spring has been returned to me

It's near enough to the end of the year that I figured I'd put together a brief recap of music I liked this year! This is primarily focusing just on albums released in 2022, since I already do a monthly recap of music I listen to, but I'll be throwing a brief yearly recap in here as well to poke some gentle fun at myself.

( what a good spread of albums )

I'm always fond of the month of november--the period between fall and early winter, where everything slowly sheds its colors and the bones of the trees face the sky.

Some misc things at the top of this:

- The yearly love meme run by gdgdbaby is up again details here, and my link is here! It's basically a chance to leave anonymous notes to friends. Link me yours if you're participating this year <3
- If you have spotify and got your wrapped playlist this year, I would love to listen to it!!! (You'll have to make a copy of it and link from that, if you just try to link the playlist itself, spotify automatically directs anyone else to their own version of top 101 songs, instead of yours.)

( it's the season of the sticks AND scorpio season, in my heart )

Originally Posted: 10/31/2022
Updated: 11/06/2022

Context
Hello!

I'm writing this at the end of October 2022. In January 2022, HYBE and Naver announced a merger, in which HYBE's subsidiary beNX (later renamed WEVERSE COMPANY Inc.) would acquire Naver's live video streaming service V Live.

As many of us suspected, Naver recently announced that V Live services would be terminated by December 31, 2022. This includes, to the best of my knowledge, the archives of past vlives of all groups who use that service. There may be exceptions for groups who can work out a deal with WEVERSE to transfer their content, but most of the details remain unclear. (If anyone can provide some sources that clarify this, I will update this paragraph!)

Project Summary
Given the above, I've seen a lot of projects that are archiving individual groups' vlive content, but not any place where fans of multiple groups can find links to these projects. This post is an attempt to start an archive of that nature.

Given also that there's still a little over a month before vlive is completely terminated, I hope that this post might let people interested in archiving smaller groups know whose content has already been uploaded, and where to focus their efforts.

( archive below! )

Have you ever been jogging and wished the tempo of the song to which you were jogging matched your steps? Well, me too!

I'm here to answer your burning question: when I'm jogging, what Stray Kids song will best take my workout from a slump to on track? What song will be my booster? What song is really at my pace? (Ok sorry, I love you, the rest of the post will be serious.)

I listen to a lot of kpop when I'm walking around the neighborhood, and I wanted something that would match my steps when I was doing it, hence this post.
( too invested? could never be me )

Please imagine I have the braincells to make a pithy joke about july here! Busy month! I've tried to make time for friends among work and working on my thesis, but the results have been mixed. I keep telling myself I'm almost through. I'm almost through!!!

( july )

Hello friends! I spent the month of May getting really into MCR while also getting increasingly stressed over my thesis. Also featuring poetry books, a podcast, and a return of my love affair with yowapeda.

( hey did you know mcr is a band in 2022 )

Featuring a Hanif Abdurraqib interview, Hunter x Hunter, Sonic 2, and MCR!

(Doing my thesis rn and so most everything is on hold or being used for procrastination)
( april media )

The end of winter quarter, spring break, and the beginning of spring! Lots happened. I spent my spring break visiting friends rather than reading or watching anything, so this is rather sparse.

( march comes like a )

Longer Fic

Recently I reached out on twitter to ask people who had written longer fic about how they had done it, what their process is like, and if they'd be willing to share their thoughts. I was overwhelmed by the response, and this post is the result!

I've been calling it a roundtable because I think that's what it most resembles: writers I really admire coming together to answer questions about longfic. Imagine, everyone sitting at a table, trading notes, seasonally appropriate drinks in hand. It's a lovely night to pull out a wip.

Since everyone received the same questions, comparing answers has been really interesting.
( read more )

Keeping these together (and editable lol). I've since started winter quarter so I'm not sure if I'll be able to do any more fills, but I'm eyeing "last words" quite a bit so we will see!!

I'll update this with any more fills I do in the future!

Round One (Quotes)

Seungcheol/Wonwoo, 1000w,
failing gallery owner x childhood crush

"it’s dangerous to fuck with people like me. i’ll say yes to anything. heartbreak or bank heist, i’m there, in the passenger seat. i’ll bring the gasoline & my naive romanticism, sacrifice myself to win over a smile. you’ve never seen a devotion so stubborn & foolhardy."
- sweatermuppet on tumblr

you've never seen a devotion so stubborn & foolhardy

"No," is what Wonwoo says first, when Seungcheol's paperwork ends up on his desk.

The man himself stands behind his desk, arms crossed. "You can't say no. I've seen your team, you don't even have enough people to staff the gallery, much less run the campaign you're planning for next spring."

"I'm not accepting your transfer," Wonwoo says, pushing the paperwork back over the desk. Seungcheol is wearing a pressed suit—blue, like he's still a year out of college and wet behind the ears. There's a bit of damp in the shoulders, like he had run through the rain to get here.

"Why not?" Seungcheol asks. Wonwoo heard him ask the same thing a thousand times in high school, voice pitched up in a whine. He sounds steady now. The years after graduating have been good to him.

He hadn't expected to walk up to his office and see Seungcheol-from-Daegu standing in the doorway, like a high school ghost, someone Wonwoo keeps up with only by word of mouth. Seungcheol is the sort of person his mother loves to gossip about in a fond sort of way. Oh, Seungcheol just got accepted to his top college, she'd said, stars in her eyes. Seungcheol's taking a year overseas. Seungcheol wants to catch up next weekend, he's moving out of the city, isn't that nice, a boy who appreciates his hometown.

He'd never hated Seungcheol, but Wonwoo wasn't immune to comparisons. It had been easy to let their relationship fade after graduation—too busy to catch up, out of town, I'll call you another time…

Only now Seungcheol's here at the tiny gallery Wonwoo runs alone, with paperwork from their head office, asking to stay a year. He hadn't even known they worked at the same company.

Seungcheol uncrosses his arms. "What is it? Yah, don't be so prideful. I could be a lot of help."

Wonwoo wants to flinch at the familiarity, too much after so long, but he has other issues. "I've seen your resume, you're overqualified for this position. Why did they even consider assigning you here?"

"I asked for it," Seungcheol says. He relaxes a little more, enough to shoot Wonwoo a smile. "I saw your name and, well, I wanted to see you."

That's. Well.

Wonwoo takes a deep breath. His office always smells a little bit like varnish because Minghao leaves his paintings to dry in the corners sometimes. "As a favor to an old friend then. Let me tell you, this gallery is going to close within the year, you don't want that on your record."

Seungcheol's eyebrows furrow. "That's not what the head office told me. They said you requested three new showings, some promising local artists. Downpaid in advance and everything."

There was a time when that knowledge would have thrilled Wonwoo. Now it just hangs in his chest like a congealed lump of fat. "I'm just trying to close out the gallery without going into bankruptcy. If the shows go well, I can pay off our initial investors and rent out the building. I know that's probably not what you wanted to hear, but this place is headed into the ground."

Seungcheol's mouth parts on an "o" of understanding.

"I'll write you a note for the return," Wonwoo says. "Nothing to do with your qualifications, you can be reassigned—"

"I want to stay," Seungcheol says. There's a little bit of that boy from Daegu in his eyes, fiery and intense. "You need me, Wonwoo. There's no way you can launch these shows on your own."

"We haven't talked in years," Wonwoo says. "Why are you so insistent?"

"Don't say no. Let me buy you a drink after work. We can catch up," Seungcheol says. He doesn't answer the question.

***

Later, when he's drunk, and the pojangmacha's lights are swinging around his head, Wonwoo puts his heads in his hands. The air within the tent is warm and sticky with grease, the elbows of his shirt picking up unmentionable stains. "I can't back out of these shows" he says. Sound reaches him in wingbeats. There and gone again. "I can't let this go into the red."

Seungcheol's fingers brush the cuff of his shirt, and something in Wonwoo's stomach lurches uncomfortably. He jerks away.

"Why not?" Seungcheol's voice is warm and light. It's the same thing he asked back in Wonwoo's office, but kinder now. More coaxing.

"When I was looking for investors, my mother…" Wonwoo starts, and can't finish, lungs choking on air. He panics whenever he thinks too hard. He breaks out into a cold sweat, shivering beneath the golden lights.

Sometimes, with horses, trainers put blinders on their eyes so the animal can't see behind or to the side. It's for their own good, so they don't startle at sudden movements, or start galloping when still attached to a cart. They don't see a crowd cheering in the stands or a fire starting just under their nose. Looking only ahead, the horse can be led through things that would normally frighten it out of its goddamn mind.

Wonwoo smells smoke.

"I have to repay her," he says, careful to think of nothing at all. "I can't back out now."

Seungcheol doesn't reach out again, but he also doesn't move.

Wonwoo sucks in a breath between his teeth. "I won't let you go down with me, Seungcheol." The silence stretches, punctuated with the chef rattling around to the side. Metal on metal, oil bubbling, the rain. Wonwoo just wishes Seungcheol would say something.

"I'm sticking around," Seungcheol says, voice a little too firm, like he's trying to prove a point. He'd be an awful horse trainer, Wonwoo is pretty sure. Would dig in his heels at any provocation, would be stupid enough to try and change the horse's mind.

"We'll talk in the morning," is all he says. Leaves it at that. Maybe by then, Seungcheol-from-Daegu will figure out what a stupid idea it would be to trust Wonwoo with his time.

Wonwoo/Jeonghan(/Chan), 400w, superheros + ex-mentors + resentment and jealousy

Are we only biding time 'til I lose your attention?
And someone else lights up the room?
People love an ingénue.
-Taylor Swift ft. Phoebe Bridgers, Nothing New

i die every time you look away from me

The first time Wonwoo sees Lee Chan, he hasn't yet picked a hero name. Not that Wonwoo would have asked. He's trailing along in Jeonghan's shadow, another in a long line of sidekicks Jeonghan has taken on. Like a dog, Wonwoo thinks, and curls his lip as he turns a corner.

Lee Chan is part of a lineage now. That was how Jeonghan had described it when he took Wonwoo on, as he threw Wonwoo into the mats again and again and again. Wonwoo spat blood and got up. He got up.

People Jeonghan takes on become legends and then he lets them go. Wonwoo hopes it hurts, when Jeonghan's new boy realizes it's not going to last.



The next time Wonwoo sees Lee Chan is in the middle of a fight. Dino, he recalls briefly. His handler had called a meeting about it. Jeonghan had called in a few favors to give the new hero some more experience, and Wonwoo's team had agreed before he could even blink twice. Resentment gains him nothing, but that doesn't stop the feeling from sinking its teeth into his spine. His heart is a bad dog, bites down on things it should know better than to chew.

Despite what Wonwoo might have expected, Dino isn't doing well.

Wonwoo doesn't think Jeonghan would have let him into the field without some skill, but whatever Dino is trying to do with his super powers isn't working. He's huddled up behind a wall while some henchmen rain bullets in his direction.

No one is around to help him. Wonwoo is cloaked in invisibility on a nearby ledge, don't look this way like a whisper on the wind. The gunshots are deafening at range, and Wonwoo sees Dino flinch.

Jeonghan is off on some mission alone. There is no one else to save him.

Wonwoo takes a breath and jumps.



The last time Wonwoo sees Jeonghan's new boy is when he shows up on Wonwoo's doorstep, and asks for a place in his team.

Lee Chan looks Wonwoo in the eye when he makes the request. He's ambitious, the talk of the town. Newest in a line of legends. Wonwoo has worked with him a couple times since that fight--had drinks with him a couple more.

Wonwoo struggles to keep an ugly grin off his face. Jeonghan's boy. The next time Jeonghan sees him, he'll be Wonwoo's.