Status: Closed
This round has closed. It remains open for fills, comments and remixes, but prompts are no longer accepted.
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
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blasting the aloneness wide open
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: anything, but consider love vs duty or love is duty, consider superheroes and mentorship but you can also go with the given meta and consider acting and seniority/being written out of roles etc, BUT ALSO consider :idolverse, bbbisms-fame but not the way you wanted it, the one that leaves/the ones that don't, breaking up a group to Not make it big etc etc (dies)[very light suggestions, please feel free to do w/e u want]
Do Not Wants: None
Prompt:
Re: blasting the aloneness wide open [FILL]
Tags: canon divergent, what if chan left svt to be the leader of pledis' new boy group that never came to fruition, mentions of seungcheol's anxiety
Permission to remix: Please ask
it is four am on a work night. apologizes in advance if this makes no real sense.
things are meant to be fairly canon-compliant as far as timeline, so it's generally set in late 2019. the specificities of what happened in late 2019, though, have been altered a bit and left deliberately vague for the sake of fiction. will leave a comment if i xpost on ao3.
***
lee chan is fourteen years old.
lee chan is fourteen years old, but you'd never guess it from the way he's standing in front of seungcheol, jaw set, eyes determined.
"hyung, i'm not going to be part of seventeen project anymore."
seungcheol's never considered himself particularly close to chan - that honor goes to soonyoung, wonwoo, and some of the other younger trainees - but they've bonded in the way you can only bond when you're crammed into a basement practice room with lurid green walls and no windows and asked to be on live camera for hours on end, six days a week.
"oh?" he raises an eyebrow. he's not entirely sure why chan's telling him this. there's a bit of a running joke amongst the trainees that if (big if, because their debut has already been pushed three times in two years and seungcheol's already had one debut project fall through) they debut, he's going to be the leader, but that's mostly because he's the oldest and he's been training the longest. even so, seungcheol is confident in his own abilities as someone squarely in the middle of the pack. it would make much more sense for jihoon or soonyoung to lead the group. it's not like he's particularly interested in leadership, either, much more comfortable with being directed by someone who knows better.
chan nods. "daepyo-nim called me into the office a few weeks ago and asked me if i wanted to be the leader of pledis' next group instead."
"did you tell anyone?"
"no." chan gnaws on his lower lip, and the illusion breaks instantly - he looks every bit the child he is. seungcheol isn't very old, either, but eighteen feels like generations away. "i wanted to think about this on my own and make sure it was the right choice."
it's not that seungcheol is irresponsible, but taking on responsibility has never been one of his strong suits. his own brother is three years older, and his family treated him like the maknae he is. even amongst the other trainees, he's prone to roughhousing and playing around more often than he's quick to give direction.
but looking at chan, with his too-long hair and his too-big shirt and the gangliness of his limbs he has yet to grow into, stirs something oddly protective in him.
"and you're sure?" seungcheol asks. "that this is the right choice?"
there's a second where chan seems to falter, taking a half-second too long to say yes, hyung, this is exactly what i want.
"i'm sure," chan says, squaring his shoulders.
seungcheol stands, and even at full height chan is still a full head shorter than him.
"okay." seungcheol reaches out, pulls chan into a hug, because it feels like the right thing to do. he feels so tiny in seungcheol's arms. "i'll miss you, chan."
"thanks, hyung. i'll see you onstage someday."
chan grins as they untangle themselves, gives a full ninety-degree bow, and leaves the room.
seungcheol watches him go, and wonders why something doesn't feel entirely right.
even so, chan should be fine. he's driven and talented and has years ahead of him.
lee chan is twenty-one years old.
lee chan is twenty-one years old, but he carries himself like someone much older - there's a heaviness to his eyes that seungcheol doesn't think he had at twenty-one.
pledis has yet to show any signs of debuting a new boy group - pristin was left to fizzle out barely two years into their debut, and seungcheol's been halfway looped in on conversations that pledis might get acquired by another company, making every other trainee's future even more uncertain.
the forever trainee, he's heard others call chan. chan's still not the record-holder for longest idol training period, but seven years is no short period of time. more than once, seungcheol's wondered why chan didn't quit, or move to another agency at the very least. maybe get his military service out of the way.
the lee chan seungcheol knew seven years ago, though, would never quit until he reached his goals.
seungcheol doesn't interact with the trainees much, given that he spends nearly every waking moment being the leader of a relatively successful idol group (have you heard of seventeen? they're on a world tour right now), but he's a month into treatment for his fucked-up brain and everyone else is gone and he couldn't think of anything else to do besides loiter around the company building, because his ten of his brothers in all but blood are an ocean away, jeonghan's back home in hwaseong trying to fix his own medical issues, and he doesn't think he can face his real family right now.
it's in the hallway in front of the dance practice rooms where he finds chan, because where else would he be? some things never seem to change.
"hey, lee chan," seungcheol calls out, and he doesn't exactly mean to say anything else but maybe he's lonelier than he thought: "are you busy tonight?"
chan shakes his head. he doesn't seem entirely surprised to see seungcheol here, and he has to know that the rest of the group is on tour. word must get around quick.
"wanna get a drink? hyung's treat."
"if you asked me to pay for you, i'd be so offended," chan scoffs, but there's no heat behind it.
technically, seungcheol isn't supposed to be drinking right now, but he forgot to take his meds today (it's a hard habit to remember, especially when he doesn't have seungkwan talking his ear off about taking daily supplements at large), so he figures a beer or two won't kill him.
they end up going to the empty dorms, because seungcheol is more-or-less meant to be on some form of house arrest, and being in private means that they don't need to be so careful. seungcheol doesn't need some sasaeng fan snapping a picture of him in front of a club, and if chan wants to have a career in the industry then he doesn't either.
this is how the two of them end up sitting on the floor in the living room, empty takeout boxes and glass bottles scattered between them. things had been a little awkward at first - seungcheol doesn't think he's had an extended conversation with chan in at least a year - but alcohol helps get things going and chan tends to talk a lot, which takes care of the rest.
it's nice enough to catch up for a bit, even though they both know they're talking circles around what's actually going on. chan talks about some of the younger trainees he's gotten close with, how he's taken to teaching them and giving them tips on their monthly evaluations, and seungcheol fills him in on what the other members were up to and tries to avoid talking about himself.
the cluster of bottles next to chan continues to grow, and chan continues to slump harder against the sofa.
"hyung," chan slurs, "i don't think i should've done it. i should've stayed with you."
it takes a second for seungcheol to realize what he's referring to, and he finds his fingers clenching too-hard around the glass bottle in his hand.
why did you think it was a good idea to ask me for advice? seungcheol almost cuts back. i barely knew anything more than you did. between the two of us, i thought you had a better head on your shoulders.
it takes more alcohol than the two of them have drunk combined to get him to truly lose his head, so he holds his tongue.
"i'm sorry, chan," he says instead. "i wish i knew."
"do you wish it were different?" chan asks. "do you ever wish you weren't the leader?"
all the time, he wants to say. sometimes, i don't think i'm strong enough for this. i wake up and i think someone else should be doing my job.
but to say that would be to tell chan that he's wasted the past seven years of his life chasing a dream that turns into a nightmare that you never know when you'll be able to wake up from.
so instead, he shrugs. "it's hard. but i'm not sure that anyone else could lead the group and have it work."
chan raises his beer, tipping the neck toward seungcheol in a mock toast before he finishes it off, and seungcheol knows that chan knows he's lying through his teeth.
he almost wishes chan would say it out loud.
Re: blasting the aloneness wide open [FILL]
these sections especially stood out to me:
it would make much more sense for jihoon or soonyoung to lead the group. it's not like he's particularly interested in leadership, either, much more comfortable with being directed by someone who knows better.
and then-
all the time, he wants to say. sometimes, i don't think i'm strong enough for this. i wake up and i think someone else should be doing my job.
but to say that would be to tell chan that he's wasted the past seven years of his life chasing a dream that turns into a nightmare that you never know when you'll be able to wake up from.
so instead, he shrugs. "it's hard. but i'm not sure that anyone else could lead the group and have it work."
it's really something that seungcheol's personality lends itself to but you've brought out so well how his own response to how he feels about being the leader changed through predebut and now, when he is in charge of a group-a really successful one at that. and of course, how chan may not have seen through him back then but he sure as hell does now, but the circumstances now are too different from either of them to comment on it.
man, this really was beyond what i expected, thank you so much for sharing it!!!
Re: blasting the aloneness wide open [FILL]
it's always so interesting to wonder about how people might be different if something else changed in their lives!! i think in this universe, cheol has still learned to "grow into" his position but he's definitely not in the headspace right now where he feels like he's a good leader, and chan has become way more jaded with every passing year that debut never comes. and you're right, at fourteen chan wouldn't have been able to see through coups (who he probably saw as an Adult Figure given the age difference), but now he knows that cheol is just a guy, just like anyone else, but what are two guys who used to be close but aren't that close anymore realistically supposed to do about it??
Re: blasting the aloneness wide open [FILL]
Re: blasting the aloneness wide open [FILL]
i would be so curious to see what you'd write for it :o v much love the way you approach fics so i'm sure it would also be great!!
Re: blasting the aloneness wide open [FILL]
like pb said, i love how you focused on two Very Real Things (cheols break from OTY and chan either being the youngest in svt or leader of a boygroup that never came to be) but also how you kept weaving the themes of mentorship / that age gap / how chan is the youngest but acts so old vs. seungcheol's sudden realization that he's the oldest + people have to look up to him when he was used to being the youngest in the family
chan gnaws on his lower lip, and the illusion breaks instantly - he looks every bit the child he is. seungcheol isn't very old, either, but eighteen feels like generations away / lee chan is twenty-one years old, but he carries himself like someone much older - there's a heaviness to his eyes that seungcheol doesn't think he had at twenty-one.
AND AND AND THE BITS AT THE END FROM SEUNGCHEOLS MIND...
why did you think it was a good idea to ask me for advice? seungcheol almost cuts back. i barely knew anything more than you did. between the two of us, i thought you had a better head on your shoulders. the admittance that sometimes even if it looks like you've got it all down from the outside looking in we are all terrified on the inside.
i'll be thinking about this for a very long time thank u for writing..
one last part:
all the time, he wants to say. sometimes, i don't think i'm strong enough for this. i wake up and i think someone else should be doing my job.
but to say that would be to tell chan that he's wasted the past seven years of his life chasing a dream that turns into a nightmare that you never know when you'll be able to wake up from.
so instead, he shrugs. "it's hard. but i'm not sure that anyone else could lead the group and have it work.""
Re: blasting the aloneness wide open [FILL]
the admittance that sometimes even if it looks like you've got it all down from the outside looking in we are all terrified on the inside. yes !! csc seeming like he's got everything under control but it takes chan growing up to see straight through him...,.,.,.,
also after research for unrelated reasons i remembered that 1. coups was probably a trainee for 5-6 years (some of the nuest trainees were there since 2009) and 2. he had also been considered for nuest? so like. he would understand chan's pain even more acutely... something i may add in if i xpost this haha.
Re: blasting the aloneness wide open [FILL]
oh my god,,,, oh wow. what an incredible chan moment to tie in, to briefly make real through this fill-- i'm kinda really torn-up. but also so relieved that this was not actually Our lee chan's fate!
i absolutely loved the juxtaposition of "chan should be fine. he's driven and talented and has years ahead of him... lee chan is twenty-one years old, but he carries himself like someone much older". like oh man.. the jaws of growing up really snapping down on our beautiful, determined, beaten-down lee chan. it's really wonderful how you explored... that helpless feeling of being looked up to as a slightly older 20-something. of struggling so hard with even how to help ourselves, of constantly learning just how few answers we hold in our hands. of coming to terms with the inevitable loss of each person's seemingly endless potential. O, the regret, the guilt, the grief of our 20's! you did such a beautiful job.
Re: blasting the aloneness wide open [FILL]
there's one clip of chan walking in on cheol and woozi together in the green room and he immediately bows and apologizes and yeets himself out, compared to present day where he shamelessly talks back to cheol that really makes me think about how much they've grown lol. like chan in his early teens clearly saw 4-years-older cheol as a Real Adult and now he's like nah you're just some guy. so i think exploring how chan has to weigh his youthful perception of someone he looked up to with the reality of everything before him can simply be so poignant!!
thank you for reading :D
Re: blasting the aloneness wide open [FILL]
[FILL] are any of us ever truly alone?
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: character study, idolverse, fame but not the way you wanted it, what does it cost to be an idol and what does it look like on other people, love as a duty at first but also love of that duty makes it also a choice in a way
Permission to remix: please ask!
wc:1354
hello wife <3 thank u for this delicious quote i have been thinking about it ever since i saw it.. not sure if i actually filled this prompt correctly but i think for a first junhao this is a valiant attempt
***
Minghao was always serious.
Immovable but not immutable. So proper, not prone to bending or breaking. He reminded Junhui of a tree.
Minghao was the type that liked to place down roots and settle, for lengths on end, sifting through the mysteries of the universe with the patience of someone way beyond his age, even if the answers never revealed themselves in the end.
Junhui was nothing like that.
He’d tried to, at first.
You have a handsome face, Seungkwan would always despair while disciplining himself on some newfangled health routine that he’d picked up from the depths of the interwebs, wrangling whoever he could into doing it with him, couldn’t you be a little bit more serious, Moon Jun? You have an image to protect! And because he had 12 other people to think about – 12 other dreams to think about – Junhui tried.
It didn’t work. It felt like putting on clothes that didn’t belong to him. A part of Junhui ached when he saw everyone else around him put on theirs, too, mouths pinching themselves into polite smiles even when it got too uncomfortable underneath the spotlight. It hurt to hold himself a certain way all the time. He was one of the older ones, a hyung to look up to, but the role always felt clunky in his hands when he’d wielded it.
Sometimes Junhui would look at himself in the mirror and fail to recognize the picture staring back.
This is how you have to be, their CEO said, and they’d all accepted it, heads bowed and fingers trembling as they slipped their rings on. Back then, everyone had just wanted to be liked.
A little folding, a pinch here and there – it was all worth it in the end, if you earned some love. A small part of Junhui wanted that too. Of course he did. But in the wake of all he’d lost to get to this point, Junhui was suddenly nervous. Who could he be if someone else decided all of that for him?
Minghao never wavered. He nodded once, and that was that. Nothing else had to be said or taken into consideration. The burden was his to bear.
Junhui wanted to reach out to stop him, to at least make him think a little carefully about what was being done to him – to them all – but when Junhui looked into Minghao’s eyes, determination blazed bright and true. He held so much more courage than Junhui could ever hope to have in a lifetime.
So he held his tongue and let Minghao step past.
He’d tried. It didn’t work.
This was, in part, because Junhui was extremely flighty.
He knew this. His members knew this, and they loved him regardless.
Junhui, as they all knew, was the type to go online shopping in the middle of the night to acquire the necessary materials for a niche product he’d spotted on Weibo, only to lose interest by the time it made its way from the supplier to their dorm. He liked to hop from one thing to the next as they sparked his interest, bouncing around from place to place, sending texts into the group chat regardless of an answer. Calls to nowhere.
The first years were suffocating. They had debuted yet, but they were hardly free, always set in motion. Always on the run from something and towards another. Junhui found it hard to take a breath. He struggled with the weight of expectations that strapped him down into place.
He wanted to be free.
He wanted to stay.
He didn’t know what he wanted anymore.
Those first years, Junhui was always lumped next to Minghao. He hardly minded. Sometimes it felt nice to be a part of a whole, even if they weren’t that similar in the first place. It always ended up being Minghao who had to take care of Junhui, instead of the other way around.
On paper, it made sense: both performance unit members, not the best at speaking just yet, foreigners in an industry where sameness was the best way to survive.
A marriage of convenience, he joked, to which Minghao always rolled his eyes.
“Everything becomes convenient to you,” Minghao pointed out.
Junhui wondered if it was the same for Minghao. Minghao, who was infinitely more thoughtful than Junhui was, always so careful about everything that he did, so that in the end it looked like an act of deliberation instead of something he’d mindlessly just stumbled into.
Junhui caught himself before he asked the question. He didn’t know which answer was worse.
Somewhere along the way the pressure lifted. They all felt a little more free. But there Minghao remained, by Junhui’s side. Constant.
One time Junhui was lazing around in the dressing room, clips in his hair. He’d turned the volume of his phone all the way up because everyone had already left to get their makeup retouched or their wardrobe fixed, and it was better to hear the sound coming back at him than nothing at all.
There was only Minghao in the room, anyway. He was always listening to Junhui, ever since Junhui had walked up to him in that green room and accidentally spat on his face trying to use a language that was neither of theirs. He was always listening even if he pretended that he wasn’t.
Minghao looked up at him from where he was reading, clearly irked by the sound but trying to be a better person about it. Minghao held his tongue, and Junhui wanted to ruffle his hair for it.
Sometimes it felt like an unspoken victory, when Junhui was able to annoy Minghao, just to see if he could get a reaction out of him.
“Doesn’t it bother you? The sound?” Minghao asked instead.
Junhui took a moment to think about it.
“Nope,” he answered easily. Minghao twisted his lips into a half-grin, half-grimace, and all fond, Junhui liked to think.
They returned to their respective universes without saying another word. Minghao stayed in the room and Junhui dialed down the volume just a bit.
Another contract renewal came and went. This time all thirteen of them decided not to sign, even without talking about it. They’d laughed when their votes were revealed, though for some their throats were thick with tears when it happened.
Junhui was one of the members who were not as affected. In a way he had begun, without even realizing it, preparing for the end. Like it was inevitable instead of something to be avoided.
He’d reasoned with himself: he could hardly expect to be the same person he was when he started this journey. Sometimes a dream turned sideways, turned into something else entirely. What their story really needed was to come to an end, in order for the next chapter to begin.
Minghao was somewhere in the middle. He stayed stone-faced throughout the entire meeting, so still that Junhui wondered if he would finally crack.
He hoped Minghao knew that he was allowed to break, if he needed. Junhui would be there to catch him. They all would.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Minghao says when everyone else is out of earshot.
Junhui pretended to play dumb. “Like what?”
Minghao was the only one, still, after all these years, who never let it slide. “Like you’re worried about me. I’m fine.”
Junhui shrugged. “If you say so.”
“Do you think you’re going to try anything else?” Minghao asked, quietly. Junhui knew what he was really asking — will we have more time together? Will I see you on stage again?
Junhui took a while to craft his answer. “I don’t think so,” he mustered up brightly, but the end of his sentence came out stilted. “I think I’m done.”
Minghao became silent and Junhui smiled, folding him into a hug.
“It’s not the end of the world, Minghao. You know where to find me.”
Besides, Junhui knew: Minghao was different than he was.
He would make it.
Re: [FILL] are any of us ever truly alone?
He reminded Junhui of a tree. how could you do this, take a known quote about jun and flip it around like this, im rattling you...the sturdiness that people see in jun but he sees in hao and not in himself T____T
the way the narrative flows, how jun has to stifle what he thinks is flightiness and yet some part of him knows it's not right, "make him think a little carefully about what was being done to him – to them all" and then biting his tongue and getting on with it....jun acts of service are so personal and dear to me, though im not sure this counts as that exactly
A marriage of convenience, he joked, to which Minghao always rolled his eyes.
“Everything becomes convenient to you,” Minghao pointed out.
Junhui wondered if it was the same for Minghao. Minghao, who was infinitely more thoughtful than Junhui was, always so careful about everything that he did, so that in the end it looked like an act of deliberation instead of something he’d mindlessly just stumbled into.
Junhui caught himself before he asked the question. He didn’t know which answer was worse.
jun's practicality versus minghao's thoughtfulness......head in hands, this is my shit, this right here. of course jun would wonder whether it's deliberate for minghao and minghao would feel what goes, goes is how jun is looking at it!! UGHHH
and oh how you drew it to a close
“Do you think you’re going to try anything else?” Minghao asked, quietly. Junhui knew what he was really asking — will we have more time together? Will I see you on stage again?
Junhui took a while to craft his answer. “I don’t think so,” he mustered up brightly, but the end of his sentence came out stilted. “I think I’m done.”
Minghao became silent and Junhui smiled, folding him into a hug.
“It’s not the end of the world, Minghao. You know where to find me.”
Besides, Junhui knew: Minghao was different than he was.
He would make it
even till the end, the kind of unwavering steadiness he sees in minghao but actually he holds all that and more when it comes to believing in minghao and his potential and his future....im just a simple 8junist and canonverse fucker you have really given me everything for this prompt, thank you...put this on ao3 already so i can bookmark it hehe ily <3
Re: [FILL] are any of us ever truly alone?
Sometimes it felt like an unspoken victory, when Junhui was able to annoy Minghao, just to see if he could get a reaction out of him. [...] They returned to their respective universes without saying another word. Minghao stayed in the room and Junhui dialed down the volume just a bit. two people existing in the same space but on entirely different planes of existence... idk why i love this so much.
junhao have such an interesting relationship (the "marriage of convenience" is a v good descriptor) because they definitely "had to" get close out of necessity and especially at the beginning they weren't super used to each others differences, but they've grown to appreciate each other in a different way!! i love how you ended it with junhui trying to look out for minghao, when previously he might've been more reliant on minghao to look after him.