#sends a follow up 6 weeks in advance

[nevertrustablueberry]

oh god oh god i hate organising events why can’t people keep to timelines that they promise

[dat-town]

abcdlove

Characters: school radio club leader!Taesan & class president!female reader

Setting & genre: high school au, coming of age, first love, fluff, a hint of enemies to lovers but it’s only in the girl’s head

Summary: You convinced yourself that you hated Han Taesan after what he had done in sophomore year but now you have to work together on a senior project and maybe he isn’t that bad. Or maybe just for your heartbeat.

Warnings: stage names are used, OC has negative opinion about Taesan and Leehan in the beginning, mentions of social and parental pressure, the amount of banana milk consumed might not be healthy, hopefully not too ooc even though i wrote it within like 2 weeks after @restlessmaknae started sending me bonedo content

Words: 9.6k

Author’s note: this is the product of the amount of Ann Liang books i binge read recently, the instagram algorithm and @restlessmaknae’s marketing for Zico’s kids. this really pulled me out of my writing slump, so thank you for that! honestly my first impression of Taesan was that he looks like a tsundere, so that’s pretty much how it all started.

i'm pretty sure you guessed it; happy name day @restlessmaknae <3

read Leehan’s companion piece here

You had been following your well-planned route to success for years. You had already taken advanced courses at a prestigious hagwon, a private after-school academy for the subjects you totally needed to ace at CSAT. You also offered tutoring services to underclassmen, volunteered at the local library during summer and carefully chose your extracurriculars to align with the ideal student vision SKY universities had. You only needed to follow through the plan in your senior year too and you would be fine. You would finally make it.

Needless to say Han Taesan wasn’t part of your plans.

Yet, there he was standing right in front of the principal’s office where you were heading in all his 6 feet tall glory, his school uniform’s tie neatly done for once.

“What are you doing here?” You blurted out with no greeting when your steps slowly halted next to him, your jaw set and muscles tense.

Taesan turned his head slowly and looked at you impassively from under his dark fringe before speaking up in his raspy voice that made your classmates swoon whenever they heard him make a radio announcement.

“What does it look like?” He raised a brow as if he was telling you not to ask stupid things.

There could only be two kinds of reasons why somebody was called into the principal’s room: either very good or very bad. You had never gotten into trouble, so you were hoping for something positive but seeing the boy there wasn’t really promising. Not because he was a troublemaker or a bad student. He might not have been a straight A student like yourself but he was the leader of the school radio club and he was also generally liked among his peers as far as you knew. Your wariness was more so because you didn’t want to be associated with him in any way.

“Oh, both of you are already here. Wonderful! Come in, come in,” the office door opened and Principal Im rushed you inside with a welcoming smile.

At least, you could be sure by then that the news wasn't anything too bad.

You took a step to follow the man inside at the same time Taesan moved next to you as well which made you momentarily falter. However the boy merely reached out and put a hand onto the door’s edge to keep it from closing. You had to force yourself not to scoff at the fake gentleman-ish action and instead just duck under his arm to go inside the office.

You just sat down in one of the cushy chairs and smoothed out the lines of your school uniform skirt when you heard the door close and soon enough Taesan took the chair next to you.

“Alright, I won’t even waste your precious time since I know both of you are busy. I called the two of you here because as representatives of the senior classes, I would like the two of you to conduct interviews with your classmates and prepare a pre-recorded radio segment that can be broadcasted on graduation day. It can be about anything you want: what the students’ aspirations are or what they liked the best in high school. I trust you will do a great job,” the principal smiled at you hopefully but you could feel your own polite smile freeze onto your face. This was not how you imagined yourself spending the first term of senior year.

“But…”

“Yes, Y/N?” The principal looked at you expectantly and you could feel Taesan’s dark eyes on you as well which snapped you out of your confused stupor.

“Why the two of us?”

“Of course, you can get others to help too if you want but you have exceptional organizing skills as I heard and Taesan already has experience with our recording system and editing softwares. You two were the first ones we could think of, but of course I can’t force you…”

“It would be an honor, Principal Im,” you hurried to stop him there because there was no way you would have said no to a task like this. Not only because you could hardly say no anyways but also because it would look good on your resume. The only thing that bothered you was having to do it with a boy you could not stand. If you had that much time and you could do so, you would have gladly done it alone without his help but no matter how much you hated it, Principal Im was right: he had the skills to perfect a radio segment.

“Great! If you don’t have further questions, then good luck!”

“Okay, what about we meet after school to discuss the plans?” You asked immediately once you left the principal office because you had less than 5 minutes until first period and since you didn’t share a class with Taesan, you rarely ran into each other unplanned (thank god) and you would need your color-coded planner from your bag to plan any further than the afternoon.

“I have a radio club thing until 6,” Taesan simply said, not offering any alternatives, so you let out a sigh. Of course. What did you expect?

“And I have academy classes every other day,” you pointed out because he wasn’t the only one busy. “Then I can just email you your parts and we don’t need to–”

“So you can complain later that I’m freeloading off your hard work? No thanks,” the boy interrupted you and your gaze sharpened at him. He leaned casually against the corridor’s wall, a hand reaching up to loosen his tie and tilted his head at you as if to challenge you to protest. “We can make do during lunch hour.”

You opened your mouth, ready to tell him that you had plans already but going over your History notes, when it was just the first week of the term and you were ahead of the course work anyway, wasn’t that necessary even though you hated giving in to his idea.

“Okay, let’s meet outside at the benches then,” you agreed, telling yourself to be the bigger person, and turned your back on the boy before he could see the frustration bubbling up in you.

You and Han Taesan had the kind of history that you didn’t really like to revisit. That’s why your initial reaction was to roll your eyes whenever you heard his voice on the school radio or to puke your guts out when girls gushed about his ‘tsundere charm’. Their words, not yours.

Actually you would have probably not cared about the guy if it wasn’t for your model student campaign which he had ruined. Last year the school had run an event to choose a student representative by voting and every candidate could have a pre-recorded segment on the radio. You had your own carefully recorded and edited audio file with the best convincing speech you could prepare and emailed them the sharing link on time just to hear yourself sing your go-to karaoke song through the radio on the big day. In panic, you ran to the school radio broadcasting station only to find Taesan sitting there by the control panel with headphones over his ears, calmly letting the audio play well past the two minutes mark, seemingly not finding it weird at all that somebody tried to win the campaign with a karaoke rendition of a love song instead of saying a few words. As it turned out, you managed to share your entire recordings folder with the radio team but the club president, instead of playing the file titled campaign_speech_final.mp3, decided that AUD_20230326_192251.mp3 was the right track for your model student image. That week you not only lost that title to the grade’s pretty boy, but you lost your pride as well and it was all Taesan’s fault. Not that he ever thought to apologize or right his wrongdoings. So no, you weren’t looking forward to working with him at all.

He was late.

You had already dotted down six different questions and a rough program outline with your half-finished, now cold rosé pasta lunch menu  on the side by the time Taesan put his tray down on the outdoor table.

“You are late,” you picked at him right away which earned you a rather confused look.

“It’s still lunch hour,” he pointed out and dug into his own kimchi jjigae like he had all the time in the world. His behavior was seriously dancing on your nerves.

“Whatever. Let’s get into it,” you prompted because you didn’t have time to argue about semantics or his attitude. “We should divide the related tasks this week, finalize the questions and gather people for the interviews, then we can start on those next week.”

“What’s the rush? We have months until graduation,” Taesan questioned and while he was right (or because), you had the sudden urge to strangle him right there. You forced yourself to stay calm.

“Well, I don’t like to leave things to the last minute. Closer to graduation, we will be busy with the exams and college applications anyway.”

“As if you don’t already have everything prepared,” he muttered absentmindedly, scooping more kimchi on his spoon, eating without a care.

You pursed your lips, annoyed. You needed to remind yourself again that you had no time nor the energy to argue with him if you wanted to get this discussion done before your upcoming English class.

“Khm… so we can agree on splitting the interviews between us, right? You interview your classmates and I will do mine. We just need a common question sheet,” you said, tapping the end of your pen on the table.

Whether it was the repetitive sound or your words, it managed to get Taesan’s attention. He looked up from his food and leaned forward on his elbows, his dark eyes sharpening their focus on you.

“How would you record the interviews?” He asked, simply yet you had a feeling it was a tricky question.

“On my phone?” You furrowed your brows. Wasn’t it obvious? How else did he expect you to do it?

“That won’t be good. We would have a huge difference in audio quality. So unless you are fine with that, you need proper equipment. I can borrow a portable mic from the radio club, but I’m not trusting you with that.”

“Excuse me?” Your eyes widened in disbelief but Taesan didn’t elaborate on his reason. Ridiculous. He was just looking for faults in your ideas.

You let out a huff of frustration.

“Are you that desperate that we work together?”

“It’s called professionalism, miss class president,” he taunted you, looking completely serious. “I don’t want to broadcast anything under my name that’s just ‘good enough’.”

“Do you now?” You snorted and rolled your eyes. As if it wasn’t him who played your singing for the entire school. Where was his professionalism then? Who was he to lecture you about it? But okay, you could be the bigger person if he was so freaking stubborn. “Fine. We can do the interviews together with your fancy mic. These are the initial questions I thought of.”

You slid your open notebook towards him with questions about what they used to dream of becoming as a kid, what they want to be now, what colleges and majors they considered as well as their most memorable moment at the school and what they would tell their younger selves or their underclassmen. Taesan furrowed his brows as he was reading through the draft, probably dissecting each of your questions like a poor lab rat but eventually didn’t say anything. You raised a brow at him when your eyes met and he just shrugged.

“Sounds good to me,” he said which didn’t really added value but at least he didn’t find something to pick on in everything you did.

The rest of the discussion went easier as it was obvious that he would be the editor and you would organize the interviews. You were already mentally preparing a survey to send out to the students via the group chats you usually used for class president duties to see when they would be free to conduct the interview among the slots you offered. Taesan wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about the hectic and busy scheduling in the upcoming weeks but eventually agreed to get it over with within two months tops. He must have realized too that the earlier you finished with this project, the sooner the two of you could part ways.

You had the first batch of interviews at the end of next week. After ruling out inconvenient locations, you ended up with the obvious option: doing the recordings in the school radio clubroom. You were against it at first because the last time you had been there you faced public humiliation, whispers behind your back for weeks about your singing and messed up campaign, but objectively speaking you knew it was the most reasonable choice, so you bit the bullet.

You arrived ahead of time, of course, but you were quite surprised that Taesan was already there too, setting up who-knows-what on the professional equipment. He looked up when the door opened, the sun hitting the side of his face, giving it a natural warm glow, a stark contrast to the coldness he often radiated. He acknowledged your presence with a nod then went back to his work, so you just put your stuff down next to the round table in the middle of the room and got ready with your nicely printed questionnaire.

For the most part, the interviews went well, the students showed up more or less on time for their own slot, Taesan let you do the talking, merely letting you know when a recording started or ended. It all started going down when the last interviewee for the day didn’t show up. After five minutes passed, you texted Wonyoung asking politely whether she forgot the interview but she didn’t answer. Ten more minutes of awkward silence while Taesan was playing (or texting, you couldn’t tell) on his phone, you tried calling her but with no success. You started getting restless and frustrated.

“She could have at least told us if she wasn’t going to come,” you muttered more to yourself than anything when your next call went to the voicemail as well. It was such a waste of time just waiting.

“Why do you always assume the worst of people? Maybe something happened and she can’t make it. She could be too sick to care about you blowing up her KakaoTalk,” Taesan looked up from his phone and there was something in his eyes that made you feel like you were in the wrong, like you were a sulky child because generally it wasn't like you were always this pessimistic about people, but before you could have argued, Taesan sighed. “You can go. I can interview her if she shows up until 6.”

Well, you could have taken his word and left. Wonyoung was his classmate and he probably didn’t have anything better to do anyways. There was a set list of questions and not much to mess up. But just as he didn’t want you to handle his beloved mic alone, you didn’t want to leave it to him alone. So you just stubbornly held his gaze, trying to come up with a more profound reason when the clubroom’s door opened and Wonyoung stepped inside in the cheerleading squad’s PE clothes.

“Sorry. Practice got delayed. Thanks for waiting for me,” she panted and Taesan sent you a ‘told you so’ look which made you want to commit atrocities. You hated not being right and even more to be reminded of it.

“It’s okay. Catch your breath,” you turned to the girl with a reassuring smile but you were undeniably relieved when you could finally bid goodbye to her and pack up. It was getting late.

However, when you saw that Taesan was still saving the audio files and uploading them to your shared cloud folder, then putting away the recording device and the mic, you stalled around the door, feeling inconsiderate to leave earlier.

“Just go,” the boy muttered gently when he noticed your hesitation and you didn’t need to be told twice.

On your way to the bus stop, you stopped by at your favorite corner convenience store for some banana milk and almost missed your bus but luckily the driver saw you running and stopped.

“Thank you,” you bowed to the middle aged man who just mumbled something about youngsters these days, then tapped your transportation card against the sensor before looking for a place to sit.

Since it was past the rush hour, there were quite a few empty seats but there was one next to a familiar face close to the door. He had put on a hoodie over his uniform and had his head against the window, eyes closed but you would have easily recognized his long ass limbs everywhere. With the taste of your hurt pride still fresh on your tongue you walked past him, sitting down in the very back, only checking on Taesan a few times to see if he managed to wake up in time to get off at his stop.

Even without the interview project, senior year was busy. You felt like your days were piles of classes, homework, mock tests, real tests, tutoring and studying. Sometimes you memorized English vocabulary or dates for History class even during your lunch breaks or on bus rides because that way you could make the most out of your time. Some might have argued that you took it too seriously but if you wanted to get into the top universities of the country, you had to.

No wonder you spent the two hours you had between classes and tutoring on Friday in the library too, working on your Literature essay. It was kind of boring and you had a long week; you justified your frequent yawns and slow blinking. You didn’t even notice when you slipped into a dreamless sleep, not until you woke up with your head over your folded arms on the table.

As you were still in the haze, instead of panicking that you might have missed your tutoring class, you slowly blinked yourself back into consciousness and the first thing you saw was a pair of eyes.

The boy sitting at the table next to yours was looking at you with something akin to the mix of concern and amusement but you were too busy committing the lovely almond shape and chocolate brown shade of his eyes to your memory to be bothered by it.

Then the realization hit you like a truck because it was no other than Han freaking Taesan.

Oh, did he always have such pretty eyes?

Realizing that you were staring, you quickly turned your gaze away, sat up properly and fixed your messy hair while mentally reprimanding yourself for letting your sleepiness take too much control over you.

You hastily checked the time on your watch, sighing in relief that you only napped for about 15 minutes, so you still had time to finish what you were doing. Which was…? Ah, right, your essay.

You cleared your throat as you focused back on your homework, pretending not to be hyper aware of every chair creaking or pen against paper scribbling sound coming from the table on your left.

The next batch of interviews were scheduled a week later and you did everything in your power to avoid Taesan, hoping that he would forget that embarrassing little encounter you had in the library. Not like he was looking for you either but now that you have become more aware of his presence, you suddenly noticed him everywhere. He wasn’t just the subject of your classmates’ talks and an annoying voice from the radio anymore, he was in the canteen, on your regular bus, on the corridor between classes. Really, you wondered if it was your mind’s self-sabotaging doing or you just managed to ignore him previously. Since you tended to be laser focused on what to do, often walking by people you know without recognizing them, it wouldn’t have surprised you that much.

Still whenever you saw him, he was usually alone if not with juniors from the radio club, so you were a bit taken aback (and you weren’t sure you were hiding it well) when a bunch of his friends from his class were already in the clubroom by the time you got there. The door was left ajar, so you could hear Jungwon’s bubbly laughter and Gyuvin teasing Taesan for ‘working oh so diligently’. They all fell silent when you pushed the door open wider and suddenly their attention was on you. Leehan patted Taesan’s upper back with a grin and muttered something about ‘boss lady is here’ which earned him a glare.

“We will be on our best behavior,” Jungwon saluted with a promise when it turned out they booked the first three slots of the session on purpose, so they could sit through each other’s interviews. While you interviewed people by themselves, since the entire school would hear the edited version anyways, you supposed it couldn’t be a problem if they really did behave. They were friends after all, if they wanted to share them why not?

Them chuckling at some parts of each other’s answers or whisper-shouted hollering about future ambitions was a bit distracting but nothing seriously annoying. You could only hide your laugh with burying your face in your hands when Gyuvin recited a freshmen memory as his most memorable with a prank that ended with the four of them becoming friends. Apparently the day before the first term’s end, right on the edge of the summer holiday, Taesan had brought soap dispenser-shaped water guns into the PE changing rooms, so whenever somebody just tried to wash their hand, they got wet. It shouldn’t have been funny since it was rather childish, but glancing at the always stern and intimidating Taesan and seeing him smile at the memory turned it into something lovely even if it ended with the four of them arguing about whose was the best prank out of all the ones they did over the years.

It was truly one of a kind to see Taesan interact with his friends, people he felt comfortable around. He suddenly became talkative and loud yet warm and gentle when he scolded Gyuvin like an Asian mom for falling asleep at Miss Lee’s class again but promised to send him his notes once he got home.

“What?”

“Nothing,” you shrugged when he caught you red-handed watching him still after he literally pushed his friends out of the door.

Despite witnessing this side of him, if you wanted to be honest, it didn’t quite sit right with you that he was friends with Kim Leehan. The popular boy might not have ever rubbed salt into your wounds by reminding you that he was chosen as the model student representative of the school instead of you who was the grade’s academically best student, the defeat still hurt. You didn’t like to lose in general. So while you knew it was a far-stretched idea, your mind couldn’t stop coming up with scenarios to prove that Taesan sabotaged your campaign speech on purpose to help his friend and it made you irritable and restless during the rest of the interview sessions.

When you were finally alone, it made you blurt out:

“Was it a prank too?”

Taesan froze mid-movement when you spoke up. He was doing the finishing touches, getting ready to leave as it was just the two of you. He slid the headphones, which he used to make sure the recording quality was good, down around his neck.

“What?” He furrowed his brows, visibly confused and you weren’t surprised, he had probably long forgotten how he had humiliated you.

“My model student speech last year,” you said, your nails digging into your palms, bitterness sweeping into your features.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the boy claimed, firm in his standpoint which made you snort.

“Of course, you don’t,” you muttered, then grabbed your bag and walked out of the door before you would say something you would regret.

A part of you thought that Taesan would ignore you the way you ignored him, especially after your callout (or whatever he wanted to call it), so it took you aback when the opposite happened.

As a class president you often had to help the homeroom teacher. It was nothing out of the ordinary when he called you into the teachers’ room and gave you a box of university application help books to hand out in class. It wasn’t really heavy but there was no proper handle on the box, so you had to hold it against your chest and it made it hard to see the stairs in front of your feet as you walked up to the classroom.

Students came and went both ways around you, nobody really paying attention to you struggling not to fall and you let out a little sigh of relief when you reached the first landing of the staircase without tripping. You adjusted your grip on the big brown box and was about to go on when the box crashed into somebody’s chest… or more like, stomach.

“Sorry, I…”

You were about to apologize automatically when you saw Taesan standing in front of you, very clearly on purpose. However, before you could have told him to move out of your way, he did the unthinkable: he easily took the box out of your hands, his knuckles brushing against your open palms as he did so.

“Hey! Give it back!” You reached out for the box again once you snapped out of your stupor but the boy’s hold on it was too strong.

“Stop being so stubborn for once,” he said, his quiet, deep voice washing over you in waves and then you could barely do anything but watch him turn around and walk up the stairs with ease, the box in his hands and his bag thrown over one of his shoulders.

You shuffled after him a bit awkwardly, halfway torn between being grateful because out of all people in the school only him was considerate enough to offer help and being offended and angry because what if he only did so because he pitied you now that he knew that you still held grudges over what happened last year.

That became a smaller worry though as you realized he was heading straight towards your classroom and you didn’t even want to guess the rumors starting if even just one gossipy girl saw him help you. You grew more anxious the closer you got but Taesan’s steps halted right before he got to the door. You almost bumped into his back at the sudden pause.

“Here,” he turned to you with the box that you took gingerly, making sure you didn’t touch this time.

“Thanks,” you mumbled, actually meaning it but you couldn’t tell with Taesan’s low hum and light on his feet disappearance if he believed you or not.

The third week of interviews went without a glitch. You were almost done which also added to your good mood. One less thing to worry about, one less to-do during your already busy weeks.

Taesan stayed behind in the clubroom this time too, hunching over the computer setup with the headphones on like always but for the first time you said bye. Or well your version of it.

“Don’t stay too late,” you told him loud enough, so he could hear you through the headphones but turned on your heels before you could have seen his reaction.

It was a good day, you decided. You got praised by your Literature teacher for your essay on the themes of social class and Confucian values in your recent obligatory read. The interviews went smoothly and the corner CU had a 1+1 promotion for your favorite banana milk. You even caught the bus just in time, getting on the vehicle after two giggling students. It was busier now than usual because lots of students had to stay longer in preparation for the Freshmen Open Day.

Apologies falling from your lips, you made your way through the crowd in the front of the bus and looked for a seat in the back. That’s where you caught sight of Taesan with his bag on the seat next to him and when your eyes met, he pulled his stuff into his lap. You hesitated for a moment but that was pretty much the only place left and it would have been more awkward if you didn’t take it. So you dropped the ignoring act, swung your bag to your front and sat down, drumming with your fingers on your knees. The bus departed from the stop and took a turn, the silence between the two of you becoming louder than the chatter around you.

You unzipped your bag and pulled out the banana milk bottles you just bought and held one out towards Taesan. The boy turned his head towards you, his dark eyes unsure and… was that blush on his cheeks? Your hands touched when he took the bottle from you, sending little tingles over your skin.

“Wanna listen?” He held out one of the earbuds of his wired earphone that he always seemed to have with him. So old-fashioned, so cool.

You felt shy as you looked him in the eye because it was like sharing something intimate. Still, you took the audio device and put it inside your right ear, smiling as the unfamiliar beats of a slower western song played. You pierced through the lid of the banana milk with your straw and hid your smile behind your drink when you saw Taesan do the same.

Maybe you were just warming up to each other after weeks of working together but it gave you the push you needed to ask about what you were listening to and it started a whole monologue about the kind of music Taesan liked and how his father introduced it to him. Honestly, he listened to a lot of bands you heard of but couldn’t really associate songs with and quite a few you hadn’t even heard about. You didn’t mind though, you liked listening to him talk about it, watching him gesture and slur his words when he got excited. It was a lovely side of him.

The bus ride never felt so short.

That one conversation and shared banana milk somehow led to daily song recommendations from the boy. He was always curious about your opinion even if you didn’t like it. Soon enough he could guess pretty accurately if you would like a song or not, so he even created a Spotify playlist just for you that he updated frequently. This turn of events was surely unexpected but not at all bad.

You also got to know that he would have liked to study sound engineering in university and you told him about your own ambitions and why it was so important for you to have near perfect grades and all those achievements. Belatedly you realized that you had never told anybody how much impact it had on you that you were constantly compared to your cousins.

It was a new side of Taesan you got to know, a side he didn’t show to just anybody and you realized it was the same with you. You hated showing weakness in front of others, yet it wasn’t too bad to admit to him that you tended to be judgemental with people because nobody had really been patient with you either before labeling you this or that.

But texting over the phone was one thing, you weren’t sure it would change anything in person. Sure, you had been seen together due to the interview project but that would be over soon. Not to mention you really didn’t want to deal with high school gossip in your last school year. And yet, you couldn’t help but look for Taesan whenever you were in the school canteen or near his clubroom. You caught yourself anticipating the radio announcements just to hear his voice. It was pathetic really, how fast you went from finding it annoying and purposefully ignoring him to waiting to see him.

Your heart did a little somersault when you actually saw him in the library one afternoon and only when you walked closer did you notice that he wasn’t just leaning over his papers but he was sleeping soundly, his pencil still in his hand, his textbook getting wrinkled under his weight. Briefly you wondered whether you should have looked for another place since Taesan must have chosen this corner table far in the back to have some peace but you would have liked to believe that he wouldn’t have minded you joining. After all, he waved to you casually like you were friends when you ran into each other on the corridors earlier that day.

Eventually, you pulled out the chair on the other side of the table and quietly put your study material down. You squinted at the books and printed papers around Taesan recognizing them as advanced Maths exercises on trigonometry. While you were trying to see if it was a sheet you had already done, something else caught your eyes instead. The light reflected on the silver bands around Taesan’s index and ring fingers down to the similar thin, metal bracelet he wore. You had never noticed that he wore accessories but you had never really paid attention to what he was wearing either (except his unmade tie). Or maybe due to the long sleeved uniform you couldn’t even notice it but now that he had his sleeves rolled up and arms outstretched, you couldn’t help but notice how long and elegant fingers he had, unfairly nice for a guy.

Taesan suddenly exhaled sharply which made you act on impulse. You leaned back in your chair and looked down at your randomly opened book just in case he woke up. However, his quiet sleeping noises soon returned to normal, so you deemed it safe to look up. You let out a relieved sigh when you saw his eyes still closed, his eyelashes casting a light shadow over his cheekbones. Dark strands of hair fell softly over his eyes and you weren’t sure what came over you but maybe all those silly romance dramas were right when they thought girls couldn’t stop themselves from brushing a boy’s fringe out of his eyes just once in their life. But just as you reached out, Taesan straightened his back and yawned like a cat, stretching his arms towards the sky. He blinked himself awake slowly but he froze the moment he noticed you right in front of him.

To make the situation less awkward for both of you, you smiled at him as casually as you could (which wasn’t much thanks to your racing heartbeat but still, you tried) and turned to your book, flipping to the correct page you wanted to review. From the corner of your eyes, you saw Taesan fix his clothes and sit up properly before arranging his rumpled papers to continue the Maths exercises. He must have been stuck on a problem though because he kept sighing and going back to the same page in the workbook. After his sixth or so frustrated sound, you couldn’t take it anymore.

“What are you stuck on? Maybe I can help,” you spoke up, closing your own book, so he would see your focus was on him.

“It’s fine,” he dismissed your offer so fast that you could tell he didn’t even think about it. You were sure because that was what you tended to do too: claiming you could handle everything on your own. But still, sometimes wasn’t it nice to receive help? Like how he had helped you with that box?

“Okay, then what about explaining it to me?” You changed your strategy because sometimes even that much could help: offering a listening ear. Maybe he could realize the mistake he was making in the equation while telling you about it.

You didn’t even think about it, you just stood up and walked to Taesan’s side of the table, sitting down next to him, leaning closer to see his scratchy handwriting and the calculations he had been doing. You might have blushed when you realized just how close you were but you refused to show it. You took studying seriously after all. So you looked the boy in the eye with a challenge in yours until he gave in.

Four minutes later he found the trigonometric identity he used incorrectly.

After sharing songs through texts and studying together at the library, the next thing that became a routine for the two of you was visiting the corner convenience store whenever you left the school together. When it first happened, Taesan claimed he needed to buy something too but he was looking around in the snack aisle suspiciously long (you missed your usual bus that day), so the next time you told him that you would catch up to him at the bus stop, he didn’t need to come with you. But more often than not, he went along with you anyways and ended up buying candies or chocolate bars. When you told Taesan about your go-to emotional support banana milk reminding you of your childhood, he told you that he wasn’t really into sweet things, so he bought all these snacks for his younger siblings. One time he bought a pack of four cream milk breads just for the freebie Pokémon toy that came with it because his little sister liked that character. It made you coo internally.

It wasn’t always just the two of you though. One day you were going over the English vocabulary with Jihan from your class in the library when Taesan and Jungwon walked in and took the desk next to you, eventually joining the English quiz. Another time Leehan needed to stay after school too because of his model student representative duties (a photoshoot for the Freshmen Open Day brochures apparently and suddenly you weren’t so sulky that you didn’t get the title) and he decided to tag along when he saw Taesan and you head over to the nearby CU.

“Ah, senior year is really hell. Everyone’s so busy we barely have time to hangout after school anymore,” he justified himself while throwing an arm around Taesan’s shoulder. “Jungwon told me you went to the library to study the other day. Since when do you do that? I thought you said being around so many people is distracting.”

You still heard Leehan’s voice as they disappeared into the snack aisle with the purpose of getting jellies and you walked forward to the refrigerated section, trying not to think too much into it. Maybe senior year changed Taesan’s mind, maybe he found the presence of others motivating now. Or maybe he just wanted to spend more time with you. The thought alone made you shy.

You were on schedule with the interviews and soon only the intro and outro as well as your own parts were missing. You wrote a script for the introduction and ending which Taesan improved with his experience of radio shows at school. You argued about whether your version with the ‘high school memories forever staying with you’ sentiment was too cringy or his ‘it’s only the beginning’ version was too vague but this time there was no harshness in your voice, there were no grudges held, it was only friendly banter as you went back and forth with arguments supporting your own ideas.

Eventually you managed to find a common ground, mentioning both the importance of keeping one’s high school memories as a reminder of their formative years and youth as well as being ready for what was coming. It was not even a question that it would be recorded by Taesan because he really had a nice voice and while you tried to stay professional and pay attention to his pronunciation and the flow of the speech rather than him, you failed miserably. Luckily, Taesan had enough radio experience to know exactly what to do. He introduced the segment with ease and charm, captivating the audience (you, for now) and you had to clear your throat to focus when he finished reading.

“We can start the interview with me,” you said, eager to get on with the tasks before Taesan could call you out on your behavior. He must have known your reason for the sudden change of attitude though because he smiled to himself, quiet but obvious about it, as he held the microphone out for you and hit record.

You knew all the questions by heart but still you waited for the boy to ask before you answered.

“When I was young, I wanted to have my own karaoke room. There was one on the basement floor in the building where I used to live and the owner auntie always gave me homemade honey biscuits. She seemed to be so joyful humming songs happily,” you said at the first question, glancing in Taesan’s direction briefly.

He must have been surprised – you were too –, because it wasn’t the model student-like answer everybody was expecting of you like saying your dream had always been to become a doctor or lawyer. Honestly, you had your own answers prepared and memorized ever since the questions for the student interviews were finalized and approved by your teachers. But looking back at it now, you felt embarrassed because even though it was just an interview, it wasn’t graded or judged, yet you had felt obligated to answer according to what other people would think of you. However, in the recent weeks as you got to know Taesan better, you realized that people would judge others without reason, without knowing them, even you. So you shouldn’t have changed your whole personality just so you would fit into this image they had of you. Even if it was about your parents’ or teachers’ expectation or your classmates calling you the teacher’s pet behind your back. You had been okay with the prejudices since high school was just one step in your foolproof plan to lead a successful life, you had been okay without building deep connections with other students because you had known that you would drift away after graduation anyways but only lately you realized that you could have had fun while also working hard. You could be yourself and let people closer. The world wasn’t going to crumble, it wouldn’t ruin your plans. You could be honest, both with yourself and others, because what was the worst thing that could happen? That they would judge you? They are doing it anyway, so it didn't matter.

“And now? Now I’m applying for business majors. I’ m not sure what exactly I would like to do with my life but I will get there. Who knows, maybe one day I will open a karaoke room, too,” you chuckled even though your ambitions were to build a bigger company, something creative and useful. You still had time to figure out the details.

In the beginning of the term you would have felt vulnerable sharing these about yourself in front of Taesan or the entire school because everybody expected you to know what you want to do with your life but now, it felt okay. You actually felt lighter, relieved. Especially because there was nothing akin to judging in Taesan’s eyes as he smiled at you from the other side of the table.

“Please tell us about your most memorable high school memory,” he recited the last question after you went over all the others.

Previously, you would have said it was being chosen as a class president because it was an honor and a proof of hard work but now, your academic achievements didn’t seem that important. What will you really remember when you will be older and think back on high school?

“Honestly, senior year so far has had some unexpected surprises, it’s hard to choose just one but maybe this one. Now,” you and me, just the two of us in the radio club room, being vulnerable yet not being judged. “I like the person I have been becoming ever since this senior interview project started and I think it's going to be a great memory one day.”

Silence embraced you as you finished talking, a bit nervous but without regrets. Taesan pressed a button and the recording stopped, ready to be saved.

“So karaoke room, huh?” He asked and you kicked his shin under the table for that teasing grin on his face.

“Your turn,” you reminded him as you passed the mic and adjusted the headphones around your ears. By then, over so many interviews you were sure Taesan knew what was coming too but just for the show you asked him about his dream job as a child versus now as well as his higher education plans.

“Becoming a musician was my childhood dream. My entire family loves music, many of us play an instrument, so it felt natural,” Taesan said and even though you didn’t know this, it wasn’t hard to imagine given his love for music and all that knowledge about genres and classics. “After I joined the radio club, I realized that I like it a lot despite the fact that here we don’t usually play music. So it would be cool to be a radio DJ on a music show one day but I’m interested in the technology behind it all, that’s why I will study sound engineering.”

You smiled to yourself because you had already known that latter part and it felt nice knowing you had come so far. After a few more answers, you got to the last question about his most memorable moment and Taesan’s feline eyes turned mischievous.

“Hm, a fierce girl yelling my head off during a live school radio radio–”

“Yah, be serious!” You interrupted him when you realized he was talking about what happened last year but your voice was more amused than scolding.

“I am serious,” Taesan claimed but there was a teasing tilt in his mouth. “It’s pretty memorable.”

“So you’re saying I was the only girl interrupting you during a broadcast? Shocking,” you raised a brow at him, a small part of you feeling triumphant about the fact that in a way you were special even if your first actual meeting didn’t have the best circumstances. Thank god that his microphone wasn’t on when you showed up and straight up started questioning him. “Also, just to clarify I wasn't yelling. I just expressed my bewilderment about why you were playing that audio.”

“That was the only one under your name.”

“What?” You blinked, confused at Taesan’s quick response. He sounded like he meant it but you knew that couldn’t have been true, they got access to your entire recording folder accidentally. So if he didn’t see that, it meant he wasn’t the one checking their emails.

“To make sure things are running smoothly, we always have a script about our broadcasts and all the audio files are organized in linear order in a folder for that day. I just played what was prepared for me,” he explained and gosh, you felt so stupid.

All this time you thought he had been the one who chose the wrong file on purpose maybe to help his friend, maybe to just have a good laugh but it made sense that his juniors were more likely the ones doing such preparatory work.

“But still, you could have stopped it instead of just letting it play,” you muttered, trying to justify your reaction.

“Well, at first I thought it was actually a pretty unique tactic and then…” Taesan scratched his nape and looked away, then shrugged as if he just convinced himself to tell you something that might be embarrassing. “To be honest, I just liked your singing.”

At his words you felt the tip of your ears burn and heat spreading all over your cheeks. You were glad that the lighting in the room hid it well.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” You found yourself asking quietly because thinking back you weren’t exactly nice to him.

Taesan gave you a look. Okay, true, you didn’t really give him a chance to explain before antagonizing him. And then it must have been weird to just bring it up.

“Right. Um, sorry,” you mumbled, embarrassed due to your too quick judgment but the boy just shook his head as if he had never been mad at the injustice in the first place. “About your answer though, you have to cut it out.” 

Obviously with 60 people answering 6 questions, not everything would make it into the final cut, it would be more of a montage of answers, a glimpse of the seniors’ lives and you didn’t want to be reminded of that incident in front of the entire school. Not again.

“Nope,” Taesan protested, popping the ‘p’ sound, teasing just to be difficult.

“I’m deleting it,” you warned him but you seriously miscalculated several things: there was no way you could have reached the computer before him and with him standing in front of the monitor and keyboard you didn’t see anything. You tried to get hold of the mouse at the same time as looking over the boy’s shoulder but he made sure that he was always in the way which somehow turned into a one sided (struggle) wrestle match and honestly at that point you weren’t even trying to achieve anything and both of you just laughed at your poor attempts.

“Am I interrupting something?” Spoke up a newcomer you didn’t even notice. Sullyoon, another radio club member from the year, stood by the door visibly surprised to see you or well the current situation you were in: Taesan leaning against the desk in front of the computer and you pretty much plastered over him, trying to reach something behind his back.

“No!” You objected vehemently and took two steps back, stumbling a bit. Taesan reached out to steady you by the forearm and only after he made sure you wouldn’t fall did he turn to the girl from his club.

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, I just forgot my buju here,” Sullyoon got over her surprise too and quickly retrieved the prettily decorated journal from one of the shelves. You watched her go and then buried your face in your hands because of embarrassment.

“Emotional support banana milk?” Taesan prompted after he saved the files and turned the computer off.

You smiled at him and followed him out closely. If you were any better off, you would have teased him about his flushed face but instead you just made him race you to the convenience store, so both of you would have an excuse if anyone asked about your red cheeks.

Now that all interviews were done, only the editing was left from the project and while you could have left it all to Taesan since he did the actual editing, you were there keeping him company all through it. First of all, you listened to all the raw material and decided which answers to include from each interviewee in the final cut and then you could help out when he needed a second opinion on the order or cut parts or whether the transition was smooth or not. When he was deep in the concentration mode, you just did homework or studied for upcoming tests. It took three sessions to finish it (you had to force Taesan to get his ass out of school during the second one because he was determined to finish it which past you would have appreciated but not even this project was worth losing proper meal schedule or sleep over it) and when you listened to the final version you were proud of what you had done, together.

“Should we celebrate?” You suggested once the file was sent to the principal and his secretary. You finished it pretty much on schedule and yet, you weren't as relieved as you thought you would be when you had first started it. But still, it was an achievement and you liked to celebrate small wins like this because if you didn't, who else would?

You meant it as in going out to eat something good. For example, in the tent restaurant two streets down the auntie was selling the best tteokbokki you had ever tried. But Taesan had his own idea.

“What about karaoke?”

“Yah! Stop teasing!” You glared at him but you weren't actually mad, it started to turn into a private joke between the two of you.

“I’m not!” The boy insisted and all it took was his almost pout to convince you.

There were karaoke rooms on pretty much every other street in this neighborhood, so it wasn't hard to find one where you booked a room for an hour and bought snacks and drinks at the counter from the girl who looked like a bored university student.

You usually went to sing with a small group of girls from your class, so it was the first time that it was just you and a boy. And not just any boy but Han Taesan. Somehow it felt more special. Sure, he might have already heard you sing and said that he liked it, but you were shy, so you insisted that he would pick a song first. He chose Dean's 21 and totally nailed it, the karaoke machine's high score proving that you weren't just biased when you told him that. You had already liked his speaking voice but when he sang, oh boy! You could have listened to him for hours.

You went with a girl group song you were confident in and it was fun. Song after song you both hyped each other up and the one hour passed by quickly. A part of you wished you could just pay for one more and sing until your voice became hoarse but the rational part knew that you shouldn't have stayed out too late. You still had homework to do and Taesan needed to memorize those English words for tomorrow's test.

It was the same T side of you that went a bit ahead of you and started thinking about the midterms and then how busy you would get once summer ended and the last term rolled around. It was still months away and yet, you wondered if it took that much for you to drift apart or the end of this interview project would be enough. You were a bit scared to know the answer, just how you were scared to answer Jihan's question the other day when she saw you walk to class together with Taesan. Admitting out loud that you liked him would have made it real and it would have made you vulnerable. You weren't sure you were ready to do that but it was certain that you didn't want to lose him.

“Taesan…” You spoke up quietly, swinging your feet back and forth on the bench in the bus stop after you spent the walk from the karaoke room to the stop in silence, lost in thought. The boy turned his head towards you, his fringe getting into his eyes, messy and beautiful. Your heart ached with the certainty only first love could. “Now that the radio segment is ready, will we go back to how we were?” You asked barely in a whisper as if speaking louder would have had its consequences. That was also why you had to rush to clarify. “Because I don’t want that. I… I would miss you too much.”

You didn’t mean to say it like that and it was a scary thing to admit but it was worth all the extra beats of your heart to see Taesan smile, a shy little thing stretching slowly from one side to another, his eyes sparkling under the moonlight and street lamps’ glow.

“Me too,” he said and you reciprocated his smile. There was a short pause, an inhale of the universe waiting, then Taesan called your name and you looked up immediately.

“Hm?”

He looked you in the eyes with those dark oceans of his. Once you associated them with the cold depth of the sea but since then you realized that you were wrong. You knew only a few people who had warmer souls than this boy.

“You are my most memorable high school memory for a reason,” he whispered like it was a secret and a promise at the same time.

It left you speechless a moment too long and the bubble around you burst when the bus pulled up in front of you with a loud screeching sound. Taesan was quick on his feet but instead of getting on the bus right away, he looked back at you and held a hand out for you. You blamed it on not having time to think about it with the bus driver yelling at you impatiently and took it, following the boy onto the vehicle and to your usual place in the back with a smile on your face and a new rhythm in your heart.

Taesan didn't let go of your hand during the entire ride. As you closed your eyes and listened to the music he put on, you hoped he wouldn’t let go for a long time.

[voyagerweek]

VOYAGER WEEK PROMPTS

DAY 1 - JAN. 10: Favorite Episode | Away Missions

DAY 2 - JAN. 11: Favorite Character | Meet You in the Runabout

DAY 3 - JAN. 12: Favorite Relationship | Allies & Enemies

DAY 4 - JAN. 13: Favorite Season or Arc | Time Travel

DAY 5 - JAN. 14: Favorite Quote | Home Away From Home

DAY 6 - JAN. 15: Favorite Holodeck Program | Lost in the Holodeck

DAY 7 - JAN. 16: Caretaker (S1E01) 30th Anniversary | FREE SPACE

Fanwork originally made and posted on Tumblr for this event with the tag #voyager week will be reblogged by this blog. Racism, bigotry, harassment, or discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated. Be respectful of other fans and have fun! FAQs ↴

How do I participate? Make a new post on Tumblr with the tag "#voyager week" during the week of January 10-16, 2025. Crossposting to other sites such as AO3 is allowed, but please also make a new post on Tumblr so this blog can reblog it. If your post has not been reblogged within 48 hours of posting, please send a DM to @voyagerweek along with the post. Submissions will only be reblogged during the event week and for up to two weeks after the event. Please do not post a submission before January 10, 2025.

Why are there two prompts for each day? Do I have to use one or both? There are two prompts to cover multiple interpretations of the event. A prompt that is accessible for a writer may not be for a gifmaker, for example. You may choose to use one or both prompts for each day, or multiple prompts from different days combined in one post, or no prompt! These prompts are being provided 5 months in advance of the event so that there is plenty of time to consider them, but if none of them inspire you, feel free to make a fanwork about Voyager that does not incorporate any of the prompts. The prompts are meant to inspire but not constrain your creativity. You may also submit multiple posts in one day. Participate as much or as little as you would like!

Can I post X kind of fanwork? Yes! If it is made by you (or you have express permission from the original creator) for this event, it counts as a fanwork and will be accepted. The following list of types of fanwork is not meant to be restrictive but to provide examples: fanfic of any length, fanart/comics, gifs/edits/fanvids, playlists, moodboards, meta discussions/essays/headcanons, crafting/textiles, cosplay, and anything else made by fans to show appreciation for Voyager. **Please put long written works below a "read more" cut**

What if my fanwork is part of an ongoing work such as a multi-chapter fanfic or series? That's fine! As long as whatever you post is new and made for this event, whether you use one of the prompts or not, it will be reblogged (i.e. you may not make a post for a previously published chapter of your fic, but a new chapter or installment posted during the event is acceptable).

Can my work include other Star Trek shows/movies/books/etc? Yes, as long as Voyager or its characters are one of the main focuses of the fanwork, you are welcome to incorporate other media properties, Star Trek or otherwise.

Can my work be about an actor or the production/behind the scenes of Voyager? Yes, as long as the work's focus is still on Voyager (i.e. not a gifset solely of the actor in another show/movie).

Are OCs (original characters) allowed? Yes, if a Voyager setting or its characters are included in the fanwork as well.

Are AUs (alternate universes) allowed? Yes. Canon divergence and different settings (i.e. modern AUs) are allowed if the work still features Voyager characters or elements.

Is NSFW/adult content allowed? Yes, as long as you tag appropriately with trigger warnings and follow Tumblr's restrictions for explicit content. Reblogs of works that contain graphic violence, sexual content, strong profanity, or nudity will be tagged #nsfw for filtering.

Threshold Day is January 29 and already a recognized fan event on Tumblr, why are you having a Voyager event that doesn't include this day? The dates were chosen to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of the original airdate of the first episode of the first season. This event is meant to share enthusiasm for the entirety of Voyager, and hopefully that will continue after the event week is finished.

**If you have any other questions not covered by this list, please send an ask to @voyagerweek.**

[majorapandahero]

Aight I give up

Of course I started reading a Satoru Gojo x reader fic on my "for you" page and the page reset. So i have resigned myself to ask for help.

I will now try to remember everything i read before it reloaded.

It was an Arranged Marriage kind of AU! Where Gojo and Reader were childhood friends. Reader stayed in the village and wrote Gojo letters while he was away and he never responded; so after a year and a half reader just stopped sending them all together. Stopped asking his whereabouts 2 years in. (turns out Gojo never received them AT ALL)

When Satoru comes back they are both under the impression the other hates them, but when a nasty guy comes up to reader ;introducing himself as a suitor; she backs away, rushing out of the party to throw up in some bushes when Gojo comes out to comfort them. Reader's Mother finds them alone together, shenanigans happen and now they both must be married like... yesterday.

It's a slow burn to a feast they must both host for the clan as leaders. Both walking on eggshells, mostly in the reader's pov; only coming down for breakfast or dinner to speak to Satoru.

At the feast, they are finally getting into a good banter. Even joking on hiding under the table like they use to since the reader doesn't like how many people are at the feast. Geto shows up, introductions are made, and then Geto takes Gojo away to discuss something. Another girl is there, she has many admirers. Reader looks at her then at where Gojo and Geto are and see's that Gojo is looking over at the girl. Girl does a finger beckon call towards Satoru, and he apparently follows.

Of course Misunderstanding, older clan members are asking "where did Satoru go?", "Is he with a mistress?" you know the old people no boundary kind of questions. Reader is heartbroken, but also believes that Satoru doesn't want this marriage in the first place. Geto tries to explain what happened later to the reader over breakfast with gojo nowhere to be seen.

Geto: "I promise it was no what it looked like."

Reader: "What Gojo does is his business," "Maybe I too will find my own way in this marriage." "Geto, I ruined his life didn't I?"

Before Gojo goes away to visit another clan, he tries to talk to reader through the door of her bedroom. She hasn't spoken a word to him since the feast, not coming down for meals or anything. He simply knocks, asks if he can explain, talk or see her. She walks close to the door but doesn't open it. She blows out the candle and head back to bed. Gojo tries again, but gives up and leave her be. It was almost 6 weeks i believe of Satoru being gone.

The reader is plagued with thought of Gojo, hoping he is ok, that this visit shouldn't be taking this long. Others in the clan have also filled her head with thoughts that he is just out there cheating her the reader.

When he does come back, he's splattered with blood (he swears isn't his) and scared the readers maid "Myra" half to death by demanding she get out of the reader's room right then and there.

Gojo thought the reader was going to cheat cause of the "Maybe I too will find my own way in this marriage." Thinking that the time he was gone, he was going to find another man in her chambers. He didn't cause even after feeling heartbroken, Reader still loyal to him. But reader also calls him out for leaving her at the feast alone to go with another woman.

Misunderstandings are finally understood, a quote i remember Satoru said was "If all it took to marry you was to get you alone, i would have shoved you in a closet as soon as you walked into that party."

They both loved each other since childhood, and as soon as they were making up

my screen reset. and i lost it to the tumblr maze of fanfics and hell.

So i ask for help that if anyone knows this fic, the author, anything that can help me find it; i've been scrolling for days and finally lost the will to keep looking without help.

I thank the tumblr users in advance, and a reminder that this is not my idea and i just want to find the writer to appreciate them and love them for their writing was so freaking amazing.

[rivnedell]

Wip Wednesday

I've been completely feral for the past weeks, and over productive of new wips. My brain feels like a kettle rn.... Someone send some help 🥲

Soo, here some of a wip I've been working on.

Images are nor mine, just here to set the mood

English is not my mother tongue and this is a SUPER rough draft.. I'm sorry for off wording by advance.

-

Joel x Reader (I fell in love with second person writing..)

The following week, each day that passed, you've been thinking of him. You want to touch him again; you want your fingers to press against his skin again. You need it. Fortunately, Joel visits you 5 or 6 days after he got his little tattoo. You're finishing a client's project, a giant dragon on his back when you see him enter the shop your breath just stopped, your heart nearly ceased functioning. Trying to get your emotions together, you apply the healing cream on the man's back, and take photos for your socials. How you wish it has been Joel's back.. Again. Once payment is done, the client gone and the tattoo room cleaned up, you head back to the waiting room, leaning your back against the counter. Joel's looking at the flashes pinned to the wall, his back facing you. "Can't let go of my needles ?" You say with a smile, a hint of a flirty tone in your voice, that actually didn't plan to be but.. Your guts have commanded your mouth. You get no answer, Joel just smiles back lightly over his shoulder, lightly turning his face to you. "Do.. You need another one ?" You tried with a more serious tone this time, tilting your face right, trying to guess his expression. His dark eyes suddenly lock on you as he turns his strong body around and steps forward, close to you, until his neck has to bend over you as you are much smaller than him. "It's not a tattoo that I need," He says looking above you, his arms still along his body. His body is a knot of tension and lust at this moment; it's showing and evident. A knot forms in your throat, breathing out any word that could have come out, leaving your lips parted in a soft gasp. "What do you need then, Joel ?" You breathe, glancing at his parted lips, starting to feel greed and lust devouring your guts. "I need you,"

-

Aawww, can't wait to write more with these two !!

Thank you for reading ! ✨

Tagging : @thegreatwicked @the-mandawhor1an @crowandmousewritingco @lady-bess @baronessvonglitter @fhatbhabiee @notjustjavierpena , no pressure of course.

Let me know if you want to be added 🥰

[themculibrary]

Daniel Sousa/Daisy Johnson Masterlist

all we do is drive. (ao3) - romantashas M, 30k

Summary: Daisy has missed the open road. She used to always love taking her van out and just driving. Los Angeles was where she liked to stick around, but she would always go on these road trips just because she wanted to explore somewhere new.

She's always liked running away from things.

It was different, having someone with her.

-

In which Daisy Johnson helps Daniel Sousa explore the modern world by taking him on a cross-country road trip in a van. Post-Finale road trip AU with MCU tie-ins.

A Miracle Starts With a Beat of a Heart (ao3) - samanthaswishes T, 202k

Summary: The team's trip to space and the almost end of the world changed their lives in more ways than they could count. However, no one expected the change that was going to happen in Daisy's life. What if Kasius had planned on using Daisy to breed more inhumans? The team comes together to help her while Daisy finds a new kind of love. One she never could have imagined happening, but turned out to be a miracle.

Takes place from post-season 5/pre-season 6 to post-series finale.

A Week After Death (ao3) - manoutoftimeandquake T, 15k

Summary: An explosion in an alien junkyard sends Daisy, Sousa and Kora back in time to meet some people from Sousa's past.

Edge of Tonight (ao3) - Letmebecomeataboo G, 38k

Summary:  1946, New York City

Daniel Sousa is an agent, working for the SSR in New York. When the search for wanted fugitive Howard Stark comes to a stand still, a new agent named Daisy Johnson is sent from the Los Angeles office to help. Now, on top of trying to figure out where Stark is, Daniel suddenly has to fight with his feelings for the mysterious and beautiful new agent.

Field Test (ao3) - Luckyfishy E, 7k

Summary: After 7X09 in the Lighthouse but before all hell breaks loose so before the events of 7x10. Daisy and Sousa get in a workout but also work each other up ... leading to the inevitable smutty goodness.

One Year Later (ao3) - marvelsquake T, 64k

Summary: Set right after the series finale's 'one year later' part where Daisy stares into space with Sousa and Kora.

Inspired by the 'anatomy analysis' bit Jemma says to Daisy.

Orchestrating History (ao3) - TheSovereigntyofReality G, 11k

Summary: In 1955, Daniel Sousa allegedly died at HYDRA's hands and became the first fallen S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent.

In truth, Coulson's team saved him and faked his death.

Due to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s policy with enhanced, they may come to regret that decision.

Reclaim (ao3) - StillTryingToWrite T, 232k

Summary: It is an instinctual reaction, at this point, wanting them to like her, to want her. It is the same feeling she used to get when she was younger, before she knew better. So if she shows the parts of herself she thinks they will like and keeps the rest buried, it is just easier for everyone that way. But she tries not to think about any of this yet. For now, she just gazes out the window, and enjoys the view, looking out at her future adventures.

-Daisy’s story following the course of the entire series. A collection of missing scenes during and between episodes, flashbacks to pre-series, and Daisy’s perspective on canon events.

religion's in your lips, the altar is my hips (ao3) - mssimmonsfitz E, 17k

Summary: Daisy and Daniel decide to...experiment.

stars that have people names (ao3) - rianparker (orphan_account) G, 1k

Summary: Stargazing isn't normally Daisy's idea of a fun date night, but there's no doubt in Daniel's mind she'll love it tonight.

Stay (ao3) - SteeleHoltingOn E, 150k

Summary: Not everyone knew she could feel heartbeats. Sousa’s sped up every time he looked her way.

His reaction wasn’t particularly unusual, and Daisy was an expert at fending off unwanted advances. But that was just it: Sousa hadn’t actually made any advances, and if he did, Daisy wasn’t sure she’d ward them off.

Her heartbeat, it seemed, liked to match tempo with his.

want you (to unravel me) (ao3) - IzzieBee M, 21k

Summary: Daisy never wanted to be rescued, by anyone. She never wanted to owe someone that debt, but especially not to a handsome WWII Vet, traveling through time. Daniel, who was brave and decent, and kind of funny, and who she could easily depend on, which was way too dangerous to consider.

OR

Daisy really wasn't ready for Daniel Sousa.

Where I Need To Be (ao3) - JennaGreen T, 180k

Summary: This is set from Episode 7x03 onwards and follows the story of Daisy Johnson and Daniel Sousa, and how their relationship has been developing throughout this amazing season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.! This story mostly follows canon but is interspersed with missing moments between Daisy and Sousa that I imagine could have happened off-screen.

Your Heartbeat On The Highline(Once In Twenty Lifetimes) (ao3) - doctorsimmonswilson T, 40k

Summary: He’s a man out of time and she’s an orphaned superhero. They’ve just got to figure out what to do next, after the mission is over.

[aka Daisy and Daniel’s story post finale]

you've got that power (over me). (ao3) - romantashas M, 71k

Summary: "It's you," Daniel whispers. He's in awe, looking at Quake. She steps back away from him. "Let me help you," he says, reaching out toward her injured arm slowly.

Daniel only gets a moment more to admire her glowing eyes and her purple hair before she turns and runs away, her hand slipping out of his.

-

In which the superheroes of the Marvelverse actually try to keep their identities a secret and Daniel Sousa is determined to figure out who is behind the mysterious Quake mask. Superhero AU with MCU tie-ins.

[yarnnerdally]

Ally Writes Commissions

Hey, y'all! I'm going to be opening up commissions for a time. Bills have been hell lately (I literally don’t have money for gas after buying groceries this week) and this will help bridge the gap between paychecks a bit. I’ll be committing to 6 commissions and it will be first come first serve.

I'll be writing for the following fandoms:

Ikémen Series Games (Vampire, Sengoku, Revolution, and Prince) 

Hypnosis Microphone

Baldur's Gate

Honkai Star Rail (characters limited, please ask)

See this list for characters I will not write for in the above fandoms, as well as topics I will not write for.

I will write:

Fluff

Smut

Angst

Hurt/Comfort

Headcanons

Canon character/reader

Poly canon characters/reader

I'll be pricing works as such:

500 words: $5.00

1000 words: $10.00

1500 words: $15.00

If I go slightly over word count, I won’t charge extra. I’ll take payment through my Paypal.

Additional rules:

You need to be 18+ for requesting a smut fic and will not share the content, nor shall you request it on behalf of a minor.

The maximum characters I will write into a fic is 3.

Please DM me your requests here on Tumblr, labeling it as a commission request.

I will send an invoice to you via Paypal.

Unless you wish otherwise and state so, I will post the work here on Tumblr and AO3 and tag you in it.

Thank you in advance for considering me for writing for you, and for those of you who I know will boost this. I love my fandoms dearly and I'm excited to write for you!

[eleanor-bradstreet]

Love to Spare - Part 5 (Anthony Bridgerton x Reader; Benedict Bridgerton x Reader)

Anthony Bridgerton x fem!Reader Benedict Bridgerton x fem!Reader Fluffy, friendship, angsty feelings! GIF by me Word count: 2k Part 4 Part 6 Masterpost Author's Note: Am I the terrible person that wrote Part 5 to be so long that I had to split it in half and now this will be 7 parts? Yes, I am that person. But it's all written - it's done. For real. 7 parts.

Summary: A season of suitors and a night at the opera.

You were an hour late in meeting Sir Edgar, having lost yourself in conversation with Benedict. You told him about your plans to teach and write and how they had been dashed by your family’s financial situation. He was sympathetic and supportive, his kind eyes sparkling as you spoke. When you asked him about his dreams in turn, he told you of his love for art, his penchant for sketching, and his hopes to distinguish himself with some kind of career. He was funny and inquisitive, listening so attentively that it was easy to open up to him despite barely knowing him. Where Anthony listened to you with all the insights of a clever colleague, Benedict seemed to listen with his whole heart.

Your subsequent conversation with Sir Edgar while strolling through the park was comparatively less stimulating. You spoke about your mutual acquaintances and the latest gossip of the ton, but neither of you turned inward to speak about yourselves in any meaningful way. You had the impression he was not the sort to even think to ask. Everything seemed very simple about him; simply pleasant, simply adequate, friendly and polite but lacking in passion. You convinced yourself that this could be a good quality in a husband. Someone who was quietly dependable, stable and calm, not prone to anger or jealousy or strong opinions. 

Two days later you received a parcel containing a small note and scroll of canvas tied with a blue ribbon. The note read:

I’m sure your home is filled with bouquets from suitors, but here is something to enjoy once they all wilt.

It was unsigned. Unfurling the canvas, you saw it was an oil painting of blue hydrangeas, bursting with color. Lining one stem were small, squiggled initials, ‘BB’. You displayed it beside Sir Edgar’s bouquet of roses, which were already turning black and shriveled, and felt something odd in your stomach each day when you admired it. But you didn’t send any reply, or acknowledge the gift when you later saw Benedict. You didn’t want to entertain any advance he may have intended with it.

Over the next several weeks, your parade through the ton and its annual events continued. You were guided through balls and garden parties, concerts and promenades, steered by Anthony into the company of Sir Edgar whenever he was present. You danced and chatted with other gentlemen who showed interest. Three of them even called upon you at home and left trinkets of affection, but Sir Edgar remained the least objectionable. You surmised that there wasn’t much objection because there wasn’t much of anything really. When a man said so little, there was little to take issue with.

Always on the fringes of your outings were Anthony’s brothers, Benedict and Colin. As your acquaintance deepened, you found that despite their similar appearance, their personas were very distinct. If Anthony was strength, Benedict was beauty. He always found ways to inject moments of joy into boring affairs; sneaking you glasses of champagne, or pulling you away from Sir Edgar to show you a vivid painting around a corner, or introducing you to acquainted academics, writers, and artists. You noticed that Colin often preceded him, calling Anthony away on some urgent matter just before Benedict appeared. You followed along in good humor, laughing on the edges of ballrooms, joining the Bridgertons at their picnic spot in the park, and debating artistic license with Benedict at each gallery opening. 

You consistently had to remind yourself that this was a friendship, just like the one you had with Anthony. But you couldn’t deny that each time you saw Benedict, something tugged within you, like a magnet within your chest pulling you in his direction. Try as you might to ignore such feelings, they could overwhelm you when your guard was down. Sometimes at night when you were falling asleep, hovering on the edge of consciousness, you would find yourself saying his name. You savored it on your tongue like a sweet you had stolen just for yourself to enjoy. Then in the morning you would chastise yourself, reminding yourself of all Sir Edgar’s good qualities and how he met your and Anthony’s criteria for a practical choice of husband.

Things progressed this way through the first half of the season. You knew matters with Sir Edgar were escalating when he insisted on holding your hand throughout an entire performance at the opera. It was the greatest affection he had yet shown and though perhaps a bit awkward, you supposed it was sweet in its own way. But you were distracted by the fact that the singer on stage was Anthony’s paramour, and you had a clear view of him in his family’s box above, looking as if he wanted to eat her alive. Whether that was passion or anger you couldn’t be sure, they were so entangled with those two. Just before the show ended, you saw him slip out of the box and disappear.

When crowds began to mingle in the foyer, Sir Edgar gave you a wide smile and stepped away to speak with your mother. You knew, without a doubt, that a proposal was imminent. Even though this was the intended outcome of your courtship, you suddenly felt yourself gripped with nerves. You wanted to speak with Anthony while your mother and suitor were planning your future nearby. His reassurance would put you at ease. You began to search for him in the hallways leading back toward the stage.

You heard Anthony before you saw him, one of three shouting voices echoing around a corner. Turning, you saw that he and the singer were yelling at each other over the shoulders of a large stagehand positioned between the two of them like a wall. The giant of a man was barking at Anthony to leave and looked about ready to trounce him. You felt certain that your presence was the only thing that stopped him because once the group saw you, they fell quiet. With a snarl, Anthony turned on his heel and began marching back toward you, nostrils flaring as he heaved with anger. 

“Anthony,” you chased after him.

“Not now, dammit!” He snapped. You both rounded the corner into an empty hall and he paused, looking at you with remorse though he was still panting with frustration. “I’m sorry.” His voice was anguished. “Y/f/n, I’m sorry.”

He was in no state to counsel you about your engagement, that was clear. You hated seeing him like this. You hated that his dalliance caused such maelstroms of emotions within him. But you had grown used to these moods, and you knew how to treat them. 

“Anthony,” You placed a gentle hand on his arm. “Take a breath and take yourself home. And don’t open a bottle until you get there.”

Exhaling heavily, he nodded in gratitude. “Will you come and join me, once you leave here?”

You almost reflexively said yes, but stopped yourself. The consequences of being seen alone with him at his home were significantly greater now that you could no longer be dismissed as just his solicitor’s daughter. You were a lady in society, and you had a serious suitor no less. A suitor who was waiting for you in the next room. You just then began to consider the impact your marriage would have upon your friendship with Anthony. Your meetings for brandy and banter would have to decrease if not stop altogether, as your time would be devoted to your husband. You didn’t know how you could continue to seek the comfort from each other that had become so reliable over the years. Now you felt even more conflicted about a proposal, a layer of sadness added to your nerves.

“I don’t know that it would be appropriate now, my lord.” You said sadly, reminding him of your stations. “I am spending the evening with Sir Edgar.”

He looked up at you, all of the same realizations clearly sinking in as his eyes grew somber. He nodded tightly. “Of course.”

“I will see you at tomorrow’s ball. Please take care of yourself.” You released him with a weak smile. His eyes full of pain, he returned a small bow, then walked briskly to a side door.

You wanted to stay with him. To try to convince him, once again, to find a new mistress and leave the drama of the opera singer behind, even knowing he wouldn’t do it. But your own love life and future were taking precedence that night. You each had your own feelings to sort, and could not do so together. You knew you’d have the opportunity to speak with him the next day. 

Crossing the foyer back to your mother, Benedict suddenly emerged beside you.

“Miss y/l/n! Have you seen my brother? Our mother is looking for him and naturally I am the one dispatched to retrieve him.” He flashed his tireless smirk.

You fought the little jolt within that you felt every time you saw him. “He has left for the night. I believe you’ll find him at his apartments.”

He frowned as he read your expression. “Is something wrong?”

You knew he was asking about Anthony, but you wanted to divulge all of your own feelings. You knew he would have listened. But with him being part of the reason you felt so odd about an impending engagement, you couldn’t say anything. “It’s not for me to say. But you should go to him.” If you could not be with Anthony, at least he could. “Be gentle with him, Mr. Bridgerton. Brandy and indirect questions should do the trick.”

His brows arched playfully. “Ah, you know the formula.” His grin brought one to your lips too. Then his face screwed up with confusion. “Wait, does that mean you visit him at his apartments?”

“Sometimes. Perhaps not anymore.” You sighed. “Why do you ask?”

His eyes grew intense, deeper somehow. “It’s just…I can’t believe our paths haven’t crossed before now. Or that he never said anything about you.” He was looking at you as if you were a precious artifact, something to marvel at. It rooted you to the spot, something buzzing down your spine. He stepped closer, and you looked up to hold his gaze as he towered over you. 

“Remarkable.” He whispered, so close that you could feel his breath on your skin. Then he murmured, almost as if to himself, “Can’t believe it’s taken so long…”

It was the warmth of his fingertips brushing yours that snapped you out of the spell and you all but jumped. “I must go.” You squeaked, then marched into the nearest cluster of people without a look back. 

You barely managed to catch your breath by the time you rejoined your mother and Sir Edgar. Your suitor smiled at you knowingly for the rest of the evening as you mingled with the theatergoers and slowly made your way home, walking under the lamplight. He deposited you at your doorstep and dropped a kiss on your hand before taking his leave. Your mother, eyes full of both hope and relief, confided that he had indeed declared his intentions to propose to you at the next night’s ball. 

It was settled then. In one day’s time, you would have a fiance, and your family’s future would be secure. You should have felt happy. You should have felt relieved. But all you could think about that night were Anthony and Benedict's eyes. Anthony’s so full of sorrow, a sorrow your marriage wouldn’t let you soothe any longer; and Benedict’s, glittering with some odd fascination. Surely you were reading too much into it with your silly infatuated emotions. You were an overeducated, undersocialized, secret friend of his brother and that made you an anomaly. It was time to stop thinking about him altogether. It was time to start distancing yourself from the Bridgerton brothers. You needed to prepare for the next chapter of your life as Lady Graham. That night, you stowed away the painting of the blue hydrangeas.

[castleofcuntdracula]

Since I'm saving up for some things, and working on flexing some specific authorial muscles in advance of a big project, I thought I'd open up fic coms! £10 = 1000 words + however much I feel like continuing on a topic of your choice from this selection.

Not sure how tumblr will handle that image, so, full transcription/ID below:

A comission information sheet styled to resemble a pub menu or catalogue page. The heading reads "Gored Renfields, direct from my nightmares". The menu offers various pre-categorised scenarios, including cannibalism, guro, breeding, sickfic, and impact play.

Directly below the heading is text reading as follows:

BRUTAL SCENES of gore and agony will be wrought upon this man! Unlock your inner Dracula and watch our collective blorbo squirm as he suffers any of the options among this salacious selection. All described in this catalogue have been hand-picked directly from heart-pounding nightmares, and some even discussed in chat! Renfield may be subject to mutilation, mastication, and more as the events in this menu of the macabre unfold, and no inch of him is off- limits! Read through, consider these creations, & pick your- or rather, his- poison. Orders filled within three weeks.

The leftmost column is titled "Cannibalism", and is subdivided into the following options, each of which have an image, title, and subtitle:

Hog Roast. This text is accompanied by a black and white illustration of a roast suckling pig.

Subtitle: Trussed up and served is where Renfield starts this course...

He's the centrepeice of a spectacular meal, bound, gagged, and ready to be served. Spiced with historical dining knowledge and reveling in his inability to scream, this dish is for you if you like cannibalism, propriety rituals, and a good, gory party. Comes in human-on-human, vampire-on-human, and a milder role-play option (v).

Tapped Tree. This text has a black and white illustration of a metal spile, from which a drop of liquid hangs, hammered into a taphole in a tree.

Subtitle: Watch. Him. Bleed.

Did you know that a man of Renfield's height and weight has nearly 6 litres of blood? In this course, you can test this for yourself- watch as a variety of blood-related bad luck befalls our best boy. Is he serving the role of punch bowl at a vampiric soiree? Being drained dry as a punishment for failing to provide for his master? Offered up to the brides of Dracula, in an attempt to make peace? Or some devious scenario of your own creation? Either way, this option is a bloody good time!

Lethal Chef. This is accompanied by an illustration of alice and the cook from Alice's adventures in wonderland.

Subtitle: Most chefs try not to cut their fingers...

Renfield doesn't get the chance. Our favourite chew-toy really becomes one in this dish, wherein he is forced to prepare his own flesh. ALL of his body is available in this option; if he's not flexible enough to reach your favourite cut , someone else will retrieve it for you. Watch as he struggles through slicing, seasoning and searing parts of his own body; soothed by shallow healing or abandoned to your tastes. Options range from a brief, painful episode of autocannibalism, to a day slaving over a hot stove preparing his parts to feed a massive party. The choice is yours with this flexible, delectable form of torment.

Serve man. This is accompanied by an 1800s era illustration of various cuts of beef.

Subtitle: asking the delicate question.

In this world, it's eat or be eaten... This dish allows Renfield, at long last and probably against his will, to join his master in the consumption of human life. Be it snowed-in survival cannibalism or the privilege of sharing in a victim, this is what to order if you want to see Renfield with a mouthful of his kith and kin. There's a thousand ways to serve a cut of meat, and he's available for all of them-be it braised broiled or fresh enough to still be hot, this option sends Renfield to the ultimate culinary frontier.

The centre column is dominated by an outlined box containing the title "Butcher's Block", and a black and white photograph of the backroom of a butcher's shop. Below the photograph is the subtitle "Prime Cuts, Prime Prices!" Can you use into a description reading as follows:

In this à la carte atrocity, watch as Renfield is sectioned off and sold for consumption. You will get your pound of flesh be it back bacon, rump steak, or hawk; as well numerous others in this story! Farm-fresh and withing in agony, this dish features a Renfield being slowly and expertly deconstructed, with a variety of options resulting, including market stalls, wholesale halls, and a glimpse at how the sausage is made. Sprawl him out on the butcher's block in back or portion him out nicely and perfect packaging-this option is the best to really get into the meat of the man.

Below this are two text inserts. They read, in all caps: "amateur anatomist author, expert in pain" and "everything £10; less than a penny per word"

Below this, a section with headings for "scrap auction" and "highest bidder". There are two pictures of auction houses. These share a subtitle, which reads "sell his body, watch him suffer". The description is as follows:

Our dear Renfield is up for auction; standing in front of an audience in watching them assess his worth! Either piecemeal, is in the scrap auction option, or wholesale going to the highest bidder. What has he done to get himself sold? is it a true turning point in his life, or all some game he doesn't know he's playing? in this option, you can find out.

Below this is a section with the heading as you wish (customs). This has the subtitle "what, dear diner, is your will? Build your own, by the word." Below this are pricing options for custom one shots, all of which cost one pound per 100 words comma except the final, which is £20 for 2,500 words.

The lowermost block of the center column is split in half. On the left, is a section titled "inner world", with the subtitle "SCALPEL!" its description reads as follows:

This surgical smorgasbord is perfect for the medically-mine did among us. Rich with detail on organs, operations, and contemporary medical technology, this dish eschews surface-level suffering to explore what Renfield is like on the inside.

On the right, a section titled "Local Ails", with the subheading "Sick and twisted". Its description reads:

Drawing on a degree in immunology in a hundreds-strong Goodreads shelf dedicated to novel set in sanatoriums, this dish explores the horrors of pre-modern medicine, and of a Victorian immune system meeting modern germs. Be it consumption, cholera, or covid, choose this option to see our adored at his most afflicted.

The rightmost and final column is titled "smut". Like the left, it is divided into options. The first of these is titled "blood play", and headed by a Victorian medical illustration of the blood vessels and musculature of the neck, accompanied by the caption "Feel him from the inside". It's description is as follows:

Sex, blood, & rock and roll combine in this option, where Renfield bears his heart and soul in the bedroom. The author turns their anatomical knowledge to the sport of tormenting one R.M, revealing hidden facets, that they might be fucked. Be it woundfucking, knife play, biting or beyond, this is where to look if you like to taste sex and violence in the same bite.

The next title is spare the rod. It is accompanied by a woodcut of a man being flogged with a cat-o'-nine-tails. It has the subtitle "...Or not". Its description reads:

This dish sets this mess of a masochist up with exactly what he needs-a firm hand and a sore arse. In this option you'll find the cane, the tawse, the birch and more. If you want to see Renfield flogged, bound or suspended, ask for this at the counter, and be sure to be specific!

The next title is "Born and bred". It has the subtitle "eating, for two", and there's a company by an 1800 hand-drawn diagram of the anatomy of the uterus. It's description reads:

Knocked Up. Up the duff. In the family way. This option is all about pregnancy, breeding and mating, be that omegaverse, mpreg, or just some good old biologically-impossible kink. Spanning a broad spectrum from keep-coming-in-his-stomach-wound wishful thinking to baby-bumped Renfield bouncing on it and moaning, this option has something for everyone Oscar the counter for our full menu of pregnancy and pregnancy-adjacent kink.

The final category is "NOT IN STOCK (hard NOs), and is headed by a picture of empty supermarket shelves. Below this, it lists "underage, furry, scat, omo, necro" and states that we have the right to refuse service at any point before payment.

[vanessaroades-author]

Let’s look at what happened from June 13th to July 13th. (ARCs, Preorders, Sales, Marketing!)

Note: I’m not talking about costs here and likely won’t ever. However, my author buddy JAL Solski has an awesome write-up on the costs, tax considerations, all sorts of numbers, of publishing their sapphic fantasy duology! I’m also very fond of Ros’s write-up on expectations and goals related to post-publication.

Before you start–some disclaimers on my experience

First, expect very little! These numbers will not impress you and honestly there’s a part of me that’s pretty embarrassed, like I'm advertising that I'm a big dummy who can't write. But all in the name of honesty & transparency!

Something I hear a lot from other new authors is, “Am I doing pretty good? Am I doing really badly? I don’t know.” Well, here’s another batch of numbers to consider!

Deep Roots is currently only available as an eBook & through Kindle Unlimited.

I’m not writing anything trendy. By a long shot. I can throw “queer fantasy” on it but that’s kinda the most I got. (When’s the last time you saw a runaway indie hit that didn’t have a ton of romance?)

I’m not popular on social media (260 IG followers with on average <10% engagement and <200 TikTok followers).

I have so many friends in my corner. Someone should stop you at the gate to the Indie Publishing Amusement Park of Hell and tell you, “Listen, if you want any hope of staying sane, make author friends.” Besides helping you navigate tech questions or giving second opinions on your cover, and, you know, understanding and empathizing with you, your friends will be the ones who comment on your posts, repost them, tell their friends, add you in their newsletter, read, and review. That can mean sales…but that also means having people lift you up and celebrate with you.

Advance Reader Copies

I began posting about ARC sign-ups April 4th, sent the first round of eBooks ~May 5th, and closed applications on June 2nd.

I didn’t use a service like Booksprout or Booksirens, just plain old BookFunnel and email (therefore my reach was entirely reliant on my social media efforts). I was most talkative about it on Instagram. I only posted like once or twice on Tumblr and TikTok, but they went really well for my standards.

Sign-Ups: 51

Reviews/Ratings:

By publication day I had 4 ratings/reviews on Goodreads, 1 on Amazon, and 1 on StoryGraph.

After 31 days I had 6 reviews and 10 ratings on Goodreads. 1 extra rating on StoryGraph; Amazon stayed the same.

Note: I was really lax with my ARC team about when reviews should be sent in. I was clear that I didn’t care if they were pre-publication (partly because well…I read ARCs a lot and I know I can’t always get to things on time, and partly because I didn’t decide a publication day until fairly late in the timeline).

However, from what I’ve seen for other authors, a pretty low return on ARC readers isn’t entirely uncommon? Kind of a kick in the confidence regardless.

Preorders

Total of 7. I don’t remember when I opened preorders, but I believe it was around the same time as the ARC application.

Marketing (sort of) from June 13th to July 13th

I ran a small (kinda last-minute) campaign for extra merch & an extra story for anyone who preordered or purchased during release week. I said that I would re-run this campaign for paperbacks.

These are my Tired Girl numbers:

Instagram: 5 posts specifically about DR. 2 non-DR related.

TikTok: 7 videos specifically about DR, most getting ~300 views, though one broke 1k. (Notably, I didn’t post about the release week extras on TikTok at all.). 2 non-DR related.

Tumblr: One post I would send spinning around the block every once in a while. Definitely lowest priority.

Release Week Sales

eBook: 3

KU: 15 pages read

Release Month Sales

eBook: 4

KU: 594 pages read

Future Plans

*Releases one giant sigh* I’M FREEEEEE

Once the book is written and done, cover made and words edited, there’s only one thing left in your control: marketing. Everything else is up to chance (honestly, marketing is up to chance a lot of the time, too).

But I pretty quickly decided to take it easy on social media. A wave of burn-out that had been chasing me since last summer finally caught up, and I don’t think I’m alone in saying that when I saw like no return on investment for my posts or chatter, I was like, “Okay, I’m going to rest, instead of pushing this boulder up this hill, then. I deserve it.”

One plus of having paperbacks come out way after the eBooks? I get release day Part 2! (With fun new props for pics and videos!) I have a good list of video ideas & drafts, but I would always look at them and think, “Wouldn’t this be better to do when the paperbacks are around?” And soon, they will be!

As for blog posts, I want to continue being transparent with things like this. I will (hopefully) catch up on the numbers again near the end of August, as by then I’ll be making the decision to keep Deep Roots in KU for another three months or not.

Until then, lower your expectations! It’ll keep you sane out here. Thanks for reading and hanging out.

[bizarrequazar]

GJ and ZZH Updates — January 14-20

previous week || all posts || following week

This is part of a weekly series collecting updates from and relating to Gong Jun and Zhang Zhehan.

This post is not wholly comprehensive and is intended as an overview, links provided lead to further details. Dates are in accordance with China Standard Time, the organization is chronological. My own biases on some things are reflected here. Anything I include that is not concretely known is indicated as such, and you’re welcome to do your own research and draw your own conclusions as you see fit. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or additions. :)

[Glossary of names and terms] [Masterlist of my posts about the situation with Zhang Zhehan]

01-14 → Possible hexagon ring sighting.

01-15 → Net-A-Porter posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.

→ 361° posted a commercial featuring Gong Jun. (1129 kadian, 51129 with the date.)

→ GXG posted six photos ads featuring Gong Jun.

→ Gong Jun's studio posted a behind the scenes video of the GXG photoshoot. Caption: "Freeze and relax, feel the leisurely spring in advance. @ Gong Jun Simon enjoys every moment of the rhythm~"

→ Elle magazine posted a teaser of their photoshoot with Gong Jun that would be released the following day. Caption: "The New Year brings the 'dragon', and the new year brings the 'beauty'. The cover of the new issue is about to be revealed."

01-16 → Elle posted their photoshoot of Gong Jun. Caption: "The shooting location is in a building decorated in artistic style. The porch has been decorated early with the festive atmosphere of the New Year. The lawn in front of the door is still green and full of the vitality that is rare in winter. At 6 o'clock in the evening the night before, @ Gong Jun Simon was still working on set. After finishing work, he rushed to Shanghai. After getting up early, he had to rush to attend a New Year's Eve party after filming. He won’t have a holiday tomorrow for New Year’s Day, but will go back to the set and continue filming. Looking back further, last year at this time he was also preparing for a New Year's Eve performance and joined the group the next day. 'It's good not to have a holiday,' he said. There was a sense of urgency in his words, as well as a sense of eagerness to try. 'I just hope that every project will be filmed smoothly and new projects will start filming as soon as possible.' Why is he so serious about pursuing a career. 'I have to do it well this year and try to use my time as much as possible.'"

→ Gong Jun posted six photos from the Elle shoot. Caption: "In the first year of the new era, let's have fun together." He also posted nine to his Xiao Hong Shu, caption: "Send 30 million red packets 🧧🧧🧧 Be healthy, be happy, be rich" and nine to his Instagram, caption: "Spring festival is coming!!! 🏮🧧🐲!"

→ Elle posted a video of their photoshoot featuring Gong Jun. Caption: "This year @ Gong Jun Simon has launched a 'World Favourites' section, where he publishes travel p-logs from time to time. On the one hand, he wants to record the scenery he has seen, the food he has eaten, and the interesting things he has seen. On the other hand, he wants to share what he has seen and heard with everyone, so that they can see the world he has seen through his records. In these travel p-logs, the photos and layout are all his own ideas. Gong Jun is a person with a strong desire to share. He hopes to pass on the happiness in life to others so that everyone can feel this happiness together. Of course, this is also a process in which he magnifies the happiness he feels."

→ Gong Jun's studio posted a behind the scenes video of the Elle shoot. Caption: "Have a far-reaching inner rhyme and bring auspiciousness to the East. @ Gong Jun Simon is enjoying the fun of the New Year."

→ Gong Jun's studio posted fifteen photos from the Elle shoot. Caption: "The fiery national colours outline the oriental charm, and @ Gong Jun Simon writes the warmth of the New Year."

→ Gong Jun's studio posted a douyin of footage from the Elle photoshoot. Caption: "Gong Jun inherits the past and traces the present, and absorbs the meaning of Chinese style. @ Gong Jun Simon interprets the modern style of the New Year with a pioneering attitude."

→ PRSR posted a promotional video spoken by Gong Jun.

01-17 → Gong Jun posted a promotional video he did for Deeyeo.

→ Kinokuniya Tokyo responded to whalers' injuries about stocking the Zhang Sanjian photobook, saying that they have been unable to contact the suppliers. They later posted an update that they have no plans to pursue this further.

→ PRSR posted a video (flashing lights cw) of their photoshoot with Gong Jun.

→ Fresh posted a photo ad announcing that Gong Jun would be appearing in a livestream the following day.

01-18 (Candy shower!!! 🍬) → Gong Jun posted a screenshot of the song 南京恋爱通告 (Nanjing Love Announcement) by Galaxy Express to his Instagram. Caption: "Good morning!" Fan Observations: - For the significance of Nanjing, see [here]. - This is only the second time that Gong Jun has posted a song to his Instagram since 813, and the first time that he has done so with it being the only thing in the post. Prior to 813, he posted songs quite often. - The song lyrics include the line "Sunrise on top of the purple-gold mountain," reminiscent of the golden mountain photos Gong Jun posted on 2022-12-17 which many people believe showed Zhang Zhehan from behind.

→ Gong Jun appeared on a livestream for Fresh, hosted in Nanjing. [full recording] Fan Observations: - He wore a jacket with a gold hexagon pattern. - One activity involved drawing images associated with words. For Nanjing, he drew a heart. 🥺 - He mentioned the song he had posted earlier, saying that he had found it a while ago and had been wanting to share it.

→ Gong Jun's studio posted eight photos from the Fresh livestream. Caption: "The carved jade dragon glows with vitality, and the veil and gold layer create the beauty of the new year. @ Gong Jun Simon feels pure in the momentum of soaring. I wish everyone a happy Laba Festival and prosperity with the dragon in 2024!"

→ Gong Jun posted four selfies. Caption: "Today is Laba, so it's time to post selfies!" Fan Observation: The hoodie and pose that he's doing in them is very reminiscent of photos he posted on 10-31-2022, the anniversary of the One Night in Nanjing, which are in turn reminiscent of selfies Zhang Zhehan had once posted. [comparison]

→ PRSR posted a commercial featuring Gong Jun. The later also posted a photo ad.

→ Fresh posted five photos of Gong Jun from the livestream.

→ Yang Yang posted two photos of himself and Gong Jun from the livestream.

01-19 → Net-A-Porter posted a photo ad featuring Gong Jun.

→ PRSR posted two behind the scenes videos [1] [2] (flashing lights cw for both) of their photoshoot with Gong Jun.

01-20 → The Instagram posted a video of "Zhang Zhehan".

Additional Reading: → N/A

previous week || all posts || following week

[666writingcafe]

Welcome Back

If it weren't for the fact that Luke was with us, I would have cursed loudly. You see, when the four of us went through the gate that would take us to the Devildom, I winded up landing hard on my butt.

"Sorry about that, MC," Solomon states as he helps me up. "I really should've warned you to be careful where you land."

"We didn't have this issue in the Celestial Realm," I tell him.

"That's because Solomon's magic is, shall we say, more chaotic than mine," Simeon replies. "Thankfully, it shouldn't have interfered with where we landed."

"Which is where, exactly?" Luke asks rather impatiently. Simeon gently takes Luke's hand and starts walking forward, leaving Solomon and I with no choice but to follow. Our walk doesn't take long, and soon we're looking at the back of one of the RAD buildings. Solomon takes out his D.D.D., and I'm close enough to see that he's texting Barbatos about our arrival. Seconds after he hits send, the demon butler literally appears out of thin air.

"Dah!" Luke shouts, latching onto me. "Don't do that, Barbatos!"

"I apologize, Luke. It was the quickest way I could get to you." Barbatos briefly glances at each of us, as if doing a mental headcount. "I'm glad everyone arrived safely."

"I wish I wasn't here," Luke grumbles. Faintly smiling, Barbatos reaches into his pocket and pulls out a key, which he hands to Simeon.

"That is for Purgatory Hall," he explains. "It is best if the two of you get settled in."

"What about Solomon?" Luke asks.

"There are some things that I need to discuss with him and MC before I send him over. Everything has been prepared for your stay." Before Luke can question Barbatos any more, Simeon calmly leads him away, and soon it's just me, Solomon, and Barbatos.

"If you will follow me," Barbatos instructs. The three of us walk silently inside the nearest RAD building. We end up walking past the student council room, where there appears to be a meeting in session. I manage to catch Diavolo mention something about a witches' sabbath before Barbatos quickly ushers Solomon and me into an office. Closing the door behind him, he gestures us towards a office desk. Solomon and I sit on one side, and Barbatos sits on the other.

"First things first: MC, may I have your notebooks, please?" Barbatos asks. Unzipping my backpack, I pull them out and set them on the desk. Barbatos grabs the one on top and quickly flips through the pages.

"It appears as though Michael has made some notes," he states as he sets the notebook back down. "Lord Diavolo and I will have to look at them more closely when the time comes." He leans down, opens a drawer, and sticks the notebooks inside. Then, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a tightly folded piece of paper. He sets it in front of me.

"We need to test the extent of your magical abilities," he explains as I unfold the paper. "These classes will determine where your strengths and weaknesses lie." He allows me a moment to look at my schedule:

M: Advanced Potions -Lecture: 9:00-1:00 -Lab: 2:00-6:00 W: Advanced Curses and Hexes -Lecture: 9:00-1:00 -Lab: 2:00-6:00 F: Advanced Speechcraft -Lecture: 9:00-1:00 -Lab: 2:00-6:00

"I thought that students had classes during all five days of the week," I state.

"They do," Barbatos replies. "In your case, you will receive all day tutoring on Tuesdays and Thursdays." He looks over at Solomon. "Have you decided what day you want?"

"Thursday," he answers.

"Wonderful. Then I will take Tuesday."

"You two are going to tutor me?" Barbatos nods his head.

"Lord Diavolo's orders. We want to ensure that you retain everything you learn in these classes, both in a mental and magical capacity. He has also made the decision that you will be graded on the same scale as your fellow classmates, which means that you will be critiqued much harder than you were the last time you were here. We know you can't do it alone, so the two of us will help you complete any assignments you require our assistance with.

"Do you have any questions, MC?" I shake my head, too stunned to speak. Barbatos reaches in another pocket and pulls out another key.

"This is for the House of Lamentation. Your room has been prepared for your arrival." He hands the key to me. "Solomon, if you will be kind enough to walk MC there. I have to return to the student council meeting."

[creationofacentury]

Before the Storm (HP AU, Ethubs)

Etho & Bdubs, slash if you squint, could be platonic if you like

HP spoiler! Time set in Book 6.

I don't actually remember the sequence of the canon events. Sorry in advance!

Dialogue heavy...

----

"We really shouldn't be doing this,"

"I know, so I'll make this quick."

Bdubs takes out his wand and mutters a quick Alohomora, and the door clicks. "Shit, it worked." He pushes the door open, peeking to see if there's anyone. He gestures Etho to follow.

"I'm serious, if someone catches us we are in deep trouble,"

"Yeah, I know! I heard you the first time and the first twenty times you said that, you big baby, if you are so scared you can just go back to bed!"

"Bdubs, c'mon. This isn't wise."

"Oh ho, yeah, because you are so wise, aren't you, Etho?"

That stops Etho in his track.

"I followed you here because I care, you know."

Two steps ahead of Etho, Bdubs stills. After a moment or two, "...I know."

"Then you know what to do."

At that, Bdubs turns to glare at him. "Don't. I don't listen to you. I am not one of you pureblood games."

"Which is exactly why you shouldn't be doing this!"

"Doing what?! Say it, Etho." Bdubs challenges, "You are not scared, are you?"

Etho rolled his eyes, desperation seeping through his hushed voice, "I'm not scared of sneaking out or getting caught, you know that. We have done it countless times, you know that's not what I'm worrying about!"

Bdubs doesn't back down, instead he stares unwavering at Etho, "Fear is not gonna get you anywhere."

"You- why are you Griffindors so unreasonable? Can't you see the risk you are taking?!"

"What risk? Getting points taken? That's nothing compared to the fact that Volde-"

"Don't say it!"

Bdubs's glare hardens, but he smiles- he caught him. Etho shuts his mouth.

"Etho Selywn. Let me tell you one thing. Getting points taken matters non to me-"

"This is a life and-"

"LET ME FINISH! Getting points taken doesn't scare me! Just as standing against Voldemort wouldn't!"

"YOU SHOULD BE SCARED! You don't understand, my mother send owl last week telling me to get ready for 'big changes', and they, they were gathering, and with your blood status, Bdubs, please..."

"You don't get it, do you?"

Bdubs looks sad all of a sudden.

"...what are you talking about?"

"This is the right thing, is why I'm doing it." He sighs, looking pained and tired, "you'll have to choose, you know? If war breaks out, we can't keep doing this."

Etho freezes. Bdubs watches as he fumbles for words to reply, then sighs again.

"Go back to your dorm, Etho. I can investigate myself. It's Hogwarts, whatever Malfoy's hiding in there wouldn't kill me. He's not that good."

"I should never have told you about Malfoy-"

"And many other things, to be frank." Bdubs smiles wryly. "I'll see you at breakfast."

Bdubs walks away, pace hurried. Etho watches him go.

----

Notes:

I wish I could type one more line saying Etho follows, but then...I think about the their Life Series as a whole, then decides, probably not. What do you think? Would Etho follow? By the way, this is right before Draco opened the cabinet, so Bdubs going into the Room of Requirement means. Well. But you could come up with you own interpretation, since I didn't specify in this tiny fic.

Also, a few details I want to share:

Etho has Selywn as surname here, because halfway through writing this, I had the sudden idea of he being a pureblood, and Selywn is one of the sacred twenty-eight if I'm not mistaken. And he's a Slytherin, for sure.

Bdubs is a muggleborn Griffindor. He and Etho are very good friends despite being in different houses and their blood status, and they are in their seventh grade here, meaning they are one year older than Harry.

Okay. Yeah that's it, I think.

[the-empress-7]

While FORMAL written invites might be going out 6 weeks prior, I would imagine that for large events like a jubilee or coronation, the principles and staff are advised months in advance of what will happen.

I read somewhere once that the procedure for events like this is to send “save the date” letters to other royal families/foreign diplomats who will be invited so they can make room on their calendars, which is followed up with a formal invitation during the appropriate time window. I believe the procedure was 1) date decided, 2) principals and priority foreign guests notified privately of the date and they make travel arrangements, 3) public announcement of the date, 4) formal invitations go out 6 weeks before the event.

I remember something about a fax machine. Maybe these “save the dates” go out by fax? They can be more secure than email these days, I think. Anyway, if this is true (and not something the press or a biographer made up), then Harry and Meghan would’ve gotten that “save the date” notification since it would’ve been sent before the BRF announced the date publicly and before all these attacks.

In fact I would even go so far as to say that Harry or Meghan felt confident their “save the date” was a formal invitation and it can’t be rescinded, which is why they’ve been so bold in their attacks. But something changed recently — maybe they were told that the guest list is still being discussed and nothing has been finalized, including their status, so they’ve become desperate. This reconciliation bluster sounds like Montecito trying to save face in case they aren’t invited, like a “oh yeah well I didn’t even want to come so there” tantrum.

Interesting theory anon, I can see where you are coming from.

[im-akira]

Joel Miller x F!Reader | 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑𝐒 | 🌿

Chapter 6 : Memories | Chapter 7 | Summary

Series Summary : Joel Miller is no longer the same man after losing his entire family, except his little brother. A few months later, after saving Ellie from the Fireflies. He now lives in a community of survivors with Ellie and her younger brother, Tommy.

He has only one goal, to ensure his own survival and that of those he loves. Until the day he crossed paths with a young woman and her son in the community. The young woman’s face was particularly familiar.

Are you and Joel strangers or are you a lot more than that ?

Warnings : Mature content angst, smut, romance, blood, violence...

Do not : Claim, Repost, Copy, or Translate my stories anywhere else.

Notes : Reference to certain scenes of the series and the game. If some things bother you, inconsistent in my story, do not hesitate to tell me this will allow me to improve ! 😊

I apologize in advance but English is not my mother tongue. 💙

~*.♪。★*・゜・＊♪*.♪。★*・゜・＊♪*.♪°~

- « James ? » Ellie was returning from a morning patrol. Dina and Jessy and others had accompanied him during his shift. A rather pleasant awakening for the young teenager. James, for his part, was doing his best to help residents in Jackson during the weeks following the party. Many adults had left town to go out and deal with the potential danger outside the walls. A horde had been spotted a few miles from town.

Y/N stayed with Maria to help her prepare for some activities. With many parents absent today, James volunteered to change the minds of Jackson’s children. This choice had particularly surprised him himself, but he wanted it, it was not an opposite to pass the time.

The day then began with a snowball fight in the park. James wanted to start with a more fun activity for the kids from the start, attacking something more theoretical would have been more of a failure than anything else. It will come later in the day, James like the children had the right to enjoy the good weather.

- « Do you have a minute ? » She asked, raising her voice to get James's attention. Ellie leans on the fence of the park where James and the other children were.

- James had heard Ellie's voice, he picks up the snow on the ground to form a snowball, enough to defend against the children. Before he even got up to prepare his attack, he received three snowballs in the chest. « Give me a minute and I'm all yours. I just have to send a message to some people. »

Ellie stared wordlessly at the attitude James portrayed with the children in the park. He didn't know them, he had no connection with them, and yet he was there and paid a lot of attention, with a smile on his face. It's as if James has been doing this all his life, being in contact with children didn't seem like a complicated task for him.

The truth is, every child reminds James of his sister's zest for life.

- Once James has settled the account of the children that he had thrown the snowballs at him, he will come forward in the direction of Ellie. Of course, even if he had his back to the children, he certainly wasn't going to let his guard down. « So Ellie, what did you have to ask me ? »

- « I- » Before she can answer the question, she gets a snowball in the face. Quickly, she pulls the sleeve of her jacket against her face to get rid of the snow and the cold against her face. « Hé ! I am not playing ! »

- « What is this mess ?! » James quickly turns to the group of children. He didn't even pay attention to the words he just said out of anger. Either way, it was too late to go back on his words.

- « Cause you're a chicken ? Ha ha ! » The children laugh together at the situation.

- « I hate that kid… » Ellie was mumbling words that only James could hear.

- « Revenge would be well deserved, wouldn't it ? »

- Ellie jumps over the fence to join James and prepare for the battle ahead. « You better run really fast ! »

- « On the attack ! »

For more than ten minutes, James, Ellie and the children had a big snowball fight. Neither side emerges victorious, until James delivers the final blow to one of the children who thought he was too well hidden to see. Bad luck for him, James had already observed the area and the potential hiding places.

- « Hé ! It's not fair ! » The child protests his defeat against the adults.

- « Each in turn, right ? »

- « Go ahead and catch it ! »

- « What the- » The children come out of their hiding places one by one and quickly throw themselves on James, throwing him on the ground. Through the move, James fell straight onto his back, luckily for him no injuries were reported. The snow had cushioned the fall « Let go of me, little monsters ! This is cheating ! »

- Ellie smiled at the scene unfolding before her eyes. She could have helped him, but instead she turns on James and joins the attack with the kids. Throwing herself on him, she tries to block him with the other children. « You're in trouble, James ! »

- « Ellie ! What are you doing ? You weren't supposed to be on my side ? » James laughed at his own words. Even if he had several children on him, that wouldn't stop him from getting rid of them very quickly. But surprisingly, his body told him to stay in this position and enjoy.

Seeing smiles and hearing laughter from Ellie and the other children could only bring happiness to James. He would never have thought of the fact that this activity ends like this.

On Joel's side...

Joel was walking around town, taking a short break after helping his brother with some houses that were being built right in the middle of town. He didn't really have a place in particular to land, just enjoying the fresh air was more than enough.

This atmosphere, so special and at the same time familiar, reminds him of the good old days.

Joel's attention shifted to a hubbub that was heard in the distance, it wasn't very far from where he was. He then decided to walk towards this famous noise, and there he did not expect to see the scene that was happening before his eyes.

Was he dreaming ? Maybe it was his mind playing tricks on him ? But at first glance, this scene was very real.

Ellie and James play with other children. It was... Joel didn't have the words to describe what he was feeling, but one thing was certain, he was reassured to see it. It was the first time in months that he had seen a smile on Ellie's face. He also discovered another side of his son, happy to be with children.

His breathing was heavy, his lips quivering on their own, leaving him unable to say a word. His body would fall soon if Joel didn't leave the stage. But he just stood there, watching the scene without a word.

Then something else appeared, a memory.

It was when James was still a little baby. Sarah was old enough to take care of her little brother. It was on the most tiring nights that Y/N and Joel were completely exhausted. They gave so much that week that none of them had the courage to stand up.

But Sarah was there to help them, she doesn't mind doing her big sister role at all. She could take advantage of this time to share it with her little brother.

As for the young couple, Joel slept soundly, unlike Y/N who was quite restless that night. The young mother was particularly surprised to hear nothing, no crisis, nothing, silence. Usually, James would have started crying by now.

She then got up from her position in the bed, and looked at the crib. To make sure what she was seeing, she left the bed and moved forward. Y/N thought her heart was going to stop, James was gone, her baby was gone.

- The young mother will then throw herself on the bed and shake Joel to try to wake him up fairly quickly. « Joel, honey, please wake up... »

- « Mmh... » Joel just moved through the sheets, but nothing more, he was still in the arms of sleep. Then, when Y/N put a lot more pressure on his arms, Joel almost woke up with a big jump. « What is t- » Before he finishes his words, his wife puts her hand to his lips, to make him understand not to speak loudly.

Even through the darkness of the room, worry and fear could be seen on his face.

- « James is no longer in his crib… I.. I think someone entered the house, there is noise in the living room. » Y/N held her husband’s arm firmly and her eyes were one with his. His whole body was ready to decompose if Joel wasn’t standing by his side.

- « Hé hé, breathe, it's alright, baby. I'm here. We're going to take it easy and see what's going on in our house. Okay ? » Joel speaks in a low voice, in a very calm and soft tone to calm the atmosphere in the room. His thumb caresses the top of his hand gently. Joel was just as scared as his wife, but he had to keep it to himself to reassure her that everything was fine. « Let's go but in silence, Mmh ? »

Y/N nods slowly at Joel's words and gets up from the bed to gently place his feet on the bedroom floor. Joel will do the same and walk very lightly to the exit. Y/N was right behind him, holding his hand tightly.

Once out, Joel quickly takes a look at Sarah's room, the door was open and it looks like the room is empty. His breathing increased, but despite that, he couldn't pull back to understand what was really going on with him. He could feel Y/N's trembling hand in his. He treads cautiously and tries to remain as discreet as possible.

The further they go, the easier it is to hear the noise in the living room. Sarah's voice was there, but no baby crying. It's once they've reached halfway up the stairs that the two adults are almost speechless at the scene that's happening in their living room.

Sarah had James on her lap, she had also retrieved her father's guitar to try and get James to play the instrument.

- Y/N gently releases Joel's hand and walks past him to finish down the stairs. Then standing in the center of the living room, looking in the direction of her daughter and her son. « Sarah, honey, what are you doing so late with your brother ? »

- Sarah had not noticed her parents at the time. That’s when she saw that she had lost James' attention. He raised his hands to something and at the same time tried to get out words that were not really understandable. Sarah looks up and sees her parents in the living room. « Mom ? Dad ? »

- Joel was standing right next to Y/N, with his arms resting against his broad chest. « Did you hear your mother's question ?» He wasn't mad at his daughter, it was the exact opposite. Seeing them together with his guitar could only make him happy and proud.

- « James started crying a few times and as I couldn’t hear any movement on your side, I got up to see what was going on. You were both asleep. » James puts his intention on the musical instrument, his little fingers run clumsily on the strings, bringing out a false sound. « I pulled him out of his crib and couldn’t calm him down, so I tried something with him. »

- Sarah's gaze was on her brother, she looked at him with a great look at the gestures he made on the guitar. It was far from perfect, but he was having fun and that was the main thing. « When I had nights where I had a lot of nightmares, dad had the idea of ​​playing the guitar for me to try to relax me and scare away the bad thoughts. It worked. So I thought I should try with James. »

Joel and Y/N looked at each other, Joel smiled, then removed his arms from his chest and directed them towards his children. The young mother looks at him and tries to figure out what he was going to do now. He gently runs his hand through Sarah's and then James's hair.

- Joel sat down on the sofa, right next to Sarah and James. The little angel looked up at his father, Sarah looked up too. « Give me the guitar, honey. »

Y/N also came forward to join his little family on the couch. She had settled on the other side of the sofa, right next to her children. Sarah lands wordlessly with her brother in her arms against her mother's chest. Faced with this gesture, the young mother puts her arms around her children and draws them towards her. His chin is now just above Sarah's head.

Joel immortalized this moment in his memory. He will never thank God enough for giving him this chance, this family here. Once properly settled and facing his family, Joel began to put his fingers on the guitar strings.

James was watching carefully what his father was doing, his mouth hanging open, his body shaking slightly. One of his small hands held his mother's finger, and next to it was firmly held by his sister's arms.

- « Hey, sweet little angel. Daddy's here, he won't leave. Watch him play, one day you'll be as good as him. » Y/N comes and rubs James' belly with little rounds, saying that the guitar has had an effect. Sarah was smiling at her brother's behavior and was happy to see him react this way.

The guitar healed them both.

And then Joel started to sing and play his fingers on the strings, a soft sound could be heard.

Welcome to the end of being alone inside your mind,

Tethered to another and you're worried all the time,

You always knew the melody but you never heard it rhyme,

She's fair and she is quiet, Lord, she doesn't look like me,

She made me love the morning, she's a holiday at sea.

She filled my life with color, cancelled plans and trashed my car,

But none of that is ever who we are,

Outside of my windows are the mountains and the snow,

You were not an accident where no one thought it through,

The world has stood against us, made us mean to fight for you,

And when we chose your name we knew that you'd fight the power, too.

You're nothing short of magical and beautiful to me.

Ooooh...Ooooh...

- James was the first to react when the song ended. Joel placed his guitar against the other armchair in the living room and then moved forward to meet up properly with his family on the couch. Faced with his son's agitation, he grabbed James from Sarah's arms to land him on his lap. Sarah watched her father's gesture, but before she said anything, he gently cut her off. « That way, no jealousy. »

The little family exchanged many looks, but no words, everything was done in silence, through laughter and smiles. Y/Ncould read in the light of Joel's eyes who thanked her from the bottom of his heart for giving him this opportunity, thisfamily, this chance.

In a family, we are tied together by invisible threads that bind us even when we cut them. Despite all the difficulties, distance, age and vagaries of life, the love between family members does not become dull and hard.

And of course, no family is perfect. We fight, we bicker, we mess around. Sometimes we even stop talking to each other, but in the end, the family is always the family. Love will always be there.

Despite anything that may be put in his way between Ellie or her family, Joel will fight until the end, even if it means giving up his life. He wouldn't let anyone hurt them.

- « Everything okay Ellie ? »

Ellie and James had landed on one of the park benches, the kids still playing on their own as they took a short break from the battle.

- Ellie had been playing with her knife for a while now. She had lost herself in thought and had almost forgotten that James was right next to her. « Yes.. No, I forgot what I wanted to ask you. »

- « Oh, it's good, it will come back one day. » James could see in Ellie's eyes that something was bothering her. Complicated to know exactly what. Does this have anything to do with the discussion she had with Joel at the abandoned store ? Or maybe something to do with the girl where she spent the rest of the night with her, dancing.

- « His children remind you of someone, don’t they ? »

- « What makes you say that ? »

- « In general, nobody likes taking care of children. My intuition tells me that you are doing this for a particular reason. »

James didn't respond directly, his gaze once again lost on the children in the park. She was right on one point, James was doing it partly because it reminded him of the good times of joy he was able to share with his sister when he was younger. He wasn't ashamed to talk about it, and Ellie was no longer a stranger to him, even if they didn't spend their day together, James knew he could count on sincerity but also that there wouldn't be any judgment on the part of the young adolescent.

- « Her name was Sarah, she was my older sister and like many people here I lost her when the world fell into chaos. » (see gif above) James looked away, not sure where to look. The tears did not flow, at least this time.

- Once all of James' words reached Ellie's ear, she could feel a pang of regret in her stomach. She blamed herself for asking him, her curiosity could sometimes lead her to do awkward things. « I'm sorry, James. I did not want- »

- « No, it's fine. I would have told you if I didn't want to talk about it. »

James didn't want to admit it, but as the weeks passed, Ellie grew and progressed. The more he saw a certain part of Sarah in her. He wanted to protect her from this world, as if she were his little sister. He wanted to forgive himself for his past mistakes.

Ellie was more than capable of facing and fighting the dangers. He still didn’t know the path she had taken with Joel. But if she got here, she wasn’t just anyone.

- « I’ll be here this time. » ~*.♪。★*・゜・＊♪*.♪。★*・゜・＊♪*.♪°~ If you want to be marked on my future stories, let me know in the comments. Thank you again for reading ! 😊

[umichenginabroad]

Stockholm Week 1: Uncovering Stockholm

Hi again! I am Jiwoo Kim, and I am back with new updates. 

I journaled throughout the week to keep my memories fresh and in the hopes of using that as my blog post, but I want to let you know that it is A LOT of content (warning in advance). If this continues I will break down my week into two posts :(  

Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy reading (or skimming) the adventures I had this week!

1/14 - Shopping Sunday 

Surprisingly, I had no jet lag! Thanks to the laundry machine breaking down (check my previous post for more details), I slept around 12 am and woke up at 11 am. Day 2 and I was already set. 

My friends and I visited Fern and Fika for our first fika. The fruit tea I got was amazing but my four friends, who all ordered the same thing, did not enjoy their chai latte. I didn’t get any desserts because it was early in the day but I am definitely planning to go back. 

To familiarize ourselves with the metro, we traveled around proximal areas around the DIS building. There were abundant stores, both international (H&M, UNIQLO, Lush) and local, along the streets. We visited the following stores: Normal (cheap bath and body products), IKEA (meatballs were exactly what I was looking for), UNIQLO (I bought a cute cross bag and my friends got heat tech clothing), and ICA (grocery run again). 

1/15 - First Day of Orientation

I discovered that A LOT of well-known companies and artists are from Sweden: the list includes H&M, IKEA, Spotify, ABBA, Ace of Base, etc. 300 students played trivia all at once with live music (piano and singing) from the DIS faculty!

After the trivia, we all went to faculty-led group workshops. They were 30-40 minute sessions where I met a lot of different students; it honestly felt like a freshmen orientation. We did some legos, played supposed Swedish games, and learned all about Swedish culture.

For dinner, I cooked with my roomie. Tomato pasta with cheese, sausage, diced onion, and premade sauce; doesn’t it look good? 

I usually don’t like tomato pasta but the one we made was so good that I devoured it in seconds

1/16 - Second Day of Orientation 

Second visit to the DIS building was much easier. We already got the hang of using the metro! I saw dogs in and out of the metro and they were all quiet and well-behaved. It was intriguing to see that even the dogs are different too! 

The main event was going to apply for a physical Swedish visa/permit. 

We woke up at 6:20 am (as a night owl, I had to suck it up) and quickly got ready. No one knew but we had to take a picture for the residence permit card and EVERYONE was crusty in the photos - weird orange lighting, no counting before the photoshoot. I am not ready to see the result yet and I don’t think I ever will be ready. 

I had about 3 hours before Housing Info Sessions at the DIS building again so my apartment friends and I headed home. On the way back, we stopped at T-Central station to get a replacement guarantee for our Stockholm transportation card (also provided by the DIS). We saw a mart called AM Store across the street and decided to check it out too - it turned out to be a HUGE Asian mart! When I say HUGE I mean like a two-story store HUGE (0o0). It literally had everything I could think of - sauces, dumplings, Kimchi, seaweed, enoki mushrooms, rice, all types of ramen, noodles, hot pot broths, mochi, hoppang, fortune cookies, etc. Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and many more types of food were there. 

This is a photo I took to assure my parents that I will be well-fed in Stockholm and that they don’t need to send me/bring me anything  

I went back home afterward for lunch and did some work for my asynchronous online ChemE Reactions course and blogger post rough draft. So busy!

At the Hornstull station, which is the closest station to our apartment 

During the housing info session, we wrote a letter to ourselves in order to practice writing our new address. It was unexpected but a good checkpoint for me to look back on my initial goals, worries, and plans for the study abroad. It’s going to be mailed to me in two months as a method to reflect how I am doing!  

Stockholms Stadsmission was the second thrift store I visited in Stockholm, and it was by far the best! It had various options (shoes, bags, clothes, accessories) of good quality at good prices! I got a baby shirt for $5. You do have to dig in a bit, but you can definitely find *･+:*｡･ gold *｡･:*+*

When we got back home, my roommate and I cooked rice, sautéed Napa with oyster sauce, and roasted chicken breasts. It took us like 2 hours (LOL) but they were on point - we were so full after the dinner. 

I am so proud of us 

That night, a student posted on DIS Navigate, an online community shared among DIS Stockholm students, saying that some are going to Beer and Play at 9 pm to “hydrate” for field study tomorrow. 

It was a short walk from Högalidsgatan so we all decided to go. It was a great decision. We all had SO much fun! DIS students kept rushing in one after another; we soon filled the entire pub. We all mingled and talked to each other, and I finally met someone in my core course. The number of followers and following in my Instagram shot up after this ;)

Pear cider was a popular choice

1/17 - Core Course Field Study 

I woke up early to go to a cafe with a friend for a fika! Earl gray with two desserts for breakfast was an experience. Although the desserts were too sweet for my liking, I loved the decorations in the cafe. They were so pretty! 

Taking pictures is a must in a cute cafe 

Today was the first field study with my core course, Sustainable Engineering in Scandinavia. It took the whole 4 hours, but the time did fly when I was having fun. We had an introduction about the class structure inside and went outside for a field study in Stockholm Seaport. While walking around various structures covered with snow, we asked questions after listening to the connections between the construction area and the environment, society, and economy. 

I couldn't open my eyes because snow was rushing in

Professor informed us that this weather is uncommon in Stockholm, but this was what I expected so I guess it worked out. I really think it snowed 10 cm today. My feet were surrounded with snow and my face was smacked by a snow blizzard. Although I was F R E E Z I N G more and more every second in the snow, I loved all of it. We stopped by a small store to have fika funded by DIS and I didn’t miss my chance for a free fika: I got green tea and a croissant with cheese and lettuce. 

Having a small class gave me a chance to talk with almost everyone in the course, and it felt more like a close-knit community. Later in the trip we were making small snowmans and having snowball fights along the way. We even planned an informal class trip on a ferry to Finland! 

1/18 - First Real Lectures 

Thursday was the first real day of classes. We mostly did introductions and talked about expectations in class. Except for the fact that my core course went over two chapters worth of materials during the three-hours lecture, it was fine. I was mentally exhausted, so after lectures I went straight home and did homework for the rest of the night. I was saving energy for Friday 🙂

1/19 - TGIF

Friday! I thankfully got off the waitlist for the Swedish Language and Culture course, so I switched it with the 8:30am Philosophy course. I don’t have an 8:30am class anymore! 

After my morning classes, I tried fika on my own. I walked around 10 minutes from the DIS building and went to a cafe with an interesting seating arrangement. I wandered around in a shopping mall nearby until it was time for the DIS cultural mingle event with high school locals. 

My first Swedish cinnamon bun, Kanelbullar 

The high school kids were so kind and eager to talk with us, which was unexpected but fun. I was informed that I need to go NORTH NORTH of Sweden to see the northern lights, which was a little disappointing :(  I am still going to try though! Seeing the northern lights has been on my bucket list for quite some time now and I don’t want to miss the chance. 

Right before heading home after class, I met a new friend who lives in Homestay. Rather than going home, we spontaneously decided to explore Stockholm together. First, we headed to a pop-up store of a Swedish artist. It turns out he was performing at the store like a small concert, and we were able to listen to all of his songs for an hour or so! Even though I couldn’t understand anything, I cherished every single part of that mini concert. 

I had Shazam on the whole time

To celebrate the end of the week, my friends and I prepared to go out after dinner. After the pregame, we went to the Time Bar, a bar close to our apartment that accepts American IDs like driver’s licenses. The bar was so cute, and the Passion Sour drink was the best alcohol I had in my life.

We made friends with the bartender and the security it was so cute &lt;;3

I was planning to stay home on Saturday but I somehow ended up in the Time Bar again. Two nights in a row but I still had so much fun.

A friend brought two cameras to the bar and we took cute photos of each other :)

1/21 - Gamla Stan 

Waking up today was difficult after going out two nights in a row, but I didn’t give in to my extremely cozy and warm bedding. 

I met my friends at the lobby around 10:30 am to head off to Gamla Stan, the Old Town! I was so excited to go because I've been only hearing good comments about it (even the locals recommended it). There were hundreds of aesthetic cafes, souvenir shops, jewelry/clothing shops, etc. There were multiple majestic towers too! 

I had my hopes high and Gamla Stan still managed to exceed my expectations!

We were just in time for the Royal Guards Ceremony (basically changing of the guards) at the Royal Palace of Stockholm. My friend was being a tour guide and explaining that no one lives in the palace anymore but they do it as a tradition.

I basically got a free tour around Gamla Stan aren’t I so lucky ;)

We stopped at stores that caught our eyes and I was able to find a perfect scarf in one of the stores! I couldn’t get my hands off of the scarf ever since I touched it, so I just had to get it. I swear the scarf stuck to my hands. You’ll understand me the moment you touch the scarf. It is the softest thing I touched in my life and I love it. My hair doesn't stick to it or get frizzy either! 

Okay, enough of the scarf ramble. Anyway, as we were getting ready to go back, we saw a churro place and couldn’t pass it. The owner started making a fresh batch of churros and it was so pleasantly painful to wait for them to be done as we stood outside, in the cold weather, smelling every single step of the baking process. The churros tasted like heaven and we were so happy with our decision. 

Before I leave, I am definitely going back to Mr. Churros multiple times to try every single flavor. I highly recommend the cinnamon sugar flavor though! 

This concludes my first week in Stockholm, and I can’t wait to experience more things! 

Thank you for taking the time to read this lengthy blog and I hope to see you again!

Hey då,  

Jiwoo Kim

Chemical Engineering

DIS Study Abroad in Stockholm, Sweden