moriendum est

due to very foreseen circumstances I absolutely anticipated (bad depressive episode) I've been just reading books in my free time instead of doing anything else. it's been great and I've been reading some books I absolutely adored, but also now I have a headache and need to bide time for dipyrone to act and my kindle to charge before I start on the next one. I'm thinking I'll start another reread! I'm itching to get my hands on a physical copy of "fingersmith" and highlight the shit out of it but the kindle highlights will have to suffice.

my recent reads made me think that if I were asked by a genie what do you want your writing to be like? I'd say I want the prose of "the secret history", the intricate fantasy and commentary of "his dark materials", and the political scheming/plot twists of "captive prince". the third book in that last one made me lose my fucking mind, and it took me years to finish "the secret history" but god, I love the actual writing, the words, the sentences and dialogues, so much. I get why people are into dark academia, although I doubt there's anything as good as that book. I realized I really like reading monarchy/royalty in fiction too, which I kinda already knew, but now I'm much more certain.

that being said! scrolling through paradisediner's member posts, I saw this post by poppyseedheart with questions for writers and thought they were so good, I wanted to answer too.

1. of all the tropes you've written, which would be least appealing or applicable to you irl? e.g. you wrote a fic with a pivotal bedsharing scene but can never fall asleep yourself if you have to share a bed
possibly fake dating? because I hate lying and I'm a lousy liar anyway, I don't think I could go through with it... what sanghak do in better half is unthinkable to me, I could never lol

and cooking together, sorry, I hate cooking. it's very cute in fic and I love the concept of cooking together in theory but cooking only stresses me out (all the things you need to wash and put away later!!!)

lastly, I made flowers a thing in mise-en-scène but idc about flowers, never did, I don't think I ever will.

2. what is a classic "you"-ism that often slips into your writing? e.g. you often experience road rage, so all of your characters hate stop and go traffic with a vengeance
someone always hates driving or is bad at it LOL that's meee. actually, making everyone drive all the time is very me because I often forget other countries have functional public transportation.

being a shitty sleeper too, that's me projecting - although that sometimes is very canon, we're always hearing from idols how much of a luxury sleep is for them.

aside from that, I can't think of anything else...? sometimes I'll add something from my life into stories just because, but those are sporadic: kevin was a translator for my milkev fic, hakcob were interns for the ministry of foreign affairs in my first hakcob, the road trip hakric were on in maps mirrored my usual road trips to and fro when I was in college, I've stayed overnight at airports and that's why I wrote that junyu fic, etc etc.

3. what is the most interesting or memorable thing you've learned while doing research for a story?
aside from all the canon bits (sometimes I'll look up something and discover new #tbzlore I wasn't aware of lol), I think I mentioned this before, but learning about pirates and pirate ships was fun! the stuff I research is usually basic stuff I have no reason to know beforehand, nothing that interesting...

4. share a little about your "white whale" story, aka the idea you have had for a long time but haven't been able to bring yourself to write for whatever reason.
many such cases... I think the most interesting - and challenging - to write would be the dollhouse/txf crossover junyu. and now after watching "severance" I like the idea even more, it would be fun to mix it all in one thing. changmin as mulder, chanhee as scully, juyeon as echo/caroline, eric as topher. hyunjun was a side character too in the original idea, a former active "retired" after an injury, but I still needed to figure out who the other actives would be (definitely hyunjae, though, maybe bbangsunhak too?). this feels like it could be such a fun fic, so many parallels to idol life, industry practices, company abuse etc, but that asks for a smarter brain than mine. someone write it for me pls if I can't write it I'd love to read it

If this was strange before, now Chanhee can feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. Juyeon shouldn’t know about that case—they haven’t talked about it. Have they? No, Chanhee is positive he never mentioned it to Juyeon. He never mentioned it to anyone because it was such an absurd rumor that the moment Changmin dropped his wild goose chase, Chanhee was ready to forget all about it.

The rumors have been circulating for as long as the internet has been around, though Chanhee first heard about them from Changmin. The Dollhouse, the legend goes, is a place where the wealthy can find just the right person they’ve been looking for. A ghost house full of soulless people, perfect dolls ready to do anything and everything that is asked of them. Chanhee insisted it was a tasteless, creepy urban legend, one of many they’ve investigated in their time working together; Changmin, on the other hand, was certain it was real but no one was willing to talk for fear of retribution.

“Just think about it,” Changmin had argued, eyes wide and hair a mess from running his hands through it over and over in frustration, “if this place exists, how many powerful people would they need to keep this a secret? No, they have the means, and the power, and all the leverage in the world to keep anyone quiet.”

That was months ago. Staring into Juyeon’s eyes now, Chanhee can’t understand what’s happening—is this a prank? Is Juyeon somehow unstable, dangerous, a stalker? How else would he know about the Dollhouse? How did he get into Chanhee’s place? Has he done that before?

5. tell us your secret! what's your favorite sneaky (or not so sneaky!) trick that you implement in your writing to draw out an emotional response from your reader? e.g. inverting a trope, highlighting parallels, quoting canon, etc. bonus points for examples
I don't think I have any tricks or secrets but I do like to draw from canon! I love sprinkling little canon-compliant details onto fic :') and the tried and true method of using the five senses in descriptions, I like to pay attention to that too.

sometimes when people go a little awol online, I tend to think they're either doing interesting things offline, like traveling, or just in a different corner of the internet distracted by a new shiny interest/fandom. in my case, it's neither lol I've been just so stressed I haven't been doing much of anything aside from working and like... existing.

even the things I'm doing, I'm not necessarily enjoying. like, this season of yellowjackets? for some reason it's my least favorite season by FAR. I really liked episode 2 (that felt very yellowjackets-y in writing and tone!), but other than that, god, is it my bad mood? am I just not in the right headspace for it? whatever it is, I'm NOT having a good time.

severance s02 has been okay-ish, but I don't know, I think my enjoyment this season has been mostly about watching it with my mom. (I watched s01 alone, then rewatched it with her, now we're watching s02 together.) there are a few plot points that make me roll my eyes a little bit but I guess that's just par for the course if I want to keep watching usamerican shows.

what HAS gone great so far, though, is that I LOVE tbz's new album!!! I wanna make a whole post about it as soon as this headache leaves me alone, so probably later. right now it's all about thinking very little. (future me here to add: I had to save this draft because the headache got way worse LOL definitely not a day to think.)

and I started rereading "his dark materials" as well, which was an excellent idea and the reason I wanted to write this post in the first place.
( his dark materials thoughts )

most of my favorite groups are doing something right now and I'm finally catching up on some kpop I missed in the last two months, so:

• I love the misamo album! the new twice album too, actually. I had a silly thought that there should be a way to get assigned a bias for some groups because I don't know enough about twice to say for sure who's my bias (even though I've been calling dahyun my unofficial bias since TT), but it'd be fun to know which twice I'd bias if I *did* know enough about them lol recently I've been going OMG MOMO?! at every new release but jihyo and nayeon got me by the jugular a while back too.

• the new viviz album is... perfect? it feels like I enjoy each new album more than the last. that's amazing?! I've been consistently loving their releases since their (re)debut, wow. "cliché" might be my favorite bside in the voyage album, and "shhh!" is THE perfect title track.

• related to that: it's hard to believe hybe brought gfriend back for the 10th anniversary out of the goodness of their hearts but you know what? fuck hybe, yay gfriend!!! I like the new song, and they're as usual so good on stage. now that I've been following viviz promotions a little closer than I ever did gfriend's, I'm so fond of eunha :') watching her on stage with the other 5 is great.

• purple kiss' latest album is fun! I particularly love "encore", that's my song.

• [BANGING POTS AND PANS] ONEUS IS RELEASING OT5 VERSIONSSSSSSSSSSS!!! I'm excited!!! also curious to see how different they'll be - are they just re-recording the raps or are they scrapping the lines altogether? because seodowoong can ABSOLUTELY do all the raps just fine, it'd be fun to have the recording of their versions. (happy 6th anniversary, us!!!)

• related to that: oneus is the clearest, most explicit case of "we are 5 and the member who left is not welcome anymore" I've seen in a while which makes all the ot6 nonsense so puzzling... wishing the best to any tomoon who needs to deal with it on a daily basis.

• oh and I'm loving their teaser pics so far. HAIR EXTENSIONS XION IS BACK!!! and redhaired leedo!! and I love these outfits???



• I liked yuqi/gidle's stages for golden disk but the whiplash of them performing "super lady" in those outfits to then immediately singing the cute ballad was so amusing to me. when you're performing your biggest success of the year at 7:30pm but you gotta be fierce at 7:27pm first.

Watch on YouTube

• last but definitely not least because I can't stop thinking about it: I'm really hoping the tbz fancon will have an online version because PLS this fancon will be so important T____T they're probably so excited to stand on stage for the first time in this new beginning... since they all took part in choosing the setlist I'm VERY curious to see what they're preparing. are they doing covers again like the other fancons? are we getting a "square one" stage? if not, if they're going for covers, am I too delusional in hoping for a milcob unit stage? ALSO. we all know eric is 100% crying again, right?

is this thing on? hello?

november sent me into a bit of a downward spiral, the brain hasn't been braining right, yadda yadda, nothing new under the sun lol that's what I get for trying to handle mental illness with The Power of Love™ instead of medication proper.

now that I'm on a break and all the stress-inducing stuff is more or less out of the way for a couple weeks, I can think a little bit better. I somehow managed to only miss one deadline/date (my gywo check-in... rip), and even got some reading in between?! incredible.

as a deobi I'm ecstatic because I got the best possible news (MY OT11!!!!!!!!!!) and trigger promotions were fun!! at the same time, though, I've been feeling like I'm losing touch with reality because the state of the fandom for the past couple weeks has been... mindboggling? did we all live through the same last 3 years, do we all remember we wanted tbz out of fuckass IST? did I dream that up? is IST employing psyop tactics just to fuck around or is half of the fandom straight up... not catching on that a lot of the people making a fuss are akgaes who got mad bermuda line didn't go solo? hello? can anyone hear me? [knocks on padded walls]

to forget I'm living through a simulation, I have some guesses as to what tbz might be doing in 2025! not actual predictions or wishes, just what I'd expect to happen now that the evil has been defeated they have different contracts with a different company, especially considering what they've been hinting at.
( just deobi things )

so august sure was a month that existed in the calendar.

it's been a lot of rolling with the punches these past few weeks. I'm pleasantly surprised that I've been managing to read more often (fic only, although I did finish a book last july. #win) - and quicker too, so no more taking a week to read 10k words :') most probably thanks to that, I've also been writing, which has been so fun. I've missed being inspired like this!! not to mention it's great having something other than real life to think about, brainworms are my best friends.

my wip rotation these days looks something like this:
( wip overview )

I've been enjoying the fics posted for the deobi fic exchange too, highly recommend the collection!

other than that, I haven't been doing much else during my free time. some the sims (legacy challenges are awesome), some kdramas (the only correct answer when I'm looking for things to watch with my mom btw), a lot of fancam watching (anyone else thinks tbz looks the happiest ever during this tour?), and some youtube (mostly to sleep, tbh). and while translating is also partially a job, doing it as a hobby is still so much fun. it kinda sucks that a) circumstances are making it IMPOSSIBLE for me to just... do that, and b) I'm never confident enough in my skills, but even then, I really enjoy it <3

the plans for september are vague aside from Staying Sane, but I'm thinking I'm just gonna continue with the kdramas and with the writing, and maybe reread a sarah waters book? we'll see how that goes. I need to really commit to my gywo goal if I want to make it too, so LOL