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#i want to become an author and publish books about all sorts of genres

wondernus · 1 year

Text

˗ˋˏ a winter interlude ˎˊ˗

synopsis: maybe this is meant to be an interlude – an unforeseen passing moment in each other’s timelines. but with the stroke of a conductor’s baton, the symphony lands on the fermata hovering above the note. do we allow this interlude to become something longer than a short period in our lives, or do we end it after all of it is over?

pairing: wonwoo x coworker!reader

genre: romance, drama, light angst

tags: children's book illustrator wonwoo, publisher reader, enemies to lovers, fake marriage, food/drinks, work husband jeonghan cameo, small town dynamics, snowed in, scene where reader almost gets physically injured

wc: 11.3k

message from nu: waaaa first fic of the year. special special special thank you to my beloved madi (@heartkyeom) for being my beta reader well after midnight. I also wanna thank mars (@onlymingyus) for being mars c: I remember a while ago I answered an ask with a possible wonwoo work husband spinoff. this is it. this is wonwoo's work husband spinoff. this can be read as a standalone fic. happy winter and happy new year to all of you. I hope you all enjoy this svthub snowventeen collab fic - nu ♡

wondernus's masterlist / snowventeen collab 18+

one

“Don’t forget to wear you layers because it’s about to be chillier as the week passes by. For those trekking into the mountains, make sure you look out for weather updates from the signal tower and stay indoors because a large snowstorm is about to paint the mountains white. Stay safe, and have a great day. Now, onto Yoon Jeonghan with the traffic.”

“‘Trekking?’ What are you? A protein bar wrapper? Anyway, thank you Joshu-"

Never really understanding why other people say they often find themselves turning down the music while driving to see better, you find yourself doing the same – driving in silence as if the silence could create such a frictionless surface that would shoot and propel your car to your destination. A couple of hours late to your annual winter work retreat, a clear understatement defined by the speed at which you are driving, what was supposed to be a carpool event turned into you sitting in a pool of cars while stuck in traffic.

The Sun shines lightly, a gentle kiss against your skin, but not enough to hug everything it touches in warmth. With the heater on high, you sit in your front seat sweating and dreading the moment when you have to get out of your car, thighs peeling off the leather seats and leaving a pool of sweat where you were sitting. Perhaps it is not the Sun and the heater’s heat that causes you to sweat, but a psychological factor – an amalgamation of stress and anxiety that stemmed from the moment you realized you were late.

No longer can you allow yourself to forgive him that easily, yet you really did not want t blame him for giving you incorrect meeting minutes. But when the retreat itinerary clearly stated to meet in the morning at seven in front of the publishing house, you should have known better than to wholly trust your ditzy new intern to attend your office meeting while you traveled out of town to hunt down your author for her overdue speculative fiction novel draft. Instead of writing the correct time to meet, he incorrectly noted the arrival time.

This unprecedented-precedented blip is the catalyst for a series of chain reactions that would metaphorically send you pummeling down the steep side of a mountain in a snowy avalanche that you could have avoided. But you do not know it, nor do you know how it, whatever “it” is, ends.

Dark circles under your eyes and a forgotten paper-thin pimple patch a jolt over a speedbump away from falling off your oily skin, you keep telling yourself that everything will be okay once you get to the camping grounds. Hopefully, this sort of denial could make up for the fact that you spent all of last night kicking your feet under your covers while binge-watching the reality show that your favorite boy group filmed rather than packing for your trip. But there is only so much your heater turned on high can do for someone wearing an old flimsy university tee with a couple of cat teeth-made holes who forgot to put their contacts in last night. You are better off skipping the winter retreat, but you are already nearing the mountains. There is no turning back – especially on winding roads.

And the embarrassment. This feeling of creeping anxiety seemingly washed away the moment it stepped foot into your head even though you are utterly unprepared and inappropriate for being late to the paid work retreat. Because this sudden realization hits you mid-drive: the only person who you would be embarrassed to meet in your current situation is excused for the retreat. Reasons unknown. And not that you would let any man define you, but at your core, you are simply a person with an embarrassingly big fat crush on your co-worker (and seemingly everybody else you work with). This crush is so bad that if HR made every team create their own set of photocards, you would put his in a protective cover with tiny holographic hearts, and then in a sturdy toploader decorated with overpriced stickers. One glance at him would put you in a trance, daydreaming about what it would be like to wake up in his arms on a sunny day with birds chirping outside your window, and him with a soft smile on his face.

Except for one thing – he hates your guts, so you decided to hate his too.

They always say “try, try again,” but how many tries would it take before the attempts turn Sisyphean? Sure, Hades enchanted Sisyphus’s boulder so that it would roll away before Sisyphus reached the top, but what about you? Car tires struggling against the icy roads, you drive carefully so your car does not turn into a giant hockey puck or a curling stone on (what is essentially) a giant ice rink. But being careful does not help the fact that you are unprepared. And being unprepared means your car has absolutely no way for you to drive over any sized slopes, no matter how many times you try.

You only realize any further attempt of going over the slope or taking any other route is fruitless when your tires spin in place after digging themselves well enough into the road. And you slump against your steering wheel like an exasperated character in a movie – pounding your head against 12 o’clock a few times for good measure. So much for a fifteen-minute-saving de-tour through a small town you have never seen before. And so much for you trying to drive over a slope you could easily walk over. Trying sucks.

Still, the only thing that keeps you from abandoning your hand-me-down car to trek forty-five minutes to the campsite is the fact that it is freezing outside, and your cellphone Wi-Fi gets especially spotty when you are in areas of high altitudes. With one final sigh, you push yourself away from your steering wheel to sit upright, leaning the back of your head against your headrest. There is not much to do except to put your car in neutral and try to push your car out of the little hole it dug itself in.

The thing is, the texture of real snow is a lot different from the snow that giant portable snow machines shoot out of their gigantic cylindrical nozzles to cover the courtyard in front of the city hall whenever the local city has its annual winter festival. Real snow is also incomparable to the “snow” a child creates along the perimeter of an ice skating rink, hands holding onto the rails for support while they repeatedly scrape the inside of one of their blades towards the inside of their other shoe, creating soft ribbons of shaved ice before the navy blue Zamboni can create a clean slate before private lessons start.

Real snow is relentless toward anybody who does not come prepared to interact with it. So, no matter how much you try to dig and twist your sneaker sole into the snow, that tactile grip that you wish to create that supports your feet while you are pushing against the back of your car can seldom be created. You slump against your car’s bumper in defeat. The Sun still shining on your skin, a little bit stronger now, leaves you with the same warmth you felt against your skin, a bit tingly and upsetting, when you knew your skin would still burn no matter how nice the cordiality of the Sun felt on that one Spring day in the past.

Plus, there is a little more time to observe your surroundings when you have given up completely.

In the grassy median strip that denotes the entrance into the small town is a wooden welcome sign with the name in loopy golden lettering against a beautiful pine green: “Welcome to Interlude.” A few feet ahead of you, the mountainous road marries smooth concrete, and the sidewalks pave in a festival town-esque brick lining. And you conclude you must be on the outskirts of the town. Leftover snow fills the grooves between each brick and covers the dark-colored awnings in front of each shop along the town strip. Where flashy LED shop signs and brightly colored bulbs decorate sidewalk trees drawing visitors in from around the world, is surprisingly a lack of people. And you frown while thinking about how you would be able to push your car to the side of the road if another vehicle wants to enter the town.

Not a few moments later, a navy blue truck slowly climbs up the road, and you feel the littlest bit of hope surge into your body. Forcing yourself to stand up, you move out of the way and wave at the incoming car. But as your day could not have gotten any more unfortunate, your car starts rolling backwards towards the pickup truck. And you cannot help but see your entire life flash in front of you – a person dressed too lightly for the snow and the used car passing by like a celebrity on a parade float, all in a moment.

What is scarier than the fact that your car is now bumper-less and the pickup truck remains unscathed is the man who hops out of his truck. Looking like a snow-stage boss from a video game, the man who is large and menacingly looking enough to make his shiny dark green car look like a minivan next to him stalks over to you with his finger pointed directly at your face. The only thing missing from the scene is the army of ice ogres that are supposed to follow closely behind him.

However, the only thing you can register is the fact that he is yelling at you – face glowing bright red and spit flying out of his mouth. Your body is frozen in fear. There is a lack of capacity for you to be able to stand up for yourself while you are shocked and unable to recognize your surroundings while terrible words spill out of the man's mouth. And you cannot do anything except take in his expletives while teardrops well up, ready to spill out of your tear ducts.

But they do not. A figure puts himself between the man and you, and your view is too obstructed to see the other side.

“I called the insurance company. Give me your information and I’ll handle it,” the mysterious person says.

“And who are you?” You hear from the other side.

“I’m their husband.” He fishes for his wallet in his back pocket and takes out a business card, handing it to the man between two fingers. “Call me. Email me. Your choice. I’ll get it sorted. Sorry about the whole thing, I didn’t have time to drive my partner. Bad husband right?... So, I heard you’re the new fishing shop owner? I’ll drop by sometime.” He tries to switch subjects to lessen the tension while slipping his wallet back into his pocket.

The thing is, it works. The presence of the man who uses his body to shield you calms the angry pickup truck driver almost exponentially. And the man who yelled at you seemed to forget he was yelling at you just because he realized your marital status. The man calms down, and even falters in his speech.

“Ahh…I’m not a fishing shop owner. I guess it’s fine now that you’re here, but you know men. There aren’t bad husbands, only ba-”

“I’ll be at Town Hall if you need more information from me.” The man who calls himself your husband purposely and curtly cuts the other man off, knowing very well that he would be even more upset if he heard the man finish his sentence.

The man does not turn back to address you until he is done taking photos of both cars and waving the other man goodbye. And your piece of junk car stays in the same spot, bumper-less and bruised, while the pickup truck, clearly without any injury, smoothly makes its way into Interlude, disappearing from your sight.

“You’re just going to dumbly let that man say those things to you? About you? Do you have no respect for yourself?” He lectures you, his deep voice muffled by the black wool scarf wrapped around his neck and mouth.

You see him clearly this time, how his black locks fall in front of his face in neat curtain bangs, set in a defined “C” shape. The oversized fleece-lined collar jacket falls to the middle of his thighs, leaving little room for his cream-colored sweater to peep into view. And his stance, focusing his weight on his right heel while his left foot slightly protrudes forward, allows him to tap his foot against the snow while he waits for you to answer him.

But what is shocking to you is not the code-switching he uses when speaking to the driver versus when speaking to you. What is shocking, you realize, are the thin silver-framed glasses that sit on the bridge of the man’s nose and the familiar deep woody scent that clings onto him, touched with a hint of peach.

It couldn’t be.

A cold chill leaves your tongue dry and squeezes your stomach.

“Are you dumb? Did you not hear about the snowstorm coming?” He asks you, a voice without concern, all while pulling out his phone from one of his pockets.

He tugs his manicured thumbs out of his gloves to wake his phone and proceeds to reveal his face from under his scarf to unlock his phone. After a few loud keyboard taps, you hear your phone’s notification sound from your car. But all you can do is stare back at the man, stomach gurgling and queasy.

“Yn,” your co-worker sighs, clearly annoyed by your lack of response. “Why are you here?”

two

A backpack-wearing piglet who happily crosses the street. A fashionably dressed lumpy toad who rows across the pond in a wooden paddle boat. A shrew who picnics with a chipmunk in a grassy city park. Tiny children who sit between each of a stegosaurus’s scutes. An angry and scruffy-looking Siamese cat who wears a cone too big for it to see. The backside of each illustration states:

Jeon Wonwoo ILLUSTRATOR Same Dream Publishing House Work Email | Work Number | Personal Website

Nicely squared recycled textured card stock printed with soy ink, Jeon Wonwoo’s business cards can very well double as collector cards. And the owner of these cards himself, in your eyes, is the most beautiful man you have ever laid your eyes on. No fantasy writer, no Renaissance artist could ever truly depict how you see this man. Yet it makes you feel terrible, so entirely rotten on the inside, knowing that he would rather crawl up several flights of stairs made of tiny plastic building blocks than take a fifteen-second elevator ride with you.

If you could pinpoint the exact day Jeon Wonwoo started hating you, it would be the Monday after coming back from a previous work trip to the vacation home of a poet the two of you were assigned. The two of you were amicable with each other, even more so – close friends. A power couple in the children’s books and short stories field – a force to be reckoned with. And the hotel rooms adjacent to each other where the two of you decided to sit on opposite sides of your shared door and talk to each other with both your backs against the door. You remember the sound of his hair brushing against the wood and his soft chuckle when you accidentally bump your head against the door. The goodbye after the trip lingered for a little too long while the first hello back never came. And you can only watch from the back of the crowd during meet and greets and panels, sometimes only catching the tip of his tiny flyaway from far away.

It would hurt your feelings a lot less if he turned away whenever you walked near him, but he chooses to frown instead. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make you like him any less. But you do not know what you are holding onto (or if there is anything to hold onto at this point).

Even now, there is a blatant emotional and physical distance between the two of you. He briskly walks at least a meter in front of you, never turning his head back to see if he left you behind or if you were following closely behind.

The thick uncomfortable shoulder strap keeps slipping from your shoulder, unable to find any traction against the smooth nylon of the puffer you put on earlier. And it is just a walk, a measly ten-minute walk to the police station where you can report the accident, but it is hard to walk while looking ahead when you are so close to crying. No matter how much you try to adjust your shoulder strap so it doesn’t stop falling, it finds a way to slip from your sore shoulder or frozen grip. Overwhelming emotions usurp any will to continue onwards and leave you feeling so annoyed, so dejected, and so frustrated with everything that happened today. And when your bag’s strap slips again, you let it slip from your shoulder, sending your entire duffle bag crumpling against the wet and icy brick pavement.

And so you crumple with it, sinking to your knees and wallowing in your unhappiness.

The winter boots that clop in front of you never stop. Jeon Wonwoo would never stop for you, never walk backwards to pick up your heavy duffle and offer you a hand. So it wracks your head trying to understand why he would help you out in the first place, leaving you in the snow once everything was settled, and threatening an IOU coupon for the future. Why he would be in this town in the first place.

The shop window lights of the tiny electronics store to the side of you flicker on. On display and pressed flat against the glass are a bunch of old television sets stacked on top of each other, creating a large screen if not separated by the thick plastic television frames. Golden tempera paint in a modern Serif font exhibits the store’s logo across the glass: “Stay For A While,” in a wide downward pointing arc.

Every single television screen livestreams the local news. According to the subtitles, a giant snowstorm is about to hit the local area. Residents are advised to seek shelter and stay home. The sunny weather is only a farce.

But you don’t notice the news. To you, the only thing in front of you is a lachrymose shadow of a blob trapped in a foreign town with nowhere to go. And your heart follows closely behind the man as if dragged by him on a leash – blindly bouncing, cobbling, and getting scratched by the various pebbles and dirt on the pavement.

The man never looks behind to check on the organ. He doesn’t even know it’s there.

“What do you mean you’re cat sitting? Jeonghan, you never volunteer to do things willingly…Oh, for the friends who are high school teachers? Then road trip with their cat and save your cousin who is stranded in the mountains.” You adjust your grip on your phone while mindlessly browsing through the several knickknacks for sale in the souvenir shop in the town’s only lodge.

Passing the wall of graphic tees and sweaters and passing through a shelf of souvenir mugs, you stop at a shelf of tiny woodcarvings. Your eye lands on a figurine of a whittled cat, hand-painted orange with a white belly. On the other end of your phone call, your cousin complains about the weather, but you don’t listen – clearly too entranced by the tiny cat.

“Of course I listened to the radio this morning,” you mutter while running the tip of your pointer finger against the cat’s ear, feeling the smooth sanded wood under your touch. “Okay, you got me. It was for background noise. Look, I’m not asking you to pick me up today. I somehow ended up booking a room after finding out cab services are down today. But if you’re not going to pick me up then I’m going to hang up and solve this myself. But if you don’t hear from me in three days, then call a search party. Okay?”

Except he hangs up before you can say goodbye, grumbling about how you never listen to him. Still, you’re unbothered by his action. The tiny cat, now in the palm of your hand, looks so content with life, unbothered by what goes on around it. Your mind wonders about its artist, how long they must have spent carving the cat from a single block of wood, the hours it must have taken to create something so tiny yet so fulfilling to own. And you wonder about the artist’s emotions, if they ever felt sadness after parting with their cat. If the cat was the artist’s friend, even for the brief moment, that juncture, in their individual timelines.

It would be best if you left the cat on the shelf, you think. Just in case the artist ever changes their mind about selling the cat. And the cat looks happier sitting on the shelf with its other animal friends, happier than what its painted lazy smile suggests.

And for the first time today, you feel a tiny bit of happiness – a halcyon moment surrounded by forest-themed trinkets and flashing keychains with generic names and soft 2010s pop music playing from the store speakers. That is until you see a familiar figure being escorted to the lobby of the lodge. Curiosity causes you to leave your spot in the souvenir store, edging closer to the creation of a new scene.

“I have a room.” You hear him try to reason with the security guard. “It’s not called loitering if I am a guest.”

You can’t hear the security guard, but it seems like Wonwoo’s bluntness is not a strong enough source of logos for the guard. And the guard stands in front of the illustrator, fully unconvinced that the man wearing a suit and holding his work briefcase would be any other out-of-town guest. And one look of pure panic on Jeon Wonwoo’s stupidly handsome-looking face sends you on autopilot, making your way to his side for no good reason.

“Babe.” You lie through your forced smile while looping your arm around his right arm. “Where were you?”

His arm jerks in the tiniest bit before it relaxes as if he hesitated for a moment before making his decision. Of course, another explanation could simply be because he experienced a negative bodily reaction to your mere presence. Flabbergasted, he would mutter. The nadir of today’s excitement. And you would hate him even more for using vocabulary without incorporating any malapropisms. He is as pretentious as the outfit he wears.

“Baby,” he grits through his teeth. “This gentleman seems to think I’m stalking the halls like some animal out to hunt its prey.”

“Sorry, Sir.” You pout at the security guard, hoping your natural pathos could appeal to the man. “My husband has a tendency to walk around whenever he’s bored. It’s been a while since we went on vacation, and he clearly has too many thoughts in his head. You see his outfit? It’s a bad habit.”

The security guard strokes his chin and nods, eying Wonwoo’s ineffable outfit. He wonders why the man in front of him would pack a business suit for a vacation in the mountains, but he doesn’t want to be the one too quick to judge. Rather, he agrees with the fact that the suit actually fits the man very well. If the man wasn’t stalking the hallways just a few moments ago, he would’ve asked him about which tailor he sees. “If he’s so bored, why don’t the two of you join couples night tonight? Winners get a free bedroom upgrade. And between you and me, I heard there’s a famous author who’s staying with us,” he whispers the last portion, a quick cheeky wink.

You don’t realize that you are still grabbing onto his arm until you dragged him into your room. And he shrugs you off, taking the extra step to smooth out his suit fabric while looking through your vanity mirror before turning to you.

“You have the grip of a snapping turtle,” he scoffs while looking around your room.

It is a standard room with a single queen-sized bed at the center of the room. If it were not for the carpeted floors, the entire room would look like a wooden box from its Western Red Cedar planks that make up the four walls to the wooden paneling that covers the ceiling, giant circular wooden beams that keep the ceiling steady by design. The rooms in this lodge are a termite’s dream feast and an art deco enthusiast’s nightmare. Even the bedframe is made of logs, cylindrical in every piece, and the bedsheets are of deep burgundy red bordered with silhouettes of black bears as if it came straight from the video game your cousin was so obsessed with a few Summers ago.

What catches his eye is not the fact that your duffle bag is thrown across your bed, nor the fact that the lamps in your rooms may as well be oil lamps. Rather, he stares at the door to the right of your mounted television, the divider between your room and your neighbor’s. And you can’t help but wonder what is going on in that head of his.

“You are insufferable, you know that?”

“How long did it take for you to think of that comeback?” His attention is drawn away from the door and aimed toward you. “Just because I compared you to a turtle didn’t mean you had to act like one.”

Your jaw drops and becomes your turn to scoff at him, loudly. You cannot believe what you are hearing, and your breathing becomes shallower as you glare at him. “Are you kidding me? Me helping you literally saved you from being pathetically kicked out by the security guard. You should be happy I didn’t record it and post it online.”

“Like you would have enough followers for it to go viral,” he sneers while taking a step toward you. “And I never asked you for help.”

“Loitering in the hallways? Wearing a business suit when you’re supposed to be at the retreat?” Now there is almost no space between the two of you. And you reach over to his chest, grabbing the plastic nametag that dangles from his neck, and holding it up to his face. The item feels as cold as the person who wears it. “Wearing your work badge? Fine, I’ll admit I have no idea why you’re here. But if you thought that walking around and waiting for some author to come out of their room and have some preplanned accidental meet cute could work, then you’re so wrong. And I’m not going to let you defame our company just because you have no social skills whatsoever.” You let go of the item you’re holding, letting it drop against his chest.

“Okay, I’ll be the bigger man and admit that I was waiting for the author my team wants to work with to show up. But talking about defaming the company? You want me to care about what you say when all of that was coming from someone who would rather let some random man verbally degrade their worth than to stand up for themselves? You’re all bite and no tongue. Just like a snapping turtle,” he says, his face entirely without emotion.

“SNAPPING TURTLES HAVE TONGUES. DUMBASS,” you snap at him.

“That’s exactly what a snapping turtle would say,” he challenges you.

The thing is, Jeon Wonwoo likes to keep things short even though he is not as quick-tempered as you are. He prefers to relay everything he wants to say at once, saving anybody from asking for clarification. Yet, you can feel that Wonwoo only seeks to maim you with his words. Even at your most imperturbable composure with your intern, you cannot stand being alone in a room with Wonwoo once he starts opening his mouth to speak. And stupidly and repeatedly you let his elementary quips affect you like rubbing salt on an open wound. The laceration in your heart.

“You’re so rude Jeon Wonwoo. No wonder I hate you more and more every single day. You’re the single-most worst person in the entire world, and I hate how I once considered us friends.”

He looks like he has something to say to you but mentally drops the notion. Instead, he sighs and makes his way to the door beside your television, unlocking the knob and opening the door. He doesn’t make some offhanded comment about being your neighbor and only quietly closes the door behind him, making sure it’s locked with a tiny click.

three

It is a tiny office breakroom, the kind with a beige refrigerator whose motor is a little too loud, a low-watt microwave, and light green walls decorated with random pen marks from the lodge workers signing up for holiday potlucks. The late afternoon sunlight shines in an ethereal orange glow through the window, casting what could be the day’s last warm ray across the round wooden table in the middle of the room. Central heating runs throughout the building, and the lodge manager sits in the hot seat, his hands folded in front of him while he stares at you and your “husband.”

“Darling?” A nice elderly receptionist on break holds up a bag of mini marshmallows, the tri-colored kinds you can only find in baking stores, and points to it with her manicured finger. “Marshmallow?” she asks you from her place near the kitchen cabinets.

“No thank you,” you reply, your hands wrapped around a warm disposable cup filled with generic brand instant hot chocolate. Gratis, courtesy of the elderly receptionist before the manager arrived to talk to the two of you.

You bring the sugary drink to your lips, blowing softly and watching the steam disappear into the air. The drink itself, velvet chocolate that coats your tongue, is a warm invitation to this little town in the middle of nowhere. However, you cannot help but feel the only thing – or person – that unwelcomes you is the man who tries to angle his body away from you and the manager if the two of you ever cause trouble for your neighbors. Again.

“Look, we’re not going to kick you out. It would be inhumane to kick someone out during a snowstorm. And also we’re all kinda snowed in…actually, we’re super snowed in so nobody is coming in or out at this point. Funny how it was sunny earlier, right? Anyway, word has it that the two of you are married. So why don’t you two take some time to work things out, yeah? I’m no relationship counselor, but this is a small lodge in a small town so word gets out fast. So, seeing how far the two of you are sitting apart from each other, maybe channel that pent up anger into some competitive spirit during couple’s night because we can’t have you two being loud and arguing elsewhere. And I hate to be the bad guy here, but no more calls from your neighbors complaining about the two of you arguing or else we will contact authorities. Alright? Just keep it down and work it out, would ya?”

The manager’s lengthy spiel is immediately followed by silence, although not awkward, but one that provokes thought. And when you sense Wonwoo, being the smartass he is, open his mouth to counter his marriage status, and you immediately kick him in the shin with the heel of your tennis shoe. And he folds like his latest pop-up book, glaring at you while trying not to wheeze in pain. A fake smile and a solemn pledge to not bother the other patrons for the rest of the night are enough for the two of you to be excused from the conversation with the manager.

But not from each other.

How you ended up blindfolded and dizzy with a bat in your hands while Wonwoo angrily yells at you from the sidelines is beyond you. For the time being is what the two of you agreed with, albeit this one is far from Ruth Ozeki’s version. It’s a small promise to try to prove the two of you are more than amicable: attend a few games and activities together with the other couples, attempt to act like a married couple, and dip after an hour.

After twelve elephant spins with your forehead against the baseball bat, you and the other blindfolded contestants try to cross to the other side of the banquet hall in order to smash one of the many squashes on the large blue-colored plastic tarp laid across the floor. And Wonwoo, along with the other separated pairs, barks into the open air in the direction he wants you to move.

The funny thing is, you would expect to hear him call your actual name out of all of the pet names being thrown around, but Wonwoo cannot yell for the life of him, so much to shout your name in public. So even though you hear a bunch of people getting confused with the various forms of “honey” and “baby” being called out, you struggle to find his voice amidst the cacophony of shouts. Once the physical dizziness from spinning around evaporated, you feel a new kind of dizziness from being agitated as an aftereffect of trying to find Wonwoo’s voice in the middle of the crowd. By the time you decide on giving up, the shrill sound of a whistle signaling the end of the game fills the air. Shrugging the blindfold off your face, you look around to see the aftermath. While the other pairs are on the other side of the room surrounded by broken pieces of squash, there is only one man standing in front of you alone and separated from the others.

Your breathing hitches when you realize he’s walking towards you – long, even strides like the romantic lead in a movie. By the time he places himself in front of you, your baseball bat is in his hand while your cheek is in his other.

“It was hard, wasn’t it?” he whispers while looking into your eye.

Except you can’t help but train your eyes elsewhere, unable to look him in his eyes while it feels like your heart is beating erratically. And even though you know very well how he is faking everything, you can’t help but regress to the same you, the same you who is so helplessly in love with the man you hate. The same you who spends every day wondering how did the two of you end up that way.

“You only took the bat from me because you’re scared I might whack you with it. And not going to lie, I was contemplating it,” you mumble.

“It’s okay babe.” He tries to cheer you up, a slight undertone of insincerity in his voice. He continues to ignore your statement. “You did your best. Snapping turtles are slow, but they still manage to survive.”

Ignoring the fact that Wonwoo’s hand is warm because he has warm packs in each of his loungewear jacket pockets (and the fact that he refused to share one with you), someone catches your eye in the distance. Where workers are cleaning up the aftermath of the squash game, a familiar-looking man stands to the side where some lodge patrons flock around him with rectangular objects in their hands. Once you see him turn his head your way, your entire body freezes – Wonwoo’s touch suddenly begins to feel cold against your skin. And Wonwoo, who was expecting you to get mad at him for calling you a turtle, can’t help but notice your state of panic. And he not so subtly turns around to see who could be causing you so much fear.

“Oh my,” he mutters, coming to his realization.

“I can’t believe –” you begin before Wonwoo interrupts your train of thought.

“I hope he rots in hell before he can get his next book deal,” he almost spits at the man from several feet away. He drops his hand from your cheek and takes a tiny step back before taking a deep breath as if he is about to ask you something that he would regret, “Do you mind staying a little longer? I want to make sure chauvinists never win book upgrades.”

“Room upgrade,” you correct him while glaring at the other man from afar.

“What?”

“You misspoke.” You guide your attention back to the man who is, for what you think is the first time, looking at you attentively and without malice. And the fact that he is looking at you amicably makes your brain go haywire, but you subdue your thoughts and continue the conversation. “It’s the ‘room’ upgrade that we’re trying to stop him from winning.”

“Book upgrade or room upgrade, it’s the same thing.” He frowns while tapping the end of the bat against the ground. “It turns out your pickup truck man is the author my team is after. But I’d rather be jobless than to work with someone like him.”

So he works with you, absolutely demolishing the competition during the Dinner and Paint section and loudly cheering for you while you stacked plastic cups. And the way he smiles at you, lovingly and with the glimmer reflected from the ceiling lights contrasted against the cocky attitude he surrounds himself with when one of you wins a game – it almost makes you forget that you’re supposed to hate him. How easily he wraps his arms around you, hugging you tightly against his embrace so much that his cologne lingers on your clothes, leaves you feeling hopeless. Because the only time Jeon Wonwoo could ever approach you without visibly withering in repulsion is when he acts like he is in love with you.

Outside the cozy lodge, the Sun sets its rays on the heavy layers of snow. While the Earth turns to face the other way, the rays wash the pillowy white crystals in a warm and deep burgundy orange – a warm embrace, a promise to return, before parting for the night. As you clean Wonwoo’s smudged glasses with the hem of your shirt, he sneaks his right arm around your waist while he leans further into his seat as the Couple’s Night host announces the next game. You feel something warm enter the pocket of your jacket and look down to see Wonwoo’s hand back on your waist. The untouched hand warmer gradually feels hotter in your pocket when you gently place your fake husband’s glasses back on the bridge of his nose. He whispers a small “thank you,” and you can only smile back at him with a heaviness in your heart that only you can carry.

The hand warmer feels like it would burn through your clothes at any second.

four

“Team Snowball, what did your partner answer for the question: ‘What is your partner picky about eating?’” The emcee points at the woman sitting next to you who gladly flips her sketchbook around for the other half of the room to see. She squints her eyes, trying to read the woman’s squiggly writing, and smiles when she realizes it’s a match. “Soft grapes? It’s a match. Point to Team Snowball.”

Despite everything going around you, you can’t help but fidget in your seat, the sketchbook’s pages starting to feel damp in your sweaty palms. Wonwoo sits with the separated pairs across from you. He crosses his legs, and his sketchbook lays comfortably across his lap so he can twirl his black marker in his hand. Even when you know you wrote the correct answer to Wonwoo’s food preferences, the two of you are still several points behind the other teams. Your stomach cannot help but feel queasy every time you embarrassingly flip your sketchbook for others to see. Because every single wrong answer about your “husband” whom you love very much feels like a punch in your gut every time you hear snickers from the others around you.

Seafood is your answer; you’re the last to answer this round’s question. You earn a small cheer from the woman reading your answer and a small smile from Wonwoo. He sneaks you a tiny thumbs up, the tip of his thumb poking out of his sweater.

“Next question,” dictates the emcee. “When did you know they were the one?”

It’s an abstract question – one that doesn’t necessarily need matching answers from both sides. Still, you look across to look at Wonwoo, uncertain whether or not he would put much thought into an answer he would have to pull out of thin air. Uncapping his marker with his mouth, he pulls the sketchbook closer to him to scribble down whatever comes to his mind. The action leaves your mouth feeling dry: one, obviously, because he uncapped the marker with his mouth; and two, he was the first to start writing.

Some answers are simple. Some answers are meaningful. Some answers are like yours – “love at first sight.”

Corny, overused, and unusual, your answer is the safest route you knew you could take. And despite how clichéd your answer is – its timelessness, its Hallmark-ability – still garners a series of awws from everybody around you. Technically, there is some truth to your answer. You developed a tiny crush the first time you saw him at the office. Who wouldn’t? He surrounds himself with illustrations of anthropomorphic animals and has a laugh that bellows and fills any room with joy. He made your days brighter by simply existing.

Now, the brightness struggles to navigate its way through the thick fog. And you’re left alone in the cold, the fog’s misty droplets clinging onto your skin.

It’s weird how in this life, time moves linearly, but moments and experiences with others exist in intervals – interludes that we can relive over and over again through memories. Sometimes we experience interludes of happiness, interludes of pain, and interludes where it only seems like there are only two people in this world. But nobody can determine how long these interludes can last and for how long you can try to hold on to these moments before letting go.

“Let’s see if Team Turtle can earn a point. Please show us your answer.”

“I’m kind of embarrassed,” he softly chuckles, voice more sonorous than ever, while standing his sketchbook on his knee.

9 pm is his answer. You, and the rest of the people sitting beside you, cannot help but gaze at his answer in confusion.

It is only when he sees you staring at him he finally clarifies, “When we were sitting in my car eating donuts while the waves crash on the shores in front of us. You smiled at me with pieces of maple donut glaze stuck to your upper lip.”

You. He speaks in the second person and looks directly at you with a soft gaze. It couldn’t be, you think. But it is true, you recognize his diction as true. He’s speaking to you.

And you remember that shared moment in the front seats of his car, the night of the work trip. The donuts were for the poet, but the two of you had the door slammed in your faces before being able to hold a full conversation with the poet. And after an entire day of confusion and apologies, the two of you were finally able to fulfill your portions for the work trip. Who knew that the tiny suggestion of walking along the pier after dinner would turn out disastrous – frigid ocean winds strong enough to blow people away? The clothes the two of you packed were not meant to sustain harsh winds but harsh sunlight – after all, the work trip’s destination is a beach town. So the two of you sat in his car, eating donuts, people-watching, and sharing anecdotes to get to know each other better. It was the type of conversation that you would do anything to prolong its duration, the type of conversation with the right type of person.

“You were so happy,” he finishes.

You were so happy, it echoes in your head.

Are you happy now?

“How about you?” The emcee turns to you for clarification. “Your partner gave us such a beautiful explanation. So, you have to explain your ‘love at first sight.’ Tell us about it.”

“Ohh,” Wonwoo begins awkwardly while giving an equally awkward chuckle. “You don’t have to if you do-”

“I was having a really bad morning.” You smile into your lap and look up at your supposed husband. You don’t know why or how the full day with unease bubbling inside of you dispersed so quickly after Wonwoo’s particular answer. But you launch into your story, letting the words flow out of your mouth like melted snow on a grassy hill under the bright Sun. “A really bad morning. I ended up working overtime and accidentally missed my morning alarm. I had to chase the bus while my hot coffee poured out of its opening and onto my skin. My entire day at the office was a mess because I kept messing up. I felt awful and exhausted. So I worked overtime for the second day in a row to clean up my errors. Someone places hot green tea in front of me, the free ones at the office. There is a doodle of a stingray with the dumbest-looking smile on its face. It looked so pathetic that it made me feel a little better about myself. He says that he accidentally boiled too much hot water and thought to make a cup for me. And then he holds his own up in front of his face. There’s a picture of a cat wearing glasses. ‘You can do it,’ he tells me in a squeaky voice. And he leaves. We don’t meet again for about a month, but his kind gesture pieced me back together. And I held onto his kindness for days.”

He stares at you, a few strands of his hair out of place and in front of his eyes. He doesn’t care to move them back in place. There’s that smile on his face, the exact one you imagined to be on his face that time he sat on the other side of your shared door. Soft coral lips relaxed, but the cupid’s bow is slightly perked as the corners of the lips turn upward. He tries to hide the fact that he is smiling, keeping his happiness hidden and only to himself.

So you smile at him. An honest, genuine smile where the cheeks kiss the lower lashes. And his lips stretch thinly so that his brilliant white teeth shyly make their way into the open. He smiles back at you.

Musicians know that an interlude, in music, is an interrupting or intervening passage that connects different parts of a song. An interlude can also be a song in an album. In other words, there are different ways for musical interludes as well as temporal interludes to exist. Now, there is a new interlude in your timeline, this shared moment where two timelines from two completely different lives collide and converge. Anybody can tell that this shared moment is filled with happiness and understanding…perhaps, even longing.

But what do you call it when these two timelines have converged in the past? If two timelines that once converged reconverge at a further point on the timeline, did that initial interlude ever truly end? Are interludes simply short periods in our lives if these interludes stay in our timelines forever, even when the moments they denote end?

Nevertheless, at this moment, you know you’re happy. And you can only hope the man who sits across from you, the one who looks at you with a reminiscent expression you once experienced so long ago, is feeling the same way.

“Okay. We’re in third place. If we win this one, then we’ll be a point ahead of them.”

“I tied it pretty tightly. Is the tightness okay with you?” Wonwoo frowns from below you, seemingly exploring a different problem at hand. He inspects the rope he tied around your leg, poking and prodding at different sections. “It’s a three-legged race, but I don’t want you getting hurt from an accidental rope burn because I tied it too tightly.”

“Wonwoo, it’s fine.” You pat his left shoulder, letting him know he doesn’t have to worry.

He grabs your stretched hand, and you help hoist him upwards. But there is an apparent frown on his face.

“Why do you still call me Wonwoo,” he mumbles while wrapping your arm around his back and on his waist. There is a tiny pout on his face pointed downwards as he naturally loops his arm around your shoulders like he had done it a thousand times. “Are you not comfortable with calling me ‘babe?’ Any other name also works.”

Deep down, or not even deep down, you know he is right. You are uncomfortable with the idea of casually calling him by these pet names over and over again. Calling him by fake pet names, not counting the many idealistic scenarios that once played in your head, in this case, feels very wrong. His sudden change in attitude towards you as well as his overall demeanor after the last game left you in shock. A plot twist in a season finale would be less shocking than what you feel at this very moment. Like every other hypothetical person in your situation, you choose to ignore your problems by focusing on your other problems at hand. Because you know very well, allowing yourself to fully play into this fake husband rouse, even in times when you’re truly happy, would only hurt you in the end. And you’ve been hurt by him before, not really sure if you ever fully healed.

But you can’t deny he looks and seems nothing like the literal he-devil he was this morning. In fact, he seems to be the opposite. Even without being physically tied to you, he trails behind you like a lost puppy and clings onto your sleeve like a cat who kneads dough on your arm, nails hooked onto the fabric of your clothing. And you let him hold you close to him so much that he leans his chin on your shoulder while listening to others talk. And you let his hair tickle your scalp and would let him melt into you if he asked.

Getting hurt by the same man twice does not make a right. Succinctly, it only makes you dumb. So, to protect yourself, you use the image of the screaming man from the morning to remind yourself that everything is a rouse no matter how much you enjoy each moment with the illustrator.

The three-legged race’s course starts in the banquet hall, passes through the hallway and into the lobby, takes several twists and turns throughout the sitting area, and finishes in the banquet hall. Wonwoo takes the lead, firmly holding you against him while he chants “in, out, in, out” to direct how the two of you should speed-walk. But the excitement of the games and the promise of the upgraded room must have gone over the heads of several of the teams, causing each team to speed walk into a sprint once they left the banquet hall.

Wonwoo and you are also victims of wanting to win, or at least of wanting to beat the author. But in this incredibly small lodge, there are only so many paces you can take before having to try to squeeze past another team. And Wonwoo practically hoists you onto his foot without notice, penguin-walking you to make it past another team to navigate through the sectioned seating area.

Startled by his sudden lack of communication, you demand he set you down. “Let me go,” you grunt after being jostled against one of the round wooden tables. You are absolutely sure your hip would bruise in the morning if he bumped you into one more object. “It’d be easier if one of us walks ahead of the other.”

Does it look like I care?” His ego slips from his tongue, completely coating the sweet words that came out of his mouth before the game started. His sudden change in tone catches you by surprise. “I’ll buy a sled from the gift shop if it means I get to drag you instead of hauling you around.”

“It’s just a game.” You try to push yourself off of him, annoyed that he’s suddenly being uncooperative with you. In the meantime, the team behind the two of you catches up and pulls ahead. “Let me go before one of us gets hurt.”

Wonwoo’s eyes aren’t trained on you. Instead, he stretches his head to look at the few teams in front of the two of you. Surprisingly, the two of you make it out of the seating area without any trouble. Before the two of you can make a sprint back toward the banquet hall, you pull yourself away from Wonwoo, yanking his arm off of your shoulder.

“Babe, come on.” He holds out his hand for you to grab onto. “We’re going to end up being last.”

But your hand never reaches out to meet his.

“Babe? Are you serious? Are you kidding me? Are you really calling me ‘babe’ right now?” You almost shriek at him if it weren’t for the fact that the two of you are standing in proximity to the reception desk. But you are exasperated, your voice wobbles as you voice what is bothering you. “I’ve had it with you, Wonwoo. I tried communicating with you. I tried voicing my fears. But your head is so far up your ass that you couldn’t even think about the safety of the person right beside you. Am I sad and mad about what happened this morning? Yeah, I still am. Nobody deserves to be treated that way, but nobody deserves to be ignored. I don’t care about winning anymore. I feel humiliated, utterly and devastatingly humiliated by you and by myself. To think I let myself have fun around you. To think I believed for a second that you truly did care about me. At one point, I thought we were friends. At one point, I really did like you for who you were. But I guess I can’t expect people to stay the same, can I?” More words and sentences pour out of your mouth – like a small tornado that grows larger in size after picking up all of the things you left unsaid, the words that threatened to slip from your tongue all picked up and twirled into the tornado, you ended up saying more than what you meant to say.

“Look, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say,” he begins, but he can only hopelessly stare at you squatting in place to untie the rope that binds the two of you.

“There.” You bitterly drop the rope in his free hand. “You’re free from me now. You can go back to hating me all you want.”

“But I don’t hate you.”

“I’m done, Wonwoo. I’m done with being confused so I’m just going to give up and wallow in my room until Jeonghan picks me up once the snow clears.”

five

“No offense, but I would never spend that much time or energy on a guy…especially a guy who treats you like that. He even stopped pounding on your front door so that obviously means that he’s the type to stop trying after a while,” your cousin rants from the other side of your phone screen. He shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose while the cat he is looking after purrs contently on his lap. “So what are you? A masochist? You like men who treat you poorly and then reward you with like an hour of happiness? That’s literally like if professors gave you the hardest final you’ve ever taken in your life and told you to grab a free cookie after you turned in the final. What are you even holding onto at this point?”

“I don’t know,” you wail at the older man, crumpling your used tissue in the palm of your hand. It quickly joins the growing pile of snot-riddled balls of tissue at the edge of your bed. When you recline into your initial position, the shifted blanket knocks Wonwoo’s hand warmer onto the floor.

“Eww stop holding your phone so close to your face,” Jeonghan complains, “Vernon says I kinda look like you, and I can’t help imagining that’s how I look when I cry.”

“I don’t know why I still like him,” you mumble to your cousin. You honestly still don’t understand why you like him despite every single recent negative encounter with him. To be honest, your heart doesn’t flutter as it does with the characters in the novels you read. Nothing cliched happens when you see him, like how the world stops and he is the only one who walks in slow motion. Quite frankly, your days pass by whether you see him or not, but it doesn’t mean that the thought of him crosses your mind every once in a while.

“Maybe you just like the idea of him,” he offers with a sigh. There isn’t much that he could do for you in the middle of a snowstorm except to be on a video call with you and hope that the can solve whatever you have going on before his bedtime.

“I make up scenarios of him in my mind but I still prefer the real him,” you admit with a twinge of embarrassment. You can only sink deeper under your covers, pulling the cabin-themed sheets closer to your chest. Maybe you’re still holding onto the Wonwoo who existed during the work trip, and maybe, you think, he still exists somewhere.

“Hypothetically, do you maybe think that the reason why he’s so bad at everything is because he spends most of his time with children and draws instead of writing so his communication skill is basically hindered? Like how you’re good with feelings and ideas because that’s the bulk of the media you surround yourself with daily so you have more exposure to that area. So you have man-child versus person with skewed expectations on love and relationships. But then you literally have people like me…perfect in every aspect.”

“Shut up. You talk about traffic every morning but you can’t even name the model of your car. You were also tricked by a catfish.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“I’m sorry,” you beg him. “Please don’t.”

“My point is.” He places his phone down on the sleeping cat to use as a temporary phone stand while he gathers his thoughts. “The two of you seem like total opposites. And the only time the two of you seem to work well together is when you meet in the middle. So, have you ever tried communicating with him? Ever pulled him to the side to ask him why he’s such an ass?”

Yoon Jeonghan’s simple solution to your problem causes your brain to briefly short-circuit. Silence fills your lonely cabin room as your mouth slightly hangs open while your cousin silently judges you from the other end of the phone. It took a simple suggestion to make you realize that you have been hanging onto Wonwoo’s personality change to even think to consider the idea of confronting him about it. And Jeonghan’s hypothesis may not be wrong at all – life isn’t a fictional novel where everything can be magically solved in the incoming chapters.

“No?” Your answer is meek. You don’t know what to feel after this revelation. Anger? Despair? Peacefulness?

“And is he still knocking on your door? Trying to talk to you?” His tone is gentle for once.

“Yeah?” You look to the right side of your room where the door stands between his room and yours. Slips of lodge notebook paper often found in the nightstand drawers slowly shove themselves through the tiny crack under the door. “I think he’s pushing slips of paper under our shared door.”

“Then go talk to him. But throw away your snot pile and fix your appearance before you do. Yeah?”

“What would I do without you?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t care. Bye.”

Sitting on the floor with your back leaned against the door, you shuffle the sheets of paper in your hands. There are a couple of sorry notes partnered with sad and apologetic-looking animal doodles. There are a few slips where he asks you to forgive him. Then there are these series of slips – a mini cartoon of his morning, this morning – that somehow cause a small upwards curl to form on your lips.

Blue ballpoint pen ink depicts a series of panels starting with a text he received this morning. This comic is void of cute tiny animals and can only be drawn with the sincerity of a children’s book illustrator. He draws himself staring at his phone screen in confusion – you’re missing, and the rest of the work group chat has no idea where you are. And he’s worried. Everybody is worried, but nobody is worried enough to send search parties for you. Blue-figured Wonwoo rushes out of his room, completely abandoning his presentation for the author, to rush to the entrance of Interlude. Because he knows that your team always passes through Interlude, but you’re known to arrive at the campsite while rubbing your eyes, hair frizzing from the static built from your head rubbing against the headrest while you were sleeping on the way there. But the scene he stumbles upon makes him angry despite how relieved he is to know that you are okay.

The few pages that you hold in your hand are smudged with blue ink, and the ending is unfinished. Wonwoo softly rasps his knuckles against the shared door, calling out your name. When you don’t reply, he sighs and sits down with his back against the door. You feel a tiny jolt with his added pressure against the door. Still, you can’t bring yourself to confront him. At least not yet.

“I’m childish and I let myself get caught up in moments. And you were right, if something happened to you, I would never forgive myself for hurting you. At one point, I really did forget that the reason why we agreed to work together was because we didn’t want him to win. I ended up wanting us to win, or at least for you to win so you could have the upgrade. I’m really sorry for not communicating well with you, and for how I acted.”

The sound of his hair leaving the door lets you know that he probably dropped his head toward his lap.

Taking a shallow breath, he mutters into his hands, “And I wasn’t lying when I talked about us at the beach. I really did like you then. I still like you.”

“Then why ignore me? Why act like you hate me? What did I do to deserve how you treated me?” The questions leave your mouth in a flare of anger.

“I started ignoring you because I was hiding from you. I couldn’t confront you because I knew I would make it obvious that I liked you. But I guess I hid from you for too long because you thought I hated you.” His voice muffled from being on the other side of the door.

“So all of this happened because of some big misunderstanding? Just because we couldn’t confront each other?”

So it really was a simple problem with a simple solution. The revelation feels like a sore punch in the gut, one that’s so surprising that all you can do is laugh.

“I’m sorry, Yn. I really am.”

“I’m also sorry.” You feel really guilty now that you know that you were wrong to believe that he hated you. “I should’ve confronted you about this earlier.”

“Does it still hurt?” His voice sounds clearer as if he shifted his body so he sits facing the door.

“Oh, from the race? Actually nothing happened.”

“From when you fell from heaven,” he finishes with his voice trailing in diminuendo, almost as if he is slightly embarrassed from using the overused pick-up line.

“It actually hurt a lot,” you joke. “But I’m glad it was you who found me in the middle of the road.”

“Then can I stay by your side? Not separated by doors, but by your side?”

So you push yourself away from the door, turning around to unlock the brassy knob. The door slowly swings open to Wonwoo, who is still sitting on the floor, now facing you. And you awkwardly sit in front of him, not really able to meet his eyes.

“I think I have a lot to learn.” He fiddles with the hem of his sweater. “I’ll start by being more communicative about my feelings,” he promises with a soft smile. “Because I really do like you.”

“I like you too.”

There is a magnetic pull that slowly draws the two of you closer together, a comforting sort of sensation that offers a moment of solace created from two extremes. The outside world is dark. The snowstorm has long gone. The surfaces where the sunlight once touched are replaced with the soft yellow glow of several lamps around both of your rooms. Kaleidoscopic remnants of shards of light scatter around every surface. But the two of you, seemingly in the very corners of your shared world exert a different type of glow - one that can only be created in a collision like the break of dawn after a devastating snowstorm.

“I really like you too,” you can’t help but reaffirm.

“It’s actually ‘I also like you.’” He can’t help but playfully correct you. “You’re the publisher. You shouldn’t be making these errors.” He teases.

“And you’re the illustrator, so shouldn’t you stay quiet so I can kiss you?”

one month later

At the base of a computer monitor, a tiny wooden whittled cat naps lazily next to its turtle counterpart. Two people sit side-by-side in the breakroom a few rooms away, the metal seats practically stuck to each other. While their lunches heat up in the microwave, the two happily discuss the upcoming young adult novel they are finally working on together. Under the table, their pinkies naturally interlock. The man who scrolls through art ideas on his tablet can’t help but let his eyes linger on his partner for a little too long while they scroll enthusiastically through the several concept art slides he created. When the microwave sounds, he quickly leaves a soft and brief kiss on the side of his partner’s temple before getting up to remove their heated lunches. And the partner smiles while turning back to look at him, a smile brighter than the soft sunlight that wraps the room in a warm afternoon glow.

There’s a new interlude in their timelines. In this interlude, the two opposites are taking it slow, learning to meet in the middle.

dedicated to ellie (@flowershu/@eliphant). just wanted to thank you for supporting wondernus for all these years. happy new year <33

#svthub #svthub.collab #seventeen imagines #svt imagines #seventeen x reader #seventeen au #seventeen fluff #wonwoo imagines #wonwoo au #wonwoo x reader #wonwoo x yn #wonwoo fluff #wonwoo angst #wonwoo scenarios

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perryavenue · 7 months

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rainjoy Has A New Post. It's Personal

rainjoy is one of my favorite Klaine fanfic authors. Their first Klaine fanfic was published on LiveJournal in 2011, their last in 2021. Health issues have become more intense over time. Their most famous works, All The Other Ghosts and Grey, were published in 2012 and 2013. So those who've joined the fandom fairly recently may not even know about their other fics, the most recent one being from 2021. rainjoy has written Klaine in every genre: high school!Klaine, college!Klaine, married!Klaine, supernatural!Klaine, fantasy!Klaine, and even superhero!Klaine.

Here is a link to rainjoy's works on Live Journal

Here's a link for Dreamwidth

I hope that you'll help boost it by re-blogging. Thanks in advance, @klaineccfanficlibrary and @todaydreambelieversfic

This is rainjoy's post from today (October 27, 2023).

"Hello, I’m still alive.

Hello, I do mean it, hello anybody around to see this, I really hope you’ve been well, I’m sorry I haven’t been around, I *haven’t* been well. But I have, over a course of fucking months, actually written something, so I’m writing *this* here so I don’t need to leave a novel-length author’s note on it, as some kind of explanation of where I’ve been.

Largely, I’ve been in bed, I’m likely going there again after posting this, they need to invent new words for how tired I am so much of the time, my upgraded wheelchair is worth about as much as my *laptop*, my life revolves around Can I? Probably not. and lots and lots and lots of ‘resting’. I’ve not been well, but please don’t worry, I’ve not been unhappy. This is the golden age of being ill, the sheer quantity of stuff out there to amuse the bedbound – I have books and podcasts, all of Netflix, I practically live on Sky: Children of the Light, when I’m too dopey even for that I have Animal Crossing, when I am genuinely such a puddle of not-human lethargy that all I need is for time to pass until I feel just slightly better again I have videos of other people playing video games on YouTube and I’m sorry my darling baby moths I will pick you up and help you every single time but it will never not be funny watching someone go through Eden for the first time on YouTube, it just never will not make me laugh, oh my gods I’m so *sorry* my loves <3

So anyway, there’s all that, that’s where I’ve been, life really does not work out the way you planned it to, huh? Because outside of my bed, I know I have messages and emails and someone got a tattoo?? You got a tattoo and I’m just really sorry I haven’t been in touch, my energy has to be paid out like a miser, if I want to wash my hair then wow the world is really not getting anything else out of me, you know? But I am still here, and I do still love the things I love. I still think all of it is worth it. I think the world is a *lot* of fun, though I bear in mind that still, and always, we live through very frightening and distressing times. Which actually makes me think we need to cling to the things we love *more*, not less, love makes better people of us, when we let it.

So I did watch the new season of Good Omens when it came out, and safe to say I was not impressed, but it did jog in me the memory that didn’t I write a sequel to it? Yes I did, and it involved *all* that blood. But I reread it – it’s like reading a stranger’s writing after so long – and that jogged the memory: Didn’t you start a sequel to *this*?

Yes I did! Two thirds written, actually, hurrah for my past self. The last third took, I don’t know, when did the new season come out, it took that long. I used to sneeze out this sort of thing. This, now, is getting at my arms, it’ll be another lie down soon. But anyway, the point of all this: I live yet. In the next few days I *hope* I will be formatting and posting a sequel to But Thou Readst Black because of course everyone wants *that* back in their heads again, my gods. And I hope hope hope you’ve been well, I do think of people while I’m stuck doing nothing but pooling my brain out of my ears on YouTube. Look after yourselves, take care of each other, my gods you tattooed yourself I mean more power to you but it alarms me when things I make turn out to be *permanent*, you know? It feels like I barely touch the world anymore, my circumference has become so small, but it makes the world seem only more precious. Take good care of it, and of yourself as part of it. And very, very much love, to anyone remaining to see this, much love <3"

#rainjoy #klaine fanfic #rainjoys writing

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canmom · 10 months

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Feel free to ignore considering it’s a very messy topic. Why do you think SFF communities (especially book communities) attracts so many bad faith actors?

my apologies anon, I took a minute to answer this one.

I think the most parsimonious answer is that they don't, especially, it's just that bad faith actors are basically everywhere. like, is it really true that there are more bad faith actors in SFF than in say, music? film? 'literary' fiction, or other genres like crime or erotica? i think if I was as immersed in any of those worlds as I am in SFF, I'd know about just as many stories of petty cruelty, exploitation, bizarre dramas...

still, some speculations about factors playing into it, that aren't necessarily specific to sci-fi.

the thing about SFF is that it's a subculture, and one that's pretty niche. not quite as niche as like, BASE jumping or something lol - most bookshops around here will have an SFF shelf, and obviously SFF films and games are almost as mainstream as entertainment gets - but for dedicated sci-fi fans it's seen as a sort of refuge of 'people like them' (generally some variety of autistic nerd archetype), and there is a lot of anxiety that comes with maintaining that.

this sort of attitude is commonly associated with the old guard of reactionary fandom - the infamous Puppies - but I think by now we've seen that the current overtly queer/progressive/whatever you wanna call it generation is just as capable of lashing out at perceived intruders. (for an obvious example, this kind of sentiment was a major factor in the Isabel Fall incident.)

besides that, what are people fighting for anyway? what are the 'stakes' of scifi/fantasy fandom? intuitively, they're tiny. but...

within any niche subculture, it is possible to achieve a certain degree of fame and influence. if you can play the rhetorical game, you can establish yourself as a microcelebrity/tastemaker, promote your friends and make a show of casting out the enemies, and set up the rules of the discourse... in your small bubble. until sooner or later the wind changes and you get knocked off the pedestal, anyway. so part of it is just people wanting to rule an insular little fiefdom.

but then there's also like... 'being an author'. SFF lit is not especially popular these days. you can't really make a living from short stories anymore (too few magazines that pay, too hard to get in, too little reward). however, if you get very, very lucky, make the right connections (probably at Clarion), you might just be able to get some novels published, and maaaybe they will find an audience and earn out their advances... and if everything goes perfectly, you might just manage to make a reasonable middle class sort of income.

and that's not nothing! especially if other forms of work are inaccessible. i have a friend whose circumstances were changed very dramatically when they got a big advance on their novel. but ultimately I don't think it's about that, nobody would sensibly try to become an author for the money, it's an obviously terrible gamble.

however, within the subculture, being a published author is a still big deal. it's a sense that you've 'made it', people will look up to you, or resent you if they don't feel you deserve it. there is a strong divide between 'authors' and 'fans' that structures interactions between the two. I don't get the impression that this is actually very fun for the authors, but it's easy to see that from outside and think "I wish I was worthy of that kind of respect too".

much the same applies in other fields - for example animation. maybe it pays shit and demand insane hours with zero job security... but for the fans, you come to have immense admiration for the 'real animators' and want to feel you could be their equal one day. and people are willing to sacrifice a lot for the sake of that idea of accomplishment, even if it's still very unlikely.

so with all that in mind... science fiction authors are usually science fiction fans. there's not really any other reason you'd write it lmao. so could speculate that for the ones who have 'made it', the situation is still precarious, or seems like it. there's little guarantee you'll get published again if a book doesn't sell. and you depend on a good reputation to stay in the game. so you have a bit of power (enough to go to your head) and fear of losing that power and sense of accomplishment... that's probably sufficient to motivate a whole lot of horrendous behaviour that would seem incomprehensible from outside.

none of this is really specific to science fiction/fantasy. but then I don't think SFF is really all that unique.

#sff

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very-grownup · 2 years

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This seemed to resonate with some folks on the other social media site

Also now reading "Moira's Pen" (2022) by Megan Whalen Turner because I'm not taking "The Odyssey" into the bath to be dropped by my tiny hands.

You would think that a collection of short stories - although it's not really that (errata maybe) - published after the conclusion of an author's series would be full of answers to narrative gaps, things readers have always been curious about, elaborations from the ending.

So I'm absurdly pleased that Turner continues to answer basically no questions beyond "what is the age difference between two characters?" and "who is Gitta?" and instead has scattered dozens of new questions for the reader.

I might have further thoughts in terms of how this all fits with Turner's approach to series structure as a whole because I continue to find that fascinating. If I don't, though, cheers for more material confirming Relius as the least wholesome queer character. What a gift.

(The bookshelf photos are here as evidence that I have in fact read some books.)

I think it all comes back to Turner bucking the conventions of the genre demographic she's published under. I feel like "The Thief" was published, and what she endearing calls The Geniad was conceived, just before the rise of YA as a "distinct" genre. (Genre is fake and a construct of the publishing industry.) There have always been books of interest to older teens, but just as the idea of teenagers is a relatively recent as something separate from a child, so to is YA as something distinct from children's fiction. I think, in being a constructed marketing thing, there are rigid expectations about what a series is, what formulae make something a series, how they work for both authors and audience, and that those things won't change. A famous(ly hateful and mediocre) author was seen as doing something new in having characters /age/ and /increasing book length/ even though the former is just how a bildungsroman works and the later is 'lack of editing'.

What's thought of as a YA series has, I think, become an expectation of pressing and breaking up the bildungsroman into something structured with all the variety of an Enid Blyton or, more contemporaneously, Babysitter's Club, if that makes sense? You'll have the same characters, probably with one central character, the same point of view, facing an escalating series of the same sort of thing, whether it's demons or dark lords or relationship complications or levels of schooling, ultimately culminating in the Big Thing: Satan or fighting your arch nemesis or marriage or graduating into adult life beyond the structure of educational institutions. Am I making sense? I think I'm making sense, I may be stating the painfully obvious. I'm tired. For the reader there's growth within the narrative but the structure makes the reading experience an easy one, literally, because you're reading same-ish things. That's what makes series so marketable and readable!

But pre-YA-as-a-genre, amidst the Blytons you also got:

- Everyone's problematic fave religious allegory from C.S. Lewis!

- Cooper's Dark is Rising series, which started Famous Five-y in structure and ran towards Tolkien!

- L'Engle's scientific-religious weirdness with the Murray family!

- Any DWJ that publishers try to coral as 'series'!

- (Friend Jen added Diane Duane's Young Wizard series.)

Megan Whalen Turner feels special because the way she's written her series calls back to what authors like the previously mentioned were doing before an expectation of audience and genre pressed books into something that asked less of their audience.

It doesn't have to be much.

But the way I have seen people, especially younger readers, talk about experiencing the series, is evocative of someone being given a new food with their meal and balking because it isn't what they asked for, it isn't what they expected, do they even want this?

In "The Thief" our protagonist is Gen, first person point of view.

In "The Queen of Attolia" our protagonist is still Gen, but out secondary protagonist is also a primary antagonist, Attolia, third person point of view, alternately limited and omniscient.

In "The King of Attolia" our protagonist is Costis (who is this Costis guy?! I want Gen!), third person limited.

In "A Conspiracy of Kings" our protagonist is Sophos (and sure, we know Sophos, but where's Costis?! WHAT ABOUT GEN? THIS IS GEN'S SERIES!), first person but also third person.

In "Thick as Thieves" our protagonist is Kamet a mostly-background character from several books back (BUT SOPHOS! AND GEN! WE'VE HAD SO LITTLE GEN!), first person.

In "Return of the Thief" our protagonist is Pheris (who is this Pheris kid?! Gen and Sophos are here but WHERE ARE COSTIS AND KAMET? ARE THEY OKAY?!), first person.

After each one, you love what you've gained due to the change, due to not getting what you 'want'. Still marketed as a series. Still /is/ a series. I can't imagine, for example, coming in to "Return of the Thief" cold. But Turner tells the story she's always intended to tell without conforming to reader or publisher expectations.

And she never answers questions.

This isn't to say she is disconnected from her fans. She has a lovely, engaged fanbase (she's on tumblr and not, sensibly, twitter). She delights in memes and fanart and reblogs so much of it.

But she doesn't answer questions. She doesn't even tell you how names are pronounced.

AND IN CONCLUSION that's why she's such a fascinating author and that is the kind of author who puts together a book like "Moira's Pen". Short stories, yes, but also short observations on ancient art that informed things in her stories, brief dialogues, poetry. There's a cake recipe.

Megan Whalen Turner finished a series that took her twenty-five years to write and the first thing she has published after ending that series includes a recipe for cake and I love that. It's perfect.

The stories in "Moira's Pen" bring up so many questions, dozens upon dozens, and there's no indication that Turner intends to answer any of them in future novels. And that's fine. Because Turner also spent six books teaching her audience that questions and empty space are part of storytelling and that the author's involvement in that, for the reader, begins and ends with the story you're given.

Okay, I think I'm done. Read "The Thief". It's fun.

#megan whalen turner #the queen's thief series #moira's pen #some thoughts about how books

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kemetic-dreams · 1 year

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Author Octavia E. Butler Author (1947–2006)

Known for blending science fiction with African-American spiritualism. Her novels include Patternmaster, Kindred, Dawn and Parable of the Sower.

Writer Octavia Estelle Butler was born in Pasadena, California, on June 22, 1947, later breaking new ground as a woman and an African American in the realm of science fiction. Butler thrived in a genre typically dominated by white males. She lost her father at a young age and was raised by her mother. To support the family, her mother worked as a maid.

As a child, Octavia E. Butler was known for her shyness and her impressive height. She was dyslexic, but she didn't let this challenge deter her from developing a love of books. Butler started creating her own stories early on, and she decided to make writing her life's work around the age of 10. She later earned an associate degree from Pasadena City College. Butler also studied her craft with Harlan Ellison at the Clarion Fiction Writers Workshop.

To make ends meet, Butler took all sorts of jobs while maintaining a strict writing schedule. She was known to work for several hours very early in the morning each day. In 1976, Butler published her first novel, Patternmaster. This book would ultimately become part of an ongoing storyline about a group of people with telepathic powers called Patternists. The other related titles are Mind of My Mind (1977), Wild Seed (1980) and Clay's Ark (1984). (Butler's publishing house would later group the works as the Patternist series, presenting them in a different reading order from when they were chronologically published.)

In 1979, Butler had a career breakthrough with Kindred. The novel tells the story of an African-American woman who travels back in time to save a white slave owner—her own ancestor. In part, Butler drew some inspiration from her mother's work. "I didn't like seeing her go through back doors," she once said, according to The New York Times. "If my mother hadn't put up with all those humiliations, I wouldn't have eaten very well or lived very comfortably. So I wanted to write a novel that would make others feel the history: the pain and fear that black people have had to live through in order to endure."

For some writers, science fiction serves as means to delve into fantasy. But for Butler, it largely served as a vehicle to address issues facing humanity. It was this passionate interest in the human experience that imbued her work with a certain depth and complexity. In the mid-1980s, Butler began to receive critical recognition for her work. She won the 1984 Best Short Story Hugo Award for "Speech Sounds." That same year, the novelette "Bloodchild" won a Nebula Award and later a Hugo as well.

In the late 1980s, Butler published her Xenogenesis trilogy—Dawn (1987), Adulthood Rites (1988) and Imago (1989). This series of books explores issues of genetics and race. To insure their mutual survival, humans reproduce with aliens known as the Oankali. Butler received much praise for this trilogy. She went on to write the two-installment Parable series—Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998).

In 1995, Butler received a "genius" grant from the MacArthur Foundation—becoming the first science-fiction writer to do so—which allowed her to buy a house for her mother and herself.

#african #afrakan #kemetic dreams #africans #brownskin #brown skin #afrakans #african culture #afrakan spirituality #octavia e butler #science fantasy #science fiction #science fair #science facts

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richincolor · 1 year

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Title: She is a Haunting Author: Trang Thanh Tran Genres: Horror, Contemporary, LGBTQIA Pages: 352 Publisher: Bloomsbury YA Review Copy: Received eARC via NetGalley Availability: Available 28 February 2022

Summary: When Jade Nguyen arrives in Vietnam for a visit with her estranged father, she has one goal: survive five weeks pretending to be a happy family in the French colonial house Ba is restoring. She’s always lied to fit in, so if she’s straight enough, Vietnamese enough, American enough, she can get out with the college money he promised.

But the house has other plans. Night after night, Jade wakes up paralyzed. The walls exude a thrumming sound, while bugs leave their legs and feelers in places they don’t belong. She finds curious traces of her ancestors in the gardens they once tended. And at night Jade can’t ignore the ghost of the beautiful bride who leaves her cryptic warnings: Don’t eat.

Neither Ba nor her sweet sister Lily believe that there is anything strange happening. With help from a delinquent girl, Jade will prove this house—the home her family has always wanted—will not rest until it destroys them. Maybe, this time, she can keep her family together. As she roots out the house’s rot, she must also face the truth of who she is and who she must become to save them all.

Review: [SHE IS A HAUNTING is a horror novel that involves a lot of body horror, insects, and colonialism. Please check the author’s website for a full list of content warnings.]

SHE IS A HAUNTING, Trang Thanh Tran’s debut, has so many of the elements I love in a horror book: family secrets, past wrongs, compelling descriptions, and a desperation to protect people you love. Trang does a fantastic job of allowing the dread to collect around Jade in an uneasy slow burn that kept me turning pages, worried all the while that Jade wouldn’t realize how much everything was escalating until it was far too late. (The body part interludes were delightfully creepy and incredibly worrisome.) There were so many complicated and intertwined layers of what was happening (and had happened) inside the house, Nhà Hoa, that the reveals felt earned even if I had guessed some of them ahead of time.

I really liked Jade as the main character. She had nearly as many secrets as Nhà Hoa did, and having Jade uncover the house’s secrets while her own escaped her grasp was a great way for the story to unfold. Jade’s first-person narration was very well done, and I appreciated how much character Trang could pack into Jade’s internal thoughts and observations. There were some very lovely (and sometimes also horrifying) bits of prose in SHE IS A HAUNTING that helped establish Jade’s character in fantastic ways.

Sometimes romance can undercut the narrative in a horror story, but I very much enjoyed Trang’s development of Jade and Florence’s relationship. Jade and Florence served as foils for one another in many ways, and I looked forward to them falling for each other just as much as I looked forward to uncovering more about Jade’s family secrets and learning about what had happened in Nhà Hoa. Where Ba’s character had to be kept more mysterious to preserve tension and Lily’s served more as the person Jade had to protect, Florence was the one Jade could be messy and honest with—and be believed when things started going very wrong.

There’s so much going on in SHE IS A HAUNTING regarding colonialism in Vietnam, diaspora feelings, and identity, but a lot of it I can’t talk about without going deep into spoilers. I’ll just say that this book grapples with big, important ideas, and the author used horror to better explore them. That kind of complicated exploration is one of the strengths of good horror, and Trang did a great job of it.

Recommendation: Get it now, especially if you are a horror fan. Trang Thanh Tran’s debut novel is filled with secrets, past wrongs, and the repercussions of colonialism. Jade’s struggles to sort out her present while she tries to unravel the secrets of Nhà Hoa make for a tense, compelling read. SHE IS A HAUNTING (and its haunting prose) is going to stick with me for a long time.

Extras: Revealing She Is a Haunting, the Atmospheric Horror Debut From Trang Thanh Tran

Four Questions for Trang Thanh Tran

#she is a haunting #trang thanh tran #horror #lgbtqia #contemporary #book reviews #young adult books #get it now

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raybeansbooks · 7 months

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CORALINE by Neil Gaiman, Illustrated by Dave McKean published 2002 by HarperCollins

Hey there everyone, My name is Ray (they/them) and I wanted to make a sort of introduction of myself and introduce one of my favorite YA Books. I am a 26yr old grad student working on my MLIS degree to become a Young Adults Librarian. My favorite genre of book happens to be horror and that can be a a multitude of sub-genres as well as YA or Adult. However, I do enjoy treating my inner child to some fantasy here and there and I enjoy a well made memoir.

One of my YA books that I can't stop returning to is Coraline by Neil Gaiman. These days you may know him for his book turned television show Good Omens but I will never forget this horrific, magical, and stunning novel- as well as it's movie I was absolutely obsessed with.

Coraline, first published in 2002, is a middle-YA fantasy horror about a young girl who has moved to a new and strange home and is about to discover even stranger things the deeper she digs. She soon discovers a world she describes as so much better and more magical than hers with a set of parents she adores more than her own... However, these other parents are determined to keep her with them, especially Mother, and will do whatever to ensure her stay.

Ghost children, an otherworldly mother in another world, the destruction of Coraline's original life- all hangs in the balance as she uses her wits to restore her life, save the children, and stop the other mother.

This book is often grouped into Middle Grade as well as YA, and even sometimes JUV or Children's zones, but be aware that though it is written with a range of ages in mind that not all children are comfortable with the themes and parts of the story. This novella can be generally disturbing and host creepy imagery between text and illustration, but it's also a fantastically written tale that I highly recommend you check out- especially if you have seen the movie but haven't read this yet.

I have enjoyed every form of media this book's story has taken and will continuing returning to it throughout my life. It has been a great sort of gateway into more adult horror authors and titles as well has opened me up to the wonders and horrors of YA Fiction. I have a lot of YA horror I want to get to and this is always a great reminder that there are pieces written for younger audiences that can still be quite scary. You know what too, they just keep getting better and better. I cannot wait to explore the wide range of authors and their stories that are definitely leaving a stamp on the YA Horror world. Also, before I go, can we just appreciate how absolutely cunning and bad ass Coraline is?? Not only is her fashion icon- I must keep dying my hair blue for some reason- but so is her stand against the ancient evils that have trapped the children before her and has her next on the menu.

-Ray (they/them)

Gaiman, N. (2002). Coraline. HarperCollins.

#book blog #books #literature #neil gaiman #coraline #novella #horror #ya #fantasy #book #fiction #paranormal

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cotecoyotegrrrl · 1 month

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Author Octavia E. Butler Author (1947–2006)

Known for blending science fiction with African-American spiritualism. Her novels include Patternmaster, Kindred, Dawn and Parable of the Sower.

In 1995, Butler received a "genius" grant from the MacArthur Foundation—becoming the first science-fiction writer to do so—which allowed her to buy a house for her mother and herself.

#Octavia E. Butler #Parable of the Sower #Black Women Science Fiction Authors #Women Science Fiction Writers #science fiction #Oankali

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rollercoasterwords · 11 months

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I’m so here for all this book hate, and I’m just laying in bed kicking my feet besides you listening to all these people rant. And I so agree with the ‘this book is gay’ thing. Like ESPECIALLY now during pride month everyone is like read these 5 queer books and the only thing it says is oh this mc is bi, oh it has a trans character, oh the main ship is sapphic. I’m like okay, cool, what more? Is that it?

I had this with ‘the priory of the orange tree’ which I loved, but the only thing I was told is ‘there’s a sapphic ship’ and ‘it’s high fantasy’ which yeah it is to both. But that’s not even what the book is about and you could’ve just told me what it was about and told these other things. just imagine if they would do that with other big fantasy books ‘yeah it’s fantasy and straight, enjoy’

Same thing with they both die at the end. Fun book, not revolutionary, I agree what the person said, the mcs are the most boring in the book. But it’s gay so it’s amazing… sure

lol yeah i love a good hater sesh <3 and YEAH like. i understand people compiling lists of books w certain types of representation etc bc obviously there are lots of people who want to seek out books that reflect certain experiences etc, but. if the rec begins and ends with just 'it's [x type of queer] and [x genre]!" then i'm like....ok. anything else or....

and i do think it happens particularly often with queer books but also i don't think it's entirely devoid from straight books either lol it's just that instead of going "it's straight and fantasy!" they'll go "dark love interest and fantasy" or some equally surface level label lol. same with the lists that are like "dark academia books" etc i think...i mean i don't necessarily know that this is a new phenomenon but maybe it's just become more visible/common 2 me bc of the shifting landscape of social media that prioritizes shortform algorithmic content but it feels like this widespread practice of packaging books as aesthetic products more than like. literature. if that makes sense...idk still parsing through my thoughts on this but. yeah just feels like a very surface level way to engage w books--and the thing is it seems like it's a growing way that writers/publishers are marketing their books as well. like i don't really fault the authors for this bc ik in this day and age they have to do a ton of legwork to market their own shit to get it like picked up by publishers or whatever and so they kinda have to play the game (<- try desperately to go viral on tiktok) but every time i see a video that's like a writer going "would you read THIS??" and then it's like. a list of their protagonist's identities and then just a general/vague nod to some subgenre that sounds like a pinterest board title i throw up in my mouth a little ngl. and it's not like i think literature is some sort of Higher Art Form that must always be Venerated it's more that consumerism feels so fucking inescapable and every art form has to be boiled down into something that will go viral on tiktok these days and it makes me want 2 scream!!

anyway this turned into a little rant of my own lol but. agree w u ty 4 partaking in this hater experience w me <3

#ask

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kamreadsandrecs · 1 year

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Title: Y/N

Author: Esther Yi

Genre/s: literary fiction

Content/Trigger Warning/s: implied mental health issues, occasional off-putting descriptions

Summary (from publisher's website): It’s as if her life only began once Moon appeared in it. The desultory copywriting work, the boyfriend, and the want of anything not-Moon quickly fall away when she beholds the idol in concert, where Moon dances as if his movements are creating their own gravitational field; on live streams, as fans from around the world comment in dozens of languages; even on skincare products endorsed by the wildly popular Korean boyband, of which Moon is the youngest, most luminous member. Seized by ineffable desire, our unnamed narrator begins writing Y/N fanfic—in which you, the reader, insert [Your/Name] and play out an intimate relationship with the unattainable star.

Then Moon suddenly retires, vanishing from the public eye. As Y/N flies from Berlin to Seoul to be with Moon, our narrator, too, journeys to Korea in search of the object of her love. An escalating series of mistranslations and misidentifications lands her at the headquarters of the Kafkaesque entertainment company that manages the boyband until, at a secret location, together with Moon at last, art and real life approach their final convergence.

Buy Here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/y-n-esther-yi/18534455

Spoiler-Free Review: So I sat on this book for a long, LONG time, because I've had a hard time navigating through and around my feelings and my own understanding of what I just read. This might not be a very long book, but BOY DOES IT PACK A PUNCH.

It's also interesting to read this book as someone who is a fan and has had almost similar desperate crushes on people who didn't know I existed. I'm not into the Kpop scene so I can't really speak to what the culture's like in that fandom, but reading how the narrator falls for Kpop boyband member Moon and then begins to structure their entire life around him is vaguely familiar, but also strange. It's kind of like a train crash: I've never been in one, and I hope to never BE in one, but I can easily imagine what it'd be like to be in one and I don't want that experience at ALL thank you very much.

Speaking of train crashes: reading the protagonist go through this crush is also kind of like a train crash in that you know it's bad, but you can't look away. I found myself wanting to know what she'd do with her life now that Moon was in it, how her relationships with other people would change - which they did, because that's kind of what happens when you get into a fandom.

But as the novel progresses, it becomes clear that the protagonist's fannish engagement with Moon as a fan isn't quite-- I hesitate to call it "normal", but I also don't want to call it "abnormal", either, because she exhibits behaviors that a lot of fans exhibit, and usually it isn't very harmful, just maybe weird to people outside of fandom. But then she goes overboard, as some fans do, and things take a turn for the very strange.

See, what the protagonist does is she builds up this idea of Moon in her head, making him her own - and I mean that quite literally, since after a certain point in the novel she's convinced that the Moon in her head is hers, and moreover that he's the REAL Moon, as if the Moon the other fans adored was some kind of fake. She has, in essence, a headcanon version of him that she is convinced is who Moon really is, and that he's hers, somehow. This belief spills over into the fanfic she writes about him: a "Your-Name" or "Y/N" fanfic, which is where the book gets its title. It's basically a variation on the self-insert fic, where the reader inserts their name at specific points in the fic signified by the placeholder "Y/N". The more the protagonist writes the fic, the more she becomes convinced that the fic she's writing IS real, in a kind of parallel-dimension, alternate-reality way, and that it's sort of a signifier of her connection to Moon, which just deepens her belief that her headcanon of Moon IS the real Moon.

But what about Moon the Person? Are they less real than the protagonist's headcanon of them? Yes, but also no, because at this point the protagonist's Headcanon!Moon is a distinctly different entity from Person!Moon - but does the protagonist's feelings for Headcanon!Moon make him more "real" to her than Person!Moon? Are those feelings less valid because they're for an imaginary entity? Please note that these ideas don't occur to the protagonist (not right away at least), but they DID occur to me as the reader.

And from there, I began to extend the question: can emotions for a fictional character be considered "real", given that their target is fictional? Would such emotions be more "real" if they were aimed at a real person? What if that person doesn't know who I am? Are those feelings less valid if they won't be reciprocated? Is it truly terrible if I KNOW the feelings won't or can't be reciprocated, but I continue to have and cherish them anyway? These are all very interesting questions, and I think they're questions fans grapple with regularly - and if they don't maybe they should, if for no other reason than that they're interesting and can potentially reveal a lot about oneself and one's emotions.

Another thing that's interesting about this protagonist is how she tries to intellectualize her crush on Moon. She considers herself a high-thinking member of the culturati: the style in which the novel is written reflects this, as does the protagonist's initial disdain towards pop culture. She even claims that she keeps herself deliberately "pure" of all pop culture influence because of how it might affect her interior world and her thinking.

And yet, when she finally encounters Moon, she has to reconcile all her previously-held beliefs with the fact that she has an intense infatuation with a pop star. So: she tries to "elevate" her feelings, tries to frame her infatuation in such a way as to make it seem like it's more important somehow, more valuable, and not something so "low" as a crush on a celebrity - which is something everyone else around her tells her it is.

This aspect of the novel is something I find interesting, because it points out to a flaw in separating "high" versus "low" culture. Proponents of the former are still fans: they have arguments, form cliques, and exhibit support and enthusiasm in the same way as fans of "low" culture do. The only difference is that fans of the former like to think they're better than fans of the latter, that their fandoms are more "valid" or "important" than pop culture fandoms. This novel reveals that stance to be a lie via the protagonist herself, who elevates her "low" culture fandom into "high" culture by virtue of how she talks about it.

There's a lot more going on in this novel than I mentioned above: how consumption has replaced religion; the weird and discomfiting nature of parasocial relationships; and the strangely veiled nature of the K-pop industry, to name a few. I won't say that this is best read by someone who is involved in fandom or has experience with fandom, but I think fans will find themselves both intrigued and discomfited by this book.

Rating: five Kpop band members

#book review #book reviews #y/n #esther yi #literary fiction #books

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mermaidsirennikita · 2 years

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Hi, just wanted to say that your post about Bridgerton influencing HR publishing was really eye opening to me. BR was what got me into the genre but after reading tons of HR- new and old- before s2 came out (and after watching it) really kind of showed me how Bridgerton wasn’t the best out there and that the world of HR was vast and so much more than what they were offering. I also hate the “meets Bridgerton” thing that is happening in HR is detrimental to the genre as an aspiring author who watches from afar. I feel bad for authors who are trying to break into the publishing world and are stuck in the trap and it’s definitely tiring seeing it in shelves at mainstream stores. Now I mostly read niche, older HR that I spend hours tracking down on Goodreads and instagram lol. Love your blog!! Sorry for the ramble

Thank you, it's not a ramble at all and I think you're making great points.

I imagine Bridgerton got a lot of people into historical romance (not nearly as many as I think the industry was expecting, though), and if people want that kind of HR, that's totally valid. But I don't think a lot of the subgenre's strongest, most boundary-pushing books historically (haha) really match with the "Bridgerton-type" HR. And that's not even really a comment about the books so much as it is about the show.

And like, it's not that there isn't a place for funny, more lighthearted historical romances... I love Tessa Dare, and I think she's amazing at that. Julie Anne Long, too. But one thing I think the show loses (and the books, for me, often don't really hit) is the core love story being super compelling, and the emotionality having stakes. To me, that's what sets HR apart. That's why you write HR over a contemporary romcom. You're infusing an extra level of stakes in the story that just doesn't exist in contemporary. In a lighthearted contemporary, the stakes can be inconveniencing but not life-altering. In even a lighthearted HR (if it's done WELL) you still have to deal with issues of class, the pressure to marry, the sexual politics, etc.

I read a lot of new releases, and I'll be honest; there haven't been *that many* new traditionally published HR authors lately, and some of those I have read have just felt very like... Tame. Toeing the line, feeling like they're being super careful to not ruffle any feathers. Basically, putting a *light* contemporary story in ball gowns. I don't refer to historical accuracy, I don't give a fuck about that, but like the genre conventions of HR that I've always loved--the opportunity for adventure, the edge of danger, the inability to just say what you're thinking due to cultural norms, the hero being a part of the patriarchy and being forced to submit emotionally to the heroine, is just... not really there. And that's just not for me. It's fine if it's for other people, but like... I don't know, if that's the future of HR then I kinda don't know where I fit as a writer there lmao. There are definitely active authors who are keeping up the great work, but not as many debuts that excite me, personally.

And I mean, I think that this is also a publishing issue that's affecting many subgenres as self publishing and trad work through some growing pains. Imo, trad is sort of going "well, we don't need to publish books that are perhaps more subversive and romance/sex-heavy because authors can always self pub" but a lot of authors do not know how to self pub successfully and even if they do... there's never a guarantee that it'll work. Trad is becoming more homogenous, and self is exciting but it's also very very intimidating and becoming more saturated, of course.

But imo, we're probably going to see more and more authors who want to publish more unconventional books--historical romances with kidnapping and lady bandits and good rep, paranormal romances with blood and guts--move into self publishing, which is where dark romance writers have been sitting for quite some time. It's just gonna take a while. And as an author, it's a bit confusing because I never really thought I'd try self publishing first... But I don't know. I'll try to traditionally publish what I'm working on, but it can't be marketed as "Bridgerton meets" fuck all lol. So I'm not sure where I'd belong as a debut.

#romance novel blogging

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queer-and-dear-books · 2 years

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Title: Never Been Kissed

Author: Timothy Janovsky

Genre: New Adult Fiction | Drama | Romance | LGBTQ+

Content Warnings: Mentioned Biphobia | Homophobia

Overall Rating: 9.4/10

Personal Opinion: One of my all-time favorite tropes is childhood friends that reconnect and become lovers. Wren and Derick give me that in this novel. They are adorable and soft and they leave me tenderhearted with almost every single one of their interactions. Another one of my all-time favorite tropes are happy endings and this serves one of the happiest epilogues I’ve seen in a book. So I highly recommend reading it if you haven’t.

Couple Classification: Wren Roland X Derick Haverford = Nerd X Prep

Do I Own This Book? Nope.

Spoilers Below For My Likes & Dislikes:

Likes:

- The most fabulous part of this book is when Wren and Derick promised to do better with their communication. That is all I’ve ever wanted in a book. And yeah, the lack of clear, honest communication at the start is tragic but the fact that they’d reached the point of wanting to do better and putting in the work to do better makes it all worth it, in my opinion. Plus, I absolutely understand why Derick chose not to tell Wren about the demolition given the circumstances. Likewise, I also understand Wren’s blow-up when he found out.

- The ending of this story is quite possibly the happiest that it could’ve been. Everyone gets what they want and it is magnificent. Wren is the new owner of Wiley’s Drive-In and he published a book! Derick reconciled with his family and was allowed to get any job he wanted (choosing to stay on as the social media manager at Wiley’s) instead of following in his dad’s footsteps. Alice was able to sell her place and she reclaimed her fame as a badass woman director. Avery and Stacia are still together, Mateo and Brandon are still together, Wren and Derick are implied to be engaged! I love happy epilogues and this was just so good.

- I’m glad Mateo’s firing wasn’t framed as something Wren did wrong. He was right and I’m so glad Mateo apologized for not doing his job properly.

- Oscar is such a great side character. He sort of exists to elevate other voices and he fulfills that role perfectly. I love when a character does one job and does it well. That sounds weird but it’s true.

- The friendship between Alice and Wren was honestly just adorable. When they watched a movie together, I was deeply moved. Just seeing Alice open up to someone after being an isolated recluse for years is just so sweet. And it makes me so happy that she was able to reclaim her fame.

- I am a sucker for childhood friends to lovers. Wren and Derick have so much history together and it is adorable. I love the flashbacks because they meld so well with the story and it gives us so much more depth to their relationship. To how much Derick means to Wren even though Derick had hurt him before.

- Their present day interactions were adorable too though. The best part was probably the cuddle session on the couch in the basement after watching a bunch of POV Disney ride videos. It’s so unique to this book and it’s so tender and soft. And the fact that Derick was upstairs in the morning making pancakes just fills me with that domestic sweetness that I love.

- Demisexual representation! I love ace rep of any kind really but that conversation between Wren and Brandon was just so insightful. And I love that there is no shame surrounding Wren exploring his sexuality in his twenties.

Dislikes:

- Wren sometimes frustrates me. Mostly when he flat out ignores Derick or tries to stop Derick from talking. He admits that he should not have done that so I forgive him somewhat. But it’s still frustrating that he did that at all. I’m actually more willing to forgive him for the second time he does it. Because the first, when Derick tries to apologize for ghosting Wren, was just unnecessary. It went on for so long and for what.

- Mateo being a bad employee just sucks because I just got so annoyed with him. It made me wonder how he was going to act like a friend to someone who got him the job when he won’t even do it properly? And how is he gonna act like it’s not his fault for almost causing an accident when he’s literally staring at his phone during work! He should’ve been reprimanded earlier but I get not wanting to cross blurred friendship/co-worker lines.

- Derick ghosting Wren sucked! I think this one is personal though. Because it is my absolute worst fear. I’m a socially anxious person and I love my friends. And it was pretty obvious that Wren and Derick were really close up until college. So the ghosting just rips my soul out and tears it into shreds. Then Derick said he didn’t feel the same way but then sent those mixed messages and it was just infuriating. He made me feel frustrated. And I do not like that in a love interest of a book. If they frustrate me, in the beginning especially, it’s difficult for me to see them as good for the protagonist. Even if Wren says they help each other be better, I just… ugh. Communicate better! Thank fuck he promised to do that.

#Booklr #Booksbooksbooks #Book Blog #Book Review #Book Recs #Never Been Kissed #Timothy Janovsky #LGBTQ #Queer Books #Queer Lit #Queer Representation #Asexuality

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duckielover151 · 2 years

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Not to brush aside the cause like it's unimportant, but you'll see a lot of people talking about how their opinions on JK Rowling have soured (AKA, gone up in flames) since her transphobia has become so public. That is true for me also. But that's not really what this post is about.

Harry Potter was a huge part of my childhood as well. I'll probably always have some sort of lingering fondness for it. But wanting to distance myself from anything that might support the author has also distanced me from her works a bit, and I've come to appreciate recently that I think I'm a lot better for it, just as a person who consumes and enjoys fiction. Fantasy in particular.

I've come to notice this past year just how bad the chokehold is that Harry Potter has on the fantasy genre. If it's not Disney or very clearly influenced by HP in some way, you hardly ever hear about other works published about fictional lands/creatures and magic. They just don't get the same kind of publicity. And there are a lot of good ones. (I've yet to explore Game of Thrones in any medium, but I'm almost proud of it now for managing to get big somehow, because it does sound like an original idea.)

Sharon Shinn is becoming a new favorite of mine. I just recently started her Twelve Houses series, and I'm really enjoying it so far. But she's always stood out to me, because I owned one other book of hers growing up, and it's one of my favorites to this day.

It's called The Safe-Keeper's Secret, and it's very fairy tale-esque. Complete with a fictional land and government, a newborn royal heir being spirited away in the dead of night and hidden in an ordinary village, and a bunch of people with abilities that just cross the line of being magical. It's a really charming tale, and I suggest reading it if you haven't. (As well as its sequel/spin-off, The Truth-Teller's Tale.)

But I think a part of why it's always stood out to me, from all the titles on my shelf, is that it's so different from so much of the other fiction available to me at the time. Bring on the stories that feels like someone's D&D campaign brought to life! The books where the first relevant page isn't the start of chapter one, or a prologue, but a map of the world readers will get to know.

(Seraphina and its sequel Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman-- A tale of a half-dragon girl connecting with other people like her in a land where that's very taboo-- outlawed to the point where people don't think the existence of human-dragon hybrids is even physically possible-- is another great one.

And I remember loving Catherine Fisher's Snow-Walker series when I was younger too. In that one, a girl and her cousin are exiled because of her father's crimes-- sent to live with the queen's son, who's rumored to be a monster. Except, they get there and discover he actually just has the same powers she does, and she's paranoid he'll overthrow her one day. Three guesses what they plot to do next...)

Please feel free to add onto this post with suggestions of other lesser-known fantasy stories! I'd love to read more of them!

#a little bit about harry potter and jkr... but mostly other books #book recommendations #fantasy #seraphina #rachel hartman #Catherine Fisher #Snow-Walker #Sharon Shinn #Twelve Houses #The Safe-Keeper's Secret

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human-collector0 · 28 days

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I know that people hate when the author is on online platforms and begs for attention to themselves, and I know authors cannot interact with anyone lest some people decide to ruin their lives with a smear campaign or something.

But I kinda want to get to know the author before I read their work. I don't want to buy book anymore without knowing the vibe of the author. (Para socially just give me some info that you want to share about yourself author.)

I know that there's this push by publishing houses for every author to be a minor or more celebrity and have a following or whatever but I'm just asking for a single html page with all the authors inf- wait don't they already have that?

Ok shift direction, if you're recc'ing a book to me, please include the author's profile too.

Because think about it. I get to know more BIPoC/SWANA/SEA people, they get a new reader if I like them.

Because I want to see if we vibe together. There's some people who I can't stand (nothing on them it's just self-preservation after experience in a unit, and also personality-wise they want different things than someone I vibe with).

I had a good group on Twitter of artists(writing,comics,drawings) that I really chimed with. And I miss it soo much.

I don't have my trusted sources anymore. I want to have circles for Mystery/Suspense, LGBT romance, Horror, Scifi/Fantasy, and other stuff.

I want people I trust again. That I trust their taste.

Time economy, I don't want to invest in things that are useless to me like example het romance that is status quo, patriarchal and the woman gives up in the end and marries the guy, or feminist retelling that's a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a mediocre story.

If someone has time to sort thru the clutter for me, thanks.

I used to go on deep dives on manga+anime sites ,their system really doesn't allow for multiple genre picking so I just clicked on one genre and scrolled for days checking whatever caught my eye on the way to the last page.

That's why I'm so good at parsing what a book is about from the cover and the synopsis.

I found a lot of stuff I liked like that. I loved doing that work and I need to do that work to find the stories I like (because i don't want to laze and become dull in the brain) however nowadays everything is sooo cluttered.

Goodreads lists and storygraph genres and bookshop.org and articles that maybe fibbing because they were paid to say it, and youtube reviewers that I genuinely try to hear and it's just a humming buzzing FM noise by the end.

I think I'm going to complete my series of books and not buy anymore and get by with those. I'm tired.

I'll pirate the rest and send 20€ to their Kofi/venmo ig or get an e-reader.

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the-altered-sequence · 9 months

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Language is powerful, and I’m targeting it at myself

I started writing because I had a cool dream once. I dreamed of genetically altered people hiding underground from some sort of hateful enemy, and it was compelling enough to make it real. I was in love with post-apocalyptic stories and settings but hadn’t yet found an example that embodied all the traits of the genre I wished I saw more of. So I wanted to be the change. I wanted a story where the main character wasn’t a ultra-traditionally-masculine action hero, the women don’t shave their pits, there are major queer characters, and a dog that doesn’t die. I wanted to write characters that felt real, traumatized by their world, but strong enough to keep going, because when I wrote it, I needed that strength to push through my own life.

Bound to Ashes went through so many drafts and changes, it being my first serious attempt at fiction writing. I printed copies at the library to hand out to friends for feedback. One of them even mailed the binder back to me from Italy where he was WWOOFing. I also learned how to format it for eReaders and self-publishing, which I did in 2014.

I think it’s a pretty okay book. If you want to read it, it’s available on Amazon and where you get most other ebooks.

After I finished it, I got really into NaNoWriMo, and wrote other stories. Sequels, new settings, different worlds. But around 2017, I basically stopped writing. Submitting BtA to publishers and querying agents was fruitless and discouraging. I started re-focusing on my visual art instead. Visual art has always been my passion and where I do my best creations-- and it was much more financially viable than writing. I began encountering traumatic responses to things in my life and wanted to address them-- so I turned to writing. I wrote The Plunge, book 4 of The Altered Sequence, in 2022 for NaNoWriMo. Not only did it help with my own life, but I realized I really missed writing. And I benefited greatly from having a true hobby, something I couldn’t be tempted to monteize. Writing fiction about these characters I’ve had with me all these years was the ticket.

I write for myself first and foremost. If I want to write a fun and indulgent scenario, no matter how unrealistic, I lean into it. (Within my own tolerances of cheesiness, of course.) My characters have become like real people in my mind, and thinking of them gives me repose and relief from the stressors of day-to-day. I write (through metaphors) my own problems and conflicts into my stories so my characters can solve them to prove to myself they’re solvable. A bit like art therapy. Language is powerful, and I’m targeting it at myself to help myself out. Writing these has been a present for myself. Re-reading them, I’d forget passages, and experience them for the first time. Reading a book that’s explicitly written for you is a rare experience. It rules. You should try it.

The more I write, the better I get. Bound to Ashes had almost eight full drafts, all very different. It is completely unrecognizable from its first draft. Now, I’m on book 5, brainstorming stuff for book 6. And the draft count is 1-2 now. They’re writing themselves. My prose is becoming tighter, less confusing. It’s almost a shame that to get into the story, one must first read BtA, now the most amateur-sounding of them all. But if you do read it: I love you. And I hope it helps you as it helped me, or at least offers you a refreshing take on post-apocalyptic sci-fi.

The purpose of this blog is to have a place where I can put my Writing Feels and hopefully connect with other fiction writers. I love characters that feel real and I love the authors passionate about them. And I’ll be doing NaNoWriMo again this year, so there will be some shenanigans in November to look forward to.

Stay tuned for Wattpad links to the sequels. If you read this, you’re awesome and I appreciate you.

♥M

#writing #fiction writing #original story #original characters #post-apocalyptic

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