is the nature of dreaming.
Those who come later will not see what we haven’t written, but they will see that we did.
I hope that throughout the year, and the years to come, people will return to these posts, these prompts, and be inspired again. Perhaps, they will write. Perhaps, some ideas just take time to grow.
Be kind to yourselves, and keep writing.
love,
hwa
P.S. Major thanks and gratitude to r and pb who carried the masterlist. I could not have done it myself and they gave me so much relief with their support. Thank you for the hard work!
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