17hols | 2022 Round 1: Quotes

2022 Round 1: Quotes

Status: Closed

This round has closed. It remains open for fills, comments and remixes, but prompts are no longer accepted.

Seventeen Holidays

Round 1: Quotes

About

"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more."

"What is grief, if not love persevering?"

"You kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath"

Calling all readers, lovers of poetry and music, screen and stage. Quote collecters and lyric hoarders, unleash your archive. Each prompt must contain a quote - you can combine them, add commentary, link to articles, and more. Steal from a literary classic, or WeVerse drama. Have fun!

Examples

Minghao + Ocean Vuong

The most beautiful part of your body
is where it's headed. & remember,
loneliness is still time spent
with the world.

Ocean Vuong - night sky with exit wounds

Hoshi/Anyone; "Beauty is terror"

Thinking about these two quotes together and the idea of on/off-stage personas:

"Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful we tremble before it. And what could be more terrifying or beautiful, to the Greeks to to our own, than to lose control completely?" - Donna Tartt, the Secret Histories

"I am calm in everyday life but when I put on my in-ear device and step on stage, I can feel the tension and hear the cheers getting louder as the music gets louder. When the staff tells me it's time to step on stage, I feel something boil inside me. I feel it steaming inside and I think I have to give a burst of something, spill what is inside me." - Hoshi in Hit the Road Ep. 04

Any ship; "It's been so many years"

Hello, hello there, is this Martha?
This is old Tom Frost
And I am calling long distance
Don't worry 'bout the cost.
'Cause it's been forty years or more
Now Martha please recall
Meet me out for coffee
Where we'll talk about it all.

Tom Watts - Martha

Rules

Sign up is not required.
Fills have a minimum of 400 words for prose, haiku-length for poetry (3 lines), and 400px by 400px for art (memes are also art). Other mediums are fine too!
There is no maximum cap.
Tag and provide content warnings at your discretion, but a good guide are the Ao3 four (Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage) and this list of common CWs (cr: SportsFest).
NSFW/Explicit content should be tagged
NSFW art should not be visible, please provide a link and a warning. You may crop the artwork and embed a SFW preview.

How it works

Prompting

Click on [Post a New Comment] at the bottom of this post;
Change the subject to something interesting;
Copy+Paste the following HTML into your comment and edit the sections. Feel free to add as much detail as you want!
Ship/Member: Any Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: N/A Do Not Wants: None Prompt: <blockquote>[QUOTE GOES HERE] </blockquote>

Filling

Reply to the original prompt;
Change the subject to [FILL], you may add a title or stay chaotic;
Copy+Paste the following HTML into your comment, edit the sections, and add your text.
You may also upload your fill to the AO3 Collection.

Ship/Member: Any Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: N/A Permission to remix: Yes/No/Please ask ***

Remixing

Post as a reply to the fill you are remixing, using the same HTML as above;
Change the subject to [REMIX].

Art/media

Upload your work to any platform (twitter, imgur, youtube, soundcloud, google maps, etc.)
Using the same HTML code as above, copy the link into your fill or remix. That's it!
Optionally, you can embed a picture into your comment. Please use the following code instead.
(To explain, the HTML resizes your picture to 400x400px so that it fits on most screens. Users can view the full size if they click on it. You can also add a link to your work on twitter so that others can share it, or to any other website you want)

Ship/Member: Any Major Tags: N/A Additional Tags: N/A Permission to remix: Yes/No/Please ask *** <img src="INSERT IMAGE URL" width="400px"> <a href="INSERT ANY URL YOU WANT">TEXT THAT DESCRIBES THE LINK</a>

Note!

On dreamwidth, you can't edit a comment once someone has replied to it.

Navigation

❮ ROUND 1: QUOTES ❯

ROUND 2: ALTERNATE UNIVERSES

ROUND 3: LAST WORDS

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

first of all YOUR GOD..... i know it's obvious but you really got all the characterization right i loooove it... i know you're not prone to genderbending so thank you so much for doing this... but it never really crossed her mind when Hansol was just so obedient and good and cute. SO TRUE SO TRUE... the details of masc slob girl hansol were so perfect and most pleasing to me... i can't leave my favorite part out of the review so Or course, her more innocent thoughts were quickly derailed by imagining the sound Hansol would make when Seungkwan had her from behind and she tugged on the back of her collar – i literally died and revived... i love U

He stares at his own face— touched up, perfect — and his own blank smile and feels sick. fuck me up!!!!!!!!!!!! i love the mood here and how clearly you made me feel it using so few words, it's really really really good!!!!!

oh the minwon staple of mingyu who is so full of love and wants to love well and wonwoo who is just a little too repressed to let himself have it... brilliant stuff thank you for sharing !!

Wonwoo? Wonwoo was spare parts. what a way to take a hold of my heart right from the beginning. Trying to fill in someone else's shadow, almost, almost breaking out of your own inadequacy only to have: I'm glad it is you but not quite in the way he wanted it to be. The way they both are glad to have found a means to their ends in each other T__T. I see me in you of course...of course..my brain is whirring furiously, this is just very, very wonderful. will think of the betrayal for weeks to come. thank you for this!!

ooooooooh the PINING of it all... loved the detail at the end about the sounds of the city, and the idea of an imaginary jeonghan in soonyoung's head. thank you for writing <3

Ship/Member: Jihoon/Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

I've been playing dead
My whole life
And I get this feeling whenever I feel good
It'll be the last time
But I feel something when I see you now
I feel something when I see you

- Phoebe Bridgers, ICU

aaaaaaaaaaaaaah the pain and desperation of this one... LOVE the way you evoked this apocalyptic setting. truly horrifying. and i absolutely broke at "Minghao trusted his gut, Mingyu trusted Minghao"... you evoked this world in such a concise and impactful way, it's so classy!!!

Ship/Member: Mingyu/Seungcheol; side jicheol
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: unrequited love, friends with benefits, light angst, minghao is the best person ever
Permission to remix: Yes

***

When Mingyu meets Seungcheol, he’s in his third year of college. He’s interning at the local entertainment company that’s just a block away from his dorm, and Seungcheol is the man he’s meant to report to.

It all feels like one of those cliche romance movies that Mingyu isn’t embarrassed to admit he loves. Seungcheol is, for lack of better words, perfect, and everything that Mingyu dreams of in his ideal man. He wonders, his mind reeling through all his failed relationships in the past and the battered, bruised condition of his poor old heart, if maybe, this will be different. Maybe Seungcheol, who’s older and wiser and smarter and better, will understand Mingyu in a way no one has before, maybe Seungcheol will be the one to stick a bandaid on his heart and kiss it better. Mingyu admires him in a way he hasn’t admired anyone before, and honestly thinks that the older man could do no wrong. Maybe he’ll be the one.

He hopes, and hopes and hopes, that Seungcheol will see it; will recognise the ardent desire in Mingyu’s eyes for what it is.

Of course, it doesn’t really go Mingyu’s way, as most things usually don’t. Mingyu imprints on him like a baby duckling, but Seungcheol doesn’t see that - is hilariously oblivious to the star eyes that Mingyu makes at him whenever they grab lunch together at the cafeteria. Mingyu perseveres anyway. Maybe this could be different, he tells himself. Seungcheol just needs some time.

“You’re my best friend,” Seungcheol slurs one day, when they’ve reached the stage in their friendship where they could drink themselves to death in the older’s apartment and wake up sprawled over each other on the couch. “You’re my best friend, Mingyu. Thank you.”

Mingyu almost cries that night. Maybe this - maybe Seungcheol - could be different. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Maybe, his heart whispers again, when they’re in a club and Seungcheol presses into him, god knows how many pounds of pure muscle tingling against Mingyu’s spine. The older man presses his lips to the back of Mingyu’s neck, warm and wet from the beer he’s been drinking. Mingyu arches his back, presses into Seungcheol even more, and lets it happen.

Maybe, his mind wonders, when after they wake up in the morning sprawled over each other as usual, but naked and in a bed this time, Seungcheol flashes him a heart-stopping smile and asks if they could make this a thing.

“We’re both so busy with life,” he says, a blanket draped over his legs, his pecs on full display, “And this is convenient, isn’t it?”

Mingyu is a fool. Mingyu swears he isn’t in love. Mingyu tells himself it’ll be so easy, so simple. Mingyu tells himself he’ll get over it.

Mingyu says yes.

And he knows, he knows he’s too far gone at this point, he knows he’s just making it harder on himself, but loving (not loving, he shakes his head, but he knows he’s just fooling himself) Seungcheol is a pleasure. It’s an absolute delight. It makes Mingyu’s entire day to send him good morning texts that are answered too late, to put an extra blanket over him at night because he knows his hyung gets cold, to make him his mum’s recipe of kimchi jjigae so he’d stay for breakfast.

Mingyu would go as far to say that he feels blessed beyond his wildest dreams to be allowed to love Seungcheol, even if it isn’t reciprocated in the slightest - to be given the chance to shower him in his brand of single-minded devotion and probably overwhelming affection. Everyone else before has taken Mingyu aside and told him “Hey, this is cool, but also too much for me, dude. Please take a step back, or maybe just go away entirely,” but Seungcheol hasn’t. Maybe it’d be kinder on Mingyu’s heart if he had, but Mingyu convinces himself that if he gets his heart broken at the end of the line, it’ll all be worth it.

Seungcheol listens when Mingyu rambles on about the significance of some ingredient in a recipe that he has the least interest in, and engages in midnight arguments about the ethics of owning pets; and maybe it’s because when Mingyu is talking, he has a earphone in one ear blasting one of Jihoon’s new tracks; and maybe it’s because to Seungcheol, they’re still best friends and arguing over dumb shit is just what best friends do. Mingyu doesn’t know. He tells himself he doesn’t care. It’ll all be worth it, he promises his heart, it’ll all be worth it in the end.

He’s not in love, he tries to convince himself at night, when Seungcheol is snoring next to him but his back is turned away. He’s not in love, but he takes great pleasure in making love to Seungcheol. It’s okay. Even that is enough for him. He may be younger, more foolish, more inexperienced than anyone Seungcheol has been with before, but Seungcheol is with him now, and that’s all that matters. He lets Mingyu take care of him, lets him fuss, lets him cook for him, lets him fuck him on nights that he feels like it. It’s more than Mingyu ever thought he’d be allowed.

It truly does feel like a blessing to him, to be allowed to hold Seungcheol’s attention, even if it’s just during stress-induced fucks and the sweet morning-afters when Seungcheol is in such a rush that he skips breakfast and lets the bowl of oyakodon that Mingyu had painstakingly made for him go cold, but he ruffles Mingyu’s hair before leaving and his heart soars higher and higher.

It’ll be alright. It’ll be alright.

Seungcheol is in his life and he lets him into his home and sometimes helps fold Mingyu’s bedsheets.

It’ll be enough. It is enough. Mingyu will make sure that it is.

==

Mingyu meets Minghao about seven months into his whatever-it-is (not a relationship, he repeats it in his head like a mantra before they fall asleep sticky and sweaty and oh so naturally, it’s not a relationship) with Seungcheol.

His new friend takes one look at him in the morning, after Seungcheol’s left to go meet Jihoon, and sighs.

“You’re fucked, aren’t you?” Minghao isn’t one to mince his words.

Mingyu’s eyes widen. “What?”

“That guy,” Minghao jerks his head towards the shut door, then eyes the untouched plate of French toast on the table. “You like him. Hell, you probably love him.”

Mingyu doesn’t know what to say. It’s been barely a week since he and Minghao bonded over their shared taste in weird, abstract art and photography and stupid romantic movies after a chance encounter in his favourite camera shop. He doesn’t know if it’s appropriate for Minghao to be commenting on his pathetic (not pathetic, he has what he wants, he has Seungcheol (does he?)) love life, doesn’t know how he feels about a practical outsider instantly knowing how stupid and lovesick he is.

“Uh. No?”

Minghao snorts. “Oh, Mingyu,” he sighs. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Mingyu learns one week into knowing Minghao that he doesn’t seem to care much for how appropriate (distant, guarded, aware) he should be around new friends. It’s a refreshing change, meeting someone so unaffected by societal pressures. Mingyu would be too scared to try, too scared to live the way Minghao does - unapologetic, with clear, set boundaries and a vision of what he wants his life to look like. Mingyu just knows he wants Seungcheol. Doesn’t know anything else.

It’s so, so pathetic. Minghao is kind enough not to say it to his face.

“It’s unhealthy,” Minghao says, one hand resting on Mingyu’s, one hand curled around the cup of coffee that Mingyu had made for him as payment for listening to him and his lovesick woes. “It’s really unhealthy to live like this, Mingyu.”

“It’s enough,” Mingyu insists, although he’s unsure himself. “He’s my best friend. He listens to me. He sleeps with me. Isn’t that what they say love should be? Best friends, but with benefits?”

“Not benefits,” Minghao says patiently, more patient than anyone has ever been with Mingyu. They’d usually just roll their eyes and tell him to get his shit together. “Love is not an idealised friends-with-benefits relationship, Mingyu. It’s more than that. This is just hurting you.”

Is it? Mingyu doesn’t know what hurts and what doesn’t anymore. He just knows what it feels like waking up next to Seungcheol, all sleep-ruffled and adorable, and he knows that he wants that forever.

“I can only tell you how I see it,” Minghao says before he leaves that morning, looking straight at him, his eyes seemingly seeing through everything that Mingyu tries his best to hide. “I can’t tell you what to do, Mingyu, but I hope you think about it more. Think about it without thinking about your love for him.”

“How can I do that?” Mingyu asks, a bit desperate. “How can I think about him without thinking that I love him?”

Minghao doesn’t have an answer for that.

When he leaves, Mingyu opens his text thread with Seungcheol.

mingoo
hyung, do you want me to bring you lunch?

When he hits send, he feels a bit pathetic, and a whole lot of stupid. Minghao’s words cling to him like unwanted mud after a walk in the rain. They echo in his brain loudly, menacingly. Mingyu wishes they would stop. His head hurts too much.

cheol hyung <3
sure! do you mind if jihoon joins us?
AAAA mingyu i think i like him, pls say yes. u gotta be my wingman bro!!

Something in Mingyu’s heart stops. Something snaps. Something breaks and tears and Mingyu feels like he’s choking on his blood.

How had he been so blind? He wants to break his phone. But -

mingoo
sure! waah hyung, you never told me u liked him

- he’s just a foolish, foolish boy. Just a boy, trying to tell a man that he’s enough. How could he ever be?

But Mingyu doesn’t know how to stop. He doesn’t know who he is, without his love for Seungcheol. Doesn’t know who he is, if he doesn’t have someone to love.

If Mingyu isn’t in love, he’s nothing at all.

Ship/Member: Soonyoung/Wonwoo
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: character study, ambiguous relationships
Permission to remix: Yes

I am unconsciously baited by soonwoo every year
***

Maybe holding back
is just another kind

of need. I am a blue
plum in the half-light.

You are a tiger who
eats his own paws.

Wonwoo is afraid of falling. He wakes up to it sometimes, blue sleep cartwheeling into cold sweat as the mattress crumbles underneath him — and he is awake, heart thumping up to his throat as he squints and realises he’s fallen asleep in the lounge room again, Seungcheol’s oversized cardigan on his knees.

He remembers the gym in elementary school. Laughter, squeaky shoes, loudspeaker crackle. His classmates are crowded around him. The teacher tells him to close his eyes, cross his arms over his chest, and lean back: don’t worry your friends will catch you.

Wonwoo crosses his arms, right over left, hands fisted so that he won’t be tempted to reach out behind him. Following instructions was a virtue, his mother says. Wonwoo closes his eyes and lets himself fall.

Gravity whooshes through him, his heart leaps like a rollercoaster and every hair on his body trembles but the moment suspends for a second too long and Wonwoo knows, as his eyes meet the ceiling, that he knew this was coming.

Wonwoo falls. His tailbone hits the ground first and his glasses bounce off his nose and scatter elsewhere. He squeezes his eyes shut as laughter pours over his head and red shame rises to his ears. No one had caught him. All of them stood by and watched him fall.

Wonwoo is afraid of falling.

////

“But hyung, what would you have answered?” Seokmin whines, “What is something you’re afraid of?” They are backstage in Chiba and the lady from MTV just left after asking them about Fear. Seokmin is being guided into a makeup chair for touch ups and Wonwoo on the hunt for a phone charger.

“Bugs was a perfect answer Seokmin. A lot of people are afraid of bugs. Especially bugs with a lot of legs.” Jeonghan replies, one hand already offering a placating pat, “Mingyu’s being weird again.”

“No. I also should have said something profound and deep. Now I seem like an idiot.” Seokmin slaps his own cheeks, “The transience of life. The inevitability of my own mortality. Being forgotten by my own mother.”

“Sincerity is always good,” Jeonghan says, already scrolling at his phone. His eyes shoot up to stare at Wonwoo squatting in the corner, on his third attempt at aligning a USB cord. Wonwoo senses radio signals. Silence hovers in the room. Jeonghan’s stare evolves into a glower.

“Pigeons.”

“What?” Seokmin looks up.

“I would say I’m afraid of pigeons,” Wonwoo repeats. He pushes his glasses up. Seokmin laughs lightly.

“See.” Jeonghan chimes, in a tone that also seems to say See, Wonwoo would also give a normal answer and he’s 10 times more profound than Mingyu ever will be. “Everyone is afraid of normal things.”

“Except Soonyoung,” Minghao says from the sofa. Seokmin squeaks and jumps in his seat, powder going onto his ears. To be fair, Wonwoo didn’t notice Minghao was here either. “Soonyoung is not afraid of anything.”

“Huh,” Jeonghan hums, “That’s true.”

Wonwoo’s first thought was no, that’s not right — the kickback instinct whenever asked to commit to an absolute truth. But then Wonwoo thinks about it, rewinds back 8 years of moments and memories. Walking in dark to the subway. The first showcase stage. The theme park in Dallas. He can’t recall ever seeing Soonyoung fearful. Perhaps once he would’ve assumed that Soonyoung was nervous or unhappy, but experience has taught him to read it as exhaustion, the low-burning oil of an introvert in recovery. His mind sped through hypotheticals. Haunted house, deep ocean, narrow caves. Each failed him. Wonwoo could imagine Soonyoung walking leisurely next to a ghost or bungee-jumping fashionably. In his mind, he skipped past the situational and tried to just imagine Soonyoung afraid, the look of it on him, but each expression slipped off his face like water, unable to stick.

Soonyoung was not afraid of anything.

////

In third grade, Wonwoo learnt that his jokes were never funny. So he stopped sharing them.

In high school, Wonwoo learnt most people weren’t listening when he rambled about grafting watermelon stems in dry weather or the unreliable narration in Final Fantasy 7. So he stopped talking.

In 2011, Jeon Wonwoo met Kwon Soonyoung, a boy from Namyangju that could not hold anything back. When he was happy, energy exploded out of him like an overflowing tap, as if his body could not contain his joy. When he was excited, his hands shook and his knee bounced. He physically vibrated. He could yell louder than Seokmin could sing. When he wanted to grab someone, not even Jihoon’s willpower could stop him.

////

Wonwoo was doing his homework in the horrible green room in the basement when the door slammed open, Soonyoung leaping inside with the winter wind.

“I confessed!” Soonyoung screamed. There were leaves in his hair and on the floor, trailing behind like a wedding train.

Wonwoo gave him a short nod and went back to his homework. The room thinned back into quietness for a moment and then Wonwoo jolted up. He was the only one in the room. Soonyoung was still standing there, frozen in time as if paralysed until a reaction was fed to him, like a coin in a vending machine.

“Hahaha,” Wonwoo forced out a laugh, “Congratulations.”

All at once, Soonyoung reanimated. His cheeks puffed up, his eyes crinkled, his bag thrown from his back into the wall.

“Can you believe I did it?”

Yes, Wonwoo thought, I can. Even at fifteen, Wonwoo had started to understand the parts of Soonyoung that made him so extraordinary. “How was it?”

Soonyoung blinks, as if processing, as if it had never occurred to him to reflect and value the events.

Wonwoo backtracked, “Well, what’s next?”

“What’s next?”

“What did she say? After you confessed?” Did she say yes? Are you dating now? What about training? How are you going to manage your time between practice and dates?” These were all things Wonwoo would have had answers to, if he wanted to confess.

Soonyoung shrugged. “Oh, I’m not sure.”

“You’re not sure?”

Soonyoung scratched at his grin, turning sheepish, “Well I didn’t wait to hear her reply.”

“So you just, said it and ran off?”

“I was going to miss my bus and be late.”

Wonwoo eyed the empty room in his peripheral vision. Well what was the point of confessing — he wanted to ask. He thought about asking, about what Soonyoung could say in response. If it would be rude to ask. If Wonwoo were to confess, it would be to hear a reply, to know for certain how someone else felt about him, to know his place in the world of another. But for that reason alone, Wonwoo would never confess unless he was certain that the feeling was reciprocated, that there was an answer that could be given. Otherwise there would be no point.

He could imagine it, Soonyoung running up the stairs to the school roof, confession bursting out like a ripe plum, before turning back and running back down, possibilities left behind him.

In the end, curiosity won out. “Why did you confess then?” Wonwoo asked. He closed his homework booklet and tucked away his pens.

“Just felt like I needed to,” Soonyoung said, kicking off his shoes, “and now I feel better.”

////

“Could you do it?” Seungkwan asks, “If that was your line.”

They are in the largest practice room preparing for the comeback performance of Fearless. Hyerim is explaining the choreography to Jeonghan — running up a set of stairs made from human bodies, spinning at the peak, looking for the camera, then dropping backwards into an ocean of hands. A trust fall.

There’s 6 of them in the back with the job of catching Jeonghan. Seungkwan just needs to stand pretty in the center but he’s migrated for a chat while the dancers are learning their places. Wonwoo likes to think Hyerim chose the 6 strongest but Minghao is there and Jihoon is, elsewhere.

“I could,” Joshua sniffs from Wonwoo’s left, “I’m just too heavy for it.”

“You could not,” Seungcheol snipes back, elbowing him in the ribs, “You’re scared of heights.”

Mingyu looks up, eyebrows drawn in worry, “Do you think Jeonghan’s scared?”

Of course Wonwoo thinks. Jeonghan’s also scared of heights, even if he never mentioned it when the idea was raised at the first planning meeting. Even now, Wonwoo can see the fear in his artificial focus, how his mouth is slightly open, how he sways on his feet. Wonwoo doesn’t say it out loud, the same way he does not say most thoughts out loud, because it was not what people wanted to hear.

I couldn’t do it. I’m afraid of falling. I’m afraid of not being caught.

Soonyoung is opposite him, contemplative. “I think it’ll be fun.” He shakes his shoulders, “Don’t you think it’ll look better if he posed first? Like this —”

Soonyoung stretches out his arms and leans back on his heels. For a second he is ethereal, a marble puppet crafted into art. Wonwoo watches him in slow motion, waiting for the moment Soonyoung moves his feet back to catch himself. But that never comes. Soonyoung snaps his arms across his chest, a different pose speaking to a different meaning. A millisecond passes and Wonwoo realises that Soonyoung is actually falling, falling.

He bolts forward, arms outstretched, hand grabbing the scruff of Soonyoung’s collar. Only his index finger makes it inside, he feels the tug of Soonyoung’s gravity, the grip of his sneakers as his balance wavers, then topples, crashing him past Minghao, into Soonyoung, into the ground.

Embarrassment tingles up Wonwoo’s neck. He pushes up his glasses to check if they’re still there. Soonyoung is laughing, hand curling into Wonwoo’s hair, halfway between a pat and a hug.

“What are you doing?” Wonwoo exclaims. They seem both unharmed, albeit uncoordinated and out of formation.

“Checking the pose,” Soonyoung chirps, he pulls his knees up.

“What if you fell?”

“I wanted to fall.”

“Didn’t you check if anyone would catch you?”

“Nope,” Soonyoung grins, getting up. He offers his hand to Wonwoo, still on the ground, “Isn’t it more interesting, to fall first, and see who would catch you?”

Wonwoo does not reply as he takes Soonyoung's hand and lets himself be pulled up. But he is thinking — perhaps.

ok as someone who likes seokmin so dearly the way you have described him is so !!!! to me because yeah so true he does always find something to smile about!! fuck!! and oh my goodness the sheer devotion with which minghao treats him, and the drying his hair and describing it as a PRIVILEGE!!!!!! oh the tenderness of it all, it's so very seokhao and i absolutely love it. i really do. and of course the seokgyu bickering is *chef's kiss*. whoever you are i am singing your praises rn this is wonderful

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOF this is just. wow. the dubious morality of it all, and the regret and the weight of seungkwan's past hanging over him... gaaaah this is such a snappy and impactful bit of writing. thank you for sharing!!

Ship/Member: Soonyoung/Any, (Soonyoung/Minghao/Junhui??)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:
I think we can live forever
In each other’s faces cause I’ll
always see my youth in you
-Halsey, Ya’aburnee

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

What I mean to say, perhaps, is that, in a way, I am never empty of you; not for a moment, an instant, a single second.
-Virginia Woolf, a letter to Vita Sackville-West

oh my god. ok i need to go through this.
- the REPRESSIONISMS of wonwoo..... oh dear. oh boy. someone should tell him it's all ok. and the contrast with soonyoung who just doesn't worry about all that!!! who confesses just to say it rather than to get a reply!! man. that's soonwoo alright
- as a 97z fan i am ALWAYS thinking about that interview, so the way you chose to write about that was just !!! to me. i loved it. i think it was so Them as well, like the way the room fell silent when jeonghan said it's good to be sincere was so fun, and then of course soonyoung who just isn't afraid!! perfect.
- and the FINAL BIT about soonyoung falling... the IMPLICATIONS of that. absolutely perfect. you've packed So much in here i really love it!!!

OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD OH MY GOD. OK.
i was really really really hoping someone would pick up on this prompt and i literally SCREAMED when i saw it happened because i think this lyric is so so so mingyu and you executed it PERFECTLY. seungcheol as this cool older guy that mingyu can't help but admire was so well thought-out. and like!!! the disaster and helplessness in the way mingyu loves him is so painful to read but it's also so very real and i loved it. the way mingyu gives himself up so completely and so desperately... OOF! it HURTS! and oh my god of course he carries the pain of people telling him he was too much in the past... and of course that doesn't stop him from loving ardently as ever. and i also love the gyuhao friendship, the honesty and kindness of it all. so so so good.
"If Mingyu isn't in love, he's nothing at all" - literally this. i think about it all the time, and about how mingyu just wants to be GOOD and USEFUL
thank you so much for filling this prompt you have no idea how happy this has made me!!!

Ship/Member: any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: snapshots of a life. maybe a lesson/study on love & its maintenance over time, how relationships grow & wane & have to be worked at through the lens of days / time / what it means to live.
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?
— Days, Philip Larkin

Edited 2021-12-28 07:53 (UTC)

Ship/Member: Any
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: meditations on being alone but not alone at the same time, found family-isms. love as a choice and as a reminder that you cannot be alone as long as someone loves you OR platonic love & friendship & the strength it brings
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

When you’re lonely, please look at the sky and stars. We are looking at the same sky and same moon, and we’re breathing the same air. You are not alone.
— Xu Minghao, when asked about the CARATs he cannot meet right now.

Ship/Member: Any, but bonus points if it’s a Wonwoo or Jeonghan pairing (WONHAN???? MINWON????)
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: unrequited love / a love that is not equal, where someone keeps giving and giving and the other person wants to see how much is too much. feel free to make it as nasty and rancid and bleak as possible
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

Why take more than we need? Because we can.
Deep footprint, it leaves a hole. You’d break your heart to make it bigger, so why not crack your skull when the mind swells?
— Richard Siken

Edited 2021-12-28 08:02 (UTC)

Ship/Member: Soonyoung/ Wonwoo
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: getting back together
Do Not Wants: None

Prompt:

I heard you bought a nice car
An expensive car that you always talked about
I am also learning how to drive
I didn't know how hard it was

I'm fine thank you thank you and you
I can't believe we used to be in love long ago, it's so funny

-10cm, Fine Thank You And You

Ship/Member: Wonwoo/Seungcheol
Major Tags: References to a panic attack
Additional Tags: corporate au but it's an art gallery, poor financial decisions
Permission to remix: Yes

A/N: got a little away from the quote, but hopefully still with the vibes! as a challenge to myself, this is exactly 1k.

***

"No," is what Wonwoo says first, when Seungcheol's paperwork ends up on his desk.

The man himself stands behind his desk, arms crossed. "You can't say no. I've seen your team, you don't even have enough people to staff the gallery, much less run the campaign you're planning for next spring."

"I'm not accepting your transfer," Wonwoo says, pushing the paperwork back over the desk. Seungcheol is wearing a pressed suit—blue, like he's still a year out of college and wet behind the ears. There's a bit of damp in the shoulders, like he had run through the rain to get here.

"Why not?" Seungcheol asks. Wonwoo heard him ask the same thing a thousand times in high school, voice pitched up in a whine. He sounds steady now. The years after graduating have been good to him.

He hadn't expected to walk up to his office and see Seungcheol-from-Daegu standing in the doorway, like a high school ghost, someone Wonwoo keeps up with only by word of mouth. Seungcheol is the sort of person his mother loves to gossip about in a fond sort of way. Oh, Seungcheol just got accepted to his top college, she'd said, stars in her eyes. Seungcheol's taking a year overseas. Seungcheol wants to catch up next weekend, he's moving out of the city, isn't that nice, a boy who appreciates his hometown.

He'd never hated Seungcheol, but Wonwoo wasn't immune to comparisons. It had been easy to let their relationship fade after graduation—too busy to catch up, out of town, I'll call you another time…

Only now Seungcheol's here at the tiny gallery Wonwoo runs alone, with paperwork from their head office, asking to stay a year. He hadn't even known they worked at the same company.

Seungcheol uncrosses his arms. "What is it? Yah, don't be so prideful. I could be a lot of help."

Wonwoo wants to flinch at the familiarity, too much after so long, but he has other issues. "I've seen your resume, you're overqualified for this position. Why did they even consider assigning you here?"

"I asked for it," Seungcheol says. He relaxes a little more, enough to shoot Wonwoo a smile. "I saw your name and, well, I wanted to see you."

That's. Well.

Wonwoo takes a deep breath. His office always smells a little bit like varnish because Minghao leaves his paintings to dry in the corners sometimes. "As a favor to an old friend then. Let me tell you, this gallery is going to close within the year, you don't want that on your record."

Seungcheol's eyebrows furrow. "That's not what the head office told me. They said you requested three new showings, some promising local artists. Downpaid in advance and everything."

There was a time when that knowledge would have thrilled Wonwoo. Now it just hangs in his chest like a congealed lump of fat. "I'm just trying to close out the gallery without going into bankruptcy. If the shows go well, I can pay off our initial investors and rent out the building. I know that's probably not what you wanted to hear, but this place is headed into the ground."

Seungcheol's mouth parts on an "o" of understanding.

"I'll write you a note for the return," Wonwoo says. "Nothing to do with your qualifications, you can be reassigned—"

"I want to stay," Seungcheol says. There's a little bit of that boy from Daegu in his eyes, fiery and intense. "You need me, Wonwoo. There's no way you can launch these shows on your own."

"We haven't talked in years," Wonwoo says. "Why are you so insistent?"

"Don't say no. Let me buy you a drink after work. We can catch up," Seungcheol says. He doesn't answer the question.

***

Later, when he's drunk, and the pojangmacha's lights are swinging around his head, Wonwoo puts his heads in his hands. The air within the tent is warm and sticky with grease, the elbows of his shirt picking up unmentionable stains. "I can't back out of these shows" he says. Sound reaches him in wingbeats. There and gone again. "I can't let this go into the red."

Seungcheol's fingers brush the cuff of his shirt, and something in Wonwoo's stomach lurches uncomfortably. He jerks away.

"Why not?" Seungcheol's voice is warm and light. It's the same thing he asked back in Wonwoo's office, but kinder now. More coaxing.

"When I was looking for investors, my mother…" Wonwoo starts, and can't finish, lungs choking on air. He panics whenever he thinks too hard. He breaks out into a cold sweat, shivering beneath the golden lights.

Sometimes, with horses, trainers put blinders on their eyes so the animal can't see behind or to the side. It's for their own good, so they don't startle at sudden movements, or start galloping when still attached to a cart. They don't see a crowd cheering in the stands or a fire starting just under their nose. Looking only ahead, the horse can be led through things that would normally frighten it out of its goddamn mind.

Wonwoo smells smoke.

"I have to repay her," he says, careful to think of nothing at all. "I can't back out now."

Seungcheol doesn't reach out again, but he also doesn't move.

Wonwoo sucks in a breath between his teeth. "I won't let you go down with me, Seungcheol." The silence stretches, punctuated with the chef rattling around to the side. Metal on metal, oil bubbling, the rain. Wonwoo just wishes Seungcheol would say something.

"I'm sticking around," Seungcheol says, voice a little too firm, like he's trying to prove a point. He'd be an awful horse trainer, Wonwoo is pretty sure. Would dig in his heels at any provocation, would be stupid enough to try and change the horse's mind.

"We'll talk in the morning," is all he says. Leaves it at that. Maybe by then, Seungcheol-from-Dagu will figure out what a stupid idea it would be to trust Wonwoo with his time.

THIS HURT MY FEELINGS!! ummm just the transition of wonwoo very firmly and professionally trying to push seungcheol away, keep him at arms-length, and then confessing to him the very real, very painful reality with his mother... god!! it hurt!! stubborn and foolhardy devotion indeed!! i'm in love.

A PROMISE MASKED AS INDULGENCE! what a fitting line!! i adored jihan in this, how much is left unspoken between the two of them, but there's also understanding because they are the same. the same kind of wickedness, the same kind of coldness, but also... reaching out to each other. sighs happily.

hwa… oh gosh this is absolutely so gorgeous and ur a little insane to me (ur mind, i love it, and all the pretty words gathered inside). i think soonwoo was the perfect vessel for this piece, the way that soonyoung serves as this striking counterpart to wonwoo, someone who is shining and so ever bright and a little bit out of reach in wonwoo’s mind, because he seems to be everything that wonwoo cannot be.
this was so wonderful and felt so carefully fleshed out in so little words!!!! ur prose n all the little canonical details <333 ugh so good

here are some tidbits i liked:
- “Bugs was a perfect answer Seokmin. A lot of people are afraid of bugs. Especially bugs with a lot of legs.” Jeonghan replies, one hand already offering a placating pat, “Mingyu’s being weird again.”

“No. I also should have said something profound and deep. Now I seem like an idiot.” Seokmin slaps his own cheeks, “The transience of life. The inevitability of my own mortality. Being forgotten by my own mother.” i chuckled… oh seokmin!!!!! you are valid!!!!!!! i love that interview so much sometimes svt are just some dudes - He could imagine it, Soonyoung running up the stairs to the school roof, confession bursting out like a ripe plum, before turning back and running back down, possibilities left behind him. this whole scene tbh!!!!! it was just so joyously soonyoung, how he puts his entire being into things & thinks later, while wonwoo is too heavily focused on cause/effects and stuck in his head to be doing anything (i particularly liked the line about how jww would only confess if he could be sure, so that he’d know his place in the world. it was a wonderful way to put it)
- just the image of soonyoung being ^^ and wonwoo being like, aren’t you scared & soonyoung (in return) not making fun of him for not being able to do it too, but kind of just carrying on his way, as if to say, you can do it too wonwoo… its a kindness and an act of love in itself i think T__T

i'm sorrrryyyyy what the fuuuuuuuck my heart is broken. this is so gorgeous and painful. minghao waiting and longing, missing wonwoo and loving and hating him all at once. forgiving him!!! i'm in pieces. I WOULD NOT HAVE LEFT YOU!!!!

the exhaustion here is so real and gritty, poor jeonghan T____T poor mingyu too ahhhh i felt tense reading this, want to wrap them both in warm hugs!!! LET THEM SLEEP

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Page 12 of 73

2022 Round 1: Quotes

Re: [FILL] Puppy Grin

Re: [FILL] love/loss languages

Re: [FILL] in your wake

Re: [FILL] i know the end

Re: [FILL] can't get caught chasing memories

no subject

Re: [FILL] we all complete

[FILL] if i lack love (i'm nothing at all)

[FILL] then fall

Re: [FILL] a boat in the sea of love

Re: [Fill]

and if don't want to remember what it was like to be young

brimming/heavy

Re: [FILL] then fall

Re: [FILL] if i lack love (i'm nothing at all)

Days

we all share the same sky

maybe i wasn’t cut out for love anyways

seungkwan sang this in the gose mag ep!

[FILL] you've never seen a devotion so stubborn & foolhardy

Re: [FILL] you've never seen a devotion so stubborn & foolhardy

Re: [FILL]: even if it's love, I don't

Re: [FILL] then fall

Re: [FILL] what will they say about us?

Re: [FILL] Nothing left, babe!