#well idk if this was great to read but you asked

[yerimacoustic]

𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙡𝙮 ♡ jun x reader

❝ 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙨𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙣𝙤𝙬, 𝙞'𝙢 𝙜𝙤𝙣𝙣𝙖 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙮 ❞

summary : you find a sense of familiarity in your sworn rival, jun, while exchanging anonymous letters with a stranger .

content warnings : jun x female reader, regency era au, mostly inspired by you’ve got mail, slow burn, frenemies to lovers, more tags to come . teaser is 1.4k words, full fic tbd.

this is a teaser for an upcoming jun bug fic!! release date- tbd. i’m busy but i was so excited to get this out so i thought i’d post a little sneak peek. it’s probably history inaccurate bc idk shit i’m purely going off vibes

i’m trying to get a tag list going so lemme know if you want in!

the walk to the post office was not tedious by any means. not when the promise of a new response in the form of a handwritten letter prompted you to move quickly and lightly on your feet. it had become a weekly routine, early morning strolls to the post house, as well as an awfully great way to start the week. 

the postmaster, otherwise known as your childhood friend, jeonghan, stood completely still behind the main counter with his arms folded across his chest. there was a knowing, mischievous glint in his eyes as he watched you quietly shut the door; he had been expecting you. just like he expected you every monday morning. 

it wasn’t long before the brunette pulled a small envelope from the series of shelves behind him, gently dropping it onto the counter between the two of you. “here you go. your gentleman’s love letter awaits.”

“good day to you too, mr. yoon,” you teased him and grabbed the envelope, taking note of the familiar wax seal in the front. a neat scarlet red circle with a lion in the center- the familiar sight always managed to bring a smile to your face. 

“hopefully he gives you some more clues as to his identity this week?” he called out to you as he strode across the tiny shop in favor of sweeping the floor. a look of feigned disappointment washed over his features as the sound of the bristles scratching across the floor and the envelope ripping open filled in the silence. “...perhaps not.”

just as your lips parted, the door swung open to reveal jeonghan’s assistant, karina. from the moment her eyes were fixed on yours, a mischievous glint akin to jeonghan’s filled her irises. “i thought i might find you here today. what news from the mysterious suitor?”

you shook your head before gesturing towards jeonghan, “i haven’t had the opportunity to read it yet. someone’s made sure of that.”

the man laughed from across the room, “it was never my attempt to keep you from reading it. i only wish that the two of you would at least give each other some hints as to who you really are.”

karina nodded in understanding before turning her back in favor of hanging her overcoat upon the rack near the entrance. “i hate to level with jeonghan in this case, but i’m curious about this mystery man, as well. have the two of you ever discussed meeting in person?”

“no, not at all. we’ve agreed to stay anonymous,” you explained as your fingers curled around the envelope in an almost protective grip. force of habit. “we know the risks but.. it’s quite refreshing, having someone to talk to without any of the societal pressures.” 

before too long, jeonghan had finished tidying up and joined the two of you near the entrance. “i don’t understand. you both are clearly fond of each other..”

“who said anything about-”

“and you have a lot in common,” jeonghan mused, eyebrows raised. “in your next response, you should ask him something personal. ask him about his occupation.”

without skipping a beat, you shook your head in protest. “thank you for your unsolicited advice, jeonghan, but i know everything i need to know about this man. good day, my friends.”

you waved goodbye to the inseparable pair, stepping towards the small door. of course jeonghan, who always had to have the last word, called out to you before you could shut it completely, “except for his true identity!”

his words prompted your lips to twist into a smirk as you finally found the right opportunity to open the letter. as you unfolded the piece of parchment, your smirk slowly dissolved into a genuine smile, finding beautiful familiarity in the cursive penmanship. as you took cautious steps on the beaten path, you read the letter carefully:

‘this weekend i had the pleasure of accompanying my cousins as they vacationed in the countryside. they rent a small cottage near the ocean during the summertime and haven’t bothered to invite me until this year. i wish you could have seen it; it was perfectly quaint and tranquil. we spent all but the entirety of the seventy two hours walking along the beach and hunting for seashells. a bit of a juvenile hobby, i know.

i’m not sure where this inkling comes from, but something tells me you enjoy the oceanside. i bet you keep a collection of shells and pearls hidden somewhere in your home. or perhaps you proudly display them for your visitors to see. next time they permit me to join them near the beach again, remind me to fill this envelope with shells to add to your collection. 

i know summer is your favorite holiday, and with that being said, i hope you find enjoyment in the final days of the season. take a stroll along the gardens or picnic with some of your friends. 

take some time for yourself, my friend.’ 

–

jun waited three days for a reply, just as he did every week. he and his anonymous friend had fallen into a pattern of consistency, each of them sending a letter out to the other person once a week. even if he knew he could count on whoever this person was to send a timely response, his nerves got the best of him every time. the potential tone of the response occupied his thoughts at all times, keeping him up at night, keeping him from focusing intently on his work. 

this week it reached the point where he had to turn his chair around to face the window, hoping that the sight of the rolling hills and graying sky outside would clear his mind. summer seemed to come to an end as quickly as it had begun, the entire season passing by in the blink of an eye. he counted his blessings, realizing that he was indeed lucky to have at least one holiday during the season. even if it was at the very end.. 

a knock on the door pulled him out of his trance and he turned his chair back to rest in the proper position, tucked tightly under his desk. “come in,” he called out.

barely a minute had passed before jun’s personal assistant and lifelong friend, wonwoo, closed the door quietly behind him and strode towards his desk with an envelope in hand. “your mystery woman sends her compliments,” he mused, handing the letter to jun. 

jun’s eyes went wide. “you mean- you saw her??”

wonwoo shook his head, holding back an amused smirk as he watched the disappointment wash over jun’s features in real time. “no. my apologies.”

jun sighed, “just as well, i suppose. god only knows what chaos would unravel if anyone else in the household saw her.” 

wonwoo nodded stiffly, folding his hands behind his back. “right you are. maybe there is practicality in anonymity, after all.”

“still, i can’t help but wonder what she’s really like in person,” jun mused, leaning back in his large leather chair with his chin cupped between his thumb and index finger. “there are so many habits and manners of hers i don’t even know about. she could be.. much lovelier in person.”

the bespectacled man tilted his head, taking a completely different approach, “or she could be ill-favored and poorly mannered.” the quiet statement was enough to pull jun out of his daze, causing him to furrow his eyebrows in annoyance. “my apologies.” he repeated.

“there is no possible way someone who writes so beautifully is as ill favored as you say.” jun disregarded the man in front of him as he began to tear the seal off of the envelope, a silent command for wonwoo to leave him alone. conveniently enough, the door gently slammed shut once jun finally unfolded the small sheet of parchment. 

‘i am delighted to hear that you were able to enjoy the last remaining hours of the season with your family. the ocean sounds delightful. your suspicion of my enjoyment of seashells and pearls is a fair assumption, although, i gave up collecting a long time ago. hopefully you invest more stock in your collections than i did.

i’m afraid that i have no plans to take my leave before autumn begins as i’ve been much too busy. i don’t mind keeping an occupied schedule; it takes my mind off things and prevents me from overthinking. especially when i get the pleasure of meeting several people from different walks of life on a daily basis.

i know i say this every week, but it is always a pleasure receiving your letters. sometimes i can’t believe that we met through an anonymous literary discussion group. i’ve received a handful of letters from other attendees, but allow me to say that the discussions are utterly mundane compared to our conversations. it feels like i write to a friend i’ve known for years.

i eagerly await your reply, dear friend. 

[batsplat]

In fact Open is a mandatory book for vr46 boys :)

ohhhhhh thank you!! that is SUCH impressive archiving, I'm always in awe of how much material you've amassed. and very based of them, big W for italian motorcycle racing. it's a great book!! I love that they've read it! there's a lot of sports autobiographies that take care never to stray from the generic when telling their stories... but this one has so much character that even knowing other professional athletes have read it makes me want to quiz them about what they thought

seeing as I've been given an opportunity to proselytise about this book, here is how it opens:

it's a book about having a deeply complicated relationship with the thing you've been forced to dedicate your whole life to, about being in constant pain and asking yourself if it's really worth it, about never having been given the time and space to develop properly into your own person... about hating tennis and never quite being able to walk away from it. the misery of winning and the refusal to countenance losing. the burden of having the whole world narrativise your career and your life, denying you the chance to do so for yourself, of being constantly judged and being constantly found inadequate. about rivalries!! having your whole career ending up being inadvertently defined by One Guy who you just don't really understand and who you can never escape

what agassi does is put words to a lot of the underlying narratives and themes of sports that other athletes also come into contact with in one way or another but are far less capable of articulating. you'll be hard-pressed to find another book that captures the humanity of sports so well, its twisted appeal and why it's so compelling

like,, idk there's so much going on in that book that when I find out another athlete has read it, I do want to basically go through it with them chapter by chapter (obviously I have a full set of notes and a highlighting system with one colour dedicated just to the sampras rivalry, so I'm well prepared for this task). it's cool that they've read it! good healthy interest in sports narrativisation on their part. in this post I brought up one of my favourite excerpts from the book when discussing the vale/casey rivalry -

- and idk, this kind of thing is just so fun and interesting you kinda want to go around and get everyone's thoughts on it. also obviously on a personal level,, enjoy the motogp guys, adore agassi and that whole era of tennis, so it's a fun crossover for me specifically. yay

btw, a new interview with agassi was published in the nyt a few days ago that I'd defo recommend to anyone with even just a passing interest in the sport (once you scroll past the bits about the worst event in tennis). starts with the line “as far apart as you are on a tennis court, you can actually feel the other one very intimately". even when he's delving more into the nuts and bolts of the sport, he just kinda gets how to explain it in a way that taps into the fundamental narrative appeal of what you're watching

oh yeah that's the good stuff

[maddy-ferguson]

women will literally accuse women and esp lesbian circles of "not unpacking ""man-hating""" alleged ""misandry" sweetie xo" getting offended ppl aren't appropriately uplifting how "men are amazing and awesome and attractive and i won't be shamed for thinking so" as if appreciating men is a real counter opinion than blame whatever gave women of every sexuality instance to be jaded weary cautious and tired and who'll complain every now and then and continue on with her life until she dies putting up with patriarchy. just welcome to the "woke" internet where misogyny's over and "man-hate" "shamed for not hating men" is worth springing to defences for

yeah i've only seen people talk like men's rights activists and think they're being unbelievably progressive on tumblr it's kind of fascinating. like i can see how seeing people hate on men could mess with people and stuff but you can't demand men appreciation posts that's literally the whole world outside of idk your tumblr dash (or even on your tumblr dash because fandom misogyny from people who think they're not misogynistic at all is really something). men get praised for "babysitting" their own kids like be serious? it's very let men be masculine

i don't think being like men are soooo gross and we hate them is actually constructive and it can definitely veer into transphobia (you'll always be a man/"a male" and thus a danger to women/why would you ever want to become a man they're the enemy and the bane of society etc) and homophobia relatively quickly?

but the way people ON TUMBLR ""combat that"" is often so off to me like if the most basic feminist principles offend you then i'm not really sure where to go from here. i remember seeing a post that was like "men aren't your enemy. they're your friend/brother/father/colleague/neighbor" with a lot of notes and like i don't know how to tell you this but that's literally who's most likely to harm a woman, the men she knows?😭 and obviously not every system of oppression is exactly the same but would you say the same thing to someone criticizing white people like...just very weird

i think women who are attracted to men and dating them making jokes about how they only tolerate being attracted to men because they have no choice and especially the whole i'm bi so i love every woman and only find 1 in a 1000 men attractive (very often said while in a relationship with a man) thing is obnoxious and annoying for like everyone who has to hear it lmao but also when women who date men make jokes about it (not about them being ugly or unattractive or whatever but about them being bad partners in general) it's like. what else are they going to do like you said they're gonna endure patriarchy for the rest of their lives and as girlfriends/wives/mothers they go through the most it's very bleak? idk. it's not like you can date a better man yourself out of patriarchy

of course men aren't a all as bad as the worst guy you can imagine and they're not all out to get you or whatever but saying things like "men don't all benefit from the patriarchy rich men benefit from the patriarchy but jake, 23, is not oppressing you" is like. kind of insane. jake, 14, was oppressing me like have you never interacted with boys in school😭 and it's not like it was entirely their fault we all have to outgrow misogyny it's just you know society etc but some of them never outgrow it lmao and just...the takes you see on feminism on tumblr are astounding i hate it here

[oceanic-vampire]

there's surely no correlation between being teased before bed and how well i just slept,,

[necrotic-nephilim]

do you use any site/spreadsheet/etc. to track your comic reading? i use locg right now but have been considering other options.

... yes. technically. but bc i'm an autistic bitch i just. have a google spreadsheet i'm gonna be honest. i log it all manually.

this is an example of what a random section looks like of my 2023 spreadsheet. in order it's: title, issue/volume number, page count, date i finished the comic, and my personal rating. blue and red is obviously DC and Marvel. pink means the numbering is counting single issues, yellow means it's counting volumes/trades. sometimes for the page count i guesstimate based on how long comics tend to be if i can't find an exact page count. the colors in the rating are just for fun so i can easily see what stuck out as 10/10 and what stuck out as 1/10.

then i take all of *that* data and condense it into monthly stats. all by hand bc idk how to like. properly use google sheets that well.

obviously i'm aware all of this is likely the most tedious way to do it and i'm probably making it harder for myself. however. i am just Like That. i do use the Comics Geeks app as well, which i think is a solid app? i just haven't fully logged everything i've read because i find that to be wildly tedious. but the stat breakdowns it gives about most read characters and writers and whatnot is nifty. though you can tell the app is more geared toward tracking comic collections rather than comics read.

so uh. i'm not the best person to ask about this probably lkjhghgjhkjjkjh i will always brute force my own way than just doing it the. smart way. but! i do keep track of it all and i find it very useful to do so, because i like seeing the trends of what i was reading when. also i enjoy the data of how i rated a comic when i read it vs how i feel about it now that it's sat with me. idk if this helps but!! i do like rambling about my spreadsheet!

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads / storygraph

The Poisons We Drink

YA urban fantasy

a girl who brews powerful potions is coerced into making potions to interfere with D.C.’s most influential politicians in an attempt to stop a dangerous Witcher Registration Act from passing, and will do anything to protect her sister after their mother is killed

bi MC, nonbinary love interest

arc from netgalley

[pallases]

leighhh i want to do dracula daily but im also in the middle of like. 6 books…… Should I.

🎤 yes

[obnoxiousarcade]

I have a longing to be understood more than anything else i think

[garbagequeer]

the thing about beautiful riverdale is that there are a couple of people in my life who seem to have learned the trick to see me turn into the happiest person on earth with the biggest smile under any circumstances which is asking me about riverdale

[deus-ex-mona]

“a sicks’ dream come true; coming soon to fanfic channels near you”

[wowbright]

Tumblr is such a weird place. I love how accepting people here are in general. But there are also a handful of odd/untrue/harmful takes that I see here over and over and feel personally painful to me every time I read them. And I'm getting really sick of it.

[astrxealis]

really want to read more and more literature (esp classics!) aghhhh yesterday iirc i was on a walk with my mom and twin and an old guy (not a weirdo dw) who was jogging or walking too actually asked what book i was carrying and it's a little funny bcs uhm he just went "oh a classic!" you see. i was carrying dante's inferno. which i still haven't properly started to read but anyways he might... if my mom is right... be the local parish guy so oopsies !! LMAO anyways yeah really interested in lovecraft for a while now! horror scares me and gives me paranoia but i also enjoy the writing of it? and i remember once that something/someone said my writing is kinda similar to his. hm.

[seaweedstarshine]

literally black king Emma was so fucking good. we were robbed. Like on the one hand they should have let Matt Rosenberg cook but on the other hand. the really brutal Ruth death and rahne trans panic murder were a lot 💀

Oh you’re so so right — the mutant metaphor suffers from cis white writers, but I remember people calling it trauma porn like there’s no narrative purpose for there being a massive death count overall, and I'm like… mmmmmMmm.

Personal preference rambles as a found family heavy angst enjoyer (this is not a defense of Rosenburg X-Men), but in a general sense I really like when — so they might not get along, but they got each other, because as life keeps gloating it's hell to fight supremacy when you're fighting each other (not that causes of divisions amongst marginalized people are unimportant, but if you don't have your people, no one else will, this is how I feel; also not that anyone is obligated to loyalty towards a specific individual that harms them) — Hope shooting Scott in the head isn't fine, but what binds them is more important than grudges. Logan finally leaving his MCU-esque Post Credits Scene Era to be with Scott! The way Black King Emma (!!!) will stoop to any low as she manipulates Scott into doing what she wants, but she is trying to protect him, she worries when he's shot, and when the perceived advantage of their separation ends, she just welcomes them all into the Hellfire Club?? It's just cathartic for me.

There are some very significant caveats in this run that I only hope I remember well enough to speak on… The Morlocks deserved better, eons before anti-mutant hate got to that level, and between Jono and Dani's roles — the X-Men having overlooked the way it's always godawful for the most marginalized among them before it was quite this godawful for all of them, the hypocrisy, it could've been explored better here with less focus on Scott and Logan. Like in Sabretooth and the Exiles, sort of, but not entirely…

(I think sometimes this works better with side books. The Simonson New Mutants run is debatably my fav and overhated in my opinion.)

Yeah, Rosenburg X-Men is very flawed, and it's extremely valid not to be into it when you hold the same energy for Krakoa's flaws, but overall (for me) it really nailed the tension and the stakes and the angst and I was extremely hooked, especially with Age of X-Men meanwhile making choices in the other books.

(I might be misremembering a bunch, too, I literally just reread my college essay from almost exactly 5 years ago to try and remind me! I was low-key exaggerating in those tags where I called it a paper, it was a 3-page one-week essay with two sources which were Rosenburg UXM and the textbook. I also re-skimmed the Ruth death issue…)

…okay one more thing also I can't lie I was heavy into David/Ruth at the time and I read that issue like three times that week it dropped, I'm not about to say it she wasn't fridged for the purpose of setting up how bad it's about to get, nor that the interesting shit it did with her powers didn't literally just mirror the excuse to write out Destiny in a very concerning pattern, but at least the story was about Ruth's pain rather than that of those left behind (which is very different from, say, the focus being on Peter Parker's pain when Ms Marvel last died; and also very different from Rahne's death, which is the worst of the run)— anyway in 2019 I was just so happy to see Ruth again after that wildly OOC Legion series that didn't mention her while David was also being a plot device in Age of X-Men (which I didn't love). I had pretty much lost hope that my X-Men Legacy babies would ever be relevant again, so it was a win for me. Not as big as Way of X, but the bar was on the floor. That said a content warning was so needed to be at the beginning instead of a fucking suicide hotline at the end.

But the Rahne trans panic murder, god. Masterclass in taking the mutant metaphor to depict the most brutal things to happen to real marginalized people (without bothering to represent them?) and it goes grossly exploitative so quick. The way X-Men's lack of sensitivity readers shows…

ANYWAYS I haven't read it in years please take my opinions with a grain of salt.

[trueloveandy]

feeling inadequate about my writing tonight

[problemeule]

love when someone’s like “not [character] friendly” and it’s clearly just because this character had the audacity to be imperfect and also a woman

[sweet-as-kiwis]

International business is officially the Podcast Class