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fic origin
...is another fic.
I love the other fic I started, but the more I worked on it, the less it felt like a gift fic? and it kept Getting Longer, and I kept getting more stressed about it, and so I decided to put that fic on the backburner and just start fresh with a new PWP
and a major origin was this gorgeous NSFW! fanart by AuburnVivien; said fanart is also where the title inspiration came from.
general notes
Not too much to say on this fic!
Mostly, I am very pleased with how short the exposition was.
but two noteworthy points:
With Wooyoung giggling more than usual as he hugs San goodbye.
Wooyoung is a) San's soulmate, and b) Yeosang's best friend, so he knows both sides of what's going on. He knows that San is overworked but thriving and enjoying it; he also knows that Yeosang is lowkey being blue-balled and has plans to do something about it;
aka, he knows that San is going to get absolutely fucking railed, and he knows San has no idea what's in store for him, and he is absolutely delighted for both of them.
(and yes, I very much did consider an ot3/woosansang option, where the inspiration would be the AuburnVivien fanart with the premise that the fanart was the view that Wooyoung had/Wooyoung was taking a photo; but I knew the word count - and exposition word count - would have shot through the roof, so I tempered myself.)
and I cut out a bit about how San and Mingi were immune from teasing re: their drinking habits, but Seonghwa wasn't, for the sheer fact that Seonghwa opens himself up to clowning by insisting that he has a high alcohol tolerance.
sidebar, but shout-out to Seonghwa's acting chops, because if Yeosang hadn't spilled that they were drinking barley tea during their Coachella performance, I would have 1024% believed it to be booze based on Seonghwa's reaction.
Tags:
Mar. 11th, 2024 05:45 am
[anchors laid - extended author notes]
fic origin
the amorphous base of this fic was 'woosansang / modern pirates / wooyoung is bored, sex'
from there, I'm not certain which came first, but it was either 'okay so atz in the nillili mambo mv verse?' or 'okay so this is a fairly simple idea, now gonna try and keep it short, keep it from over-developing, and write it pretty quickly'
.
so the second stage of planning and building the premise was:
the Nillili Mambo MV having Captain Zico with his pirate crew, and then Hongjoong ending up as a stowaway on their ship and being allowed to stay (not properly joining the pirate crew, but being part of the ship crew; a la Hongjoong as the first KQ trainee, where he didn't join Block B but joined them in practices)
+
the Pirates of the Caribbean quote of "There you are with two ships. The makings of your very own fleet. [...] and you get to introduce yourself as
(ahahahaha whoops it wasn't until I was drafting this where I googled the proper quote and realized that it was Commodore, not Admiral; but the fic was mostly complete by then and I was attached to the title Admiral, so,,,)
.
on the top of the page where I planned the fic/its setting, I wrote KEEP IT SIMPLE SILLY! and so I kind of swore to myself that I wouldn't worldbuild beyond that one page;
so building off the above bits, the flow of the backstory is roughly:
Nillili Mambo has Zico with his right eye with a silver iris (which is a worldbuilding detail that I am borderline feral over); and there's Hongjoong with his right eye injured during the Don't Stop MV;
so I kinda went 'okay, let's go with the idea that Zico also injured his eye; what made it silver?' and obviously the answer is Magic, but there's no magic in the MV;
obviously, the next step is that Pop Time - the producer who worked on Nillili Mambo with Zico, and has worked with Block B and Zico since - is magic!
(and if magic exists, then this is another universe where Sunmi is a siren and also has adopted Wooyoung as her younger brother, because I am a simple man with a simple id; also apparently Sunmi and Zico are friends?)
anyways, the kind of 'path' of Block B is that they were pirates initially; and then they became a bank robbing crew a la Very Good, and they stayed there for a bit; they go from a consistent crew to something more like Ocean's crew - per my notes, 'not in each others' pockets, but a crew' - where they still pull lucrative jobs together, but they've each amassed enough of a fortune where they don't need to come back together all that often; meanwhile, BTS is an organized crime gang; as time goes on, Zico has a desire to go 'legitimate' - he goes into politics, using his obscene wealth and network of connections - he has his own crew, he has his connections with RM and thus organized crime, he has his connections with Hongjoong and his new pirate crew tucked away in his back pocket, he has his friendship with Sunmi which gives him a connection to the maritime supernatural world, and he starts mentoring a new group he's assembled;
so he has wealth and power and connections, and also a boyfriend who is openly critical of the government [sidebar: do I know what the actual geographic setting is? not really! like, it's not real world, but real world adjacent? sorta real-world-meets-Strictland kinda thing? so all the narrative fun of being able to play around with a dystopia without Real World Politics]; he has So Many Different Ways to get Kyung out of jail, but there is the potential that none of them will work, and he'll need to bust Kyung out of jail and smuggled out of the country, and he's kept his connection with ATEEZ under the radar for this exact potential;
-
first lines written:
"I give Wooyoung three days before he gets bored," Mingi says.
Wooyoung pouts at him. (A little stung.)
San coddles him, reprimands Mingi. "Be nice."
"Yeah, hyung," Jongho says. "He can make it at least four days."
+
the Zikyung version:
HJ stowaway
Ky: great! ZC wants to be an admiral
ZC: do I?
Ky: are you really telling me you don't want an empire?
-
I try really, really hard not to psychoanalyze kpop idols, but:
① I think Woo Jiho is all but unrivalled in terms of sheer ambition
② I would bet Real Money (though not a lot, since I don't have much disposable income) that Hongjoong became a BBC after watching the Nillili Mambo MV, or that it was at least a formative influence for him - there is so much of my own art where I can see the specific influence of another piece of art, and in that way I see so much of Nillili Mambo in ATEEZ; I in no way find ATEEZ to be derivative of either Nillili Mambo or Block B, but I find the inspiration palpable; like, yes, there is the Pirate Theme, yes, ATEEZ's debut had the same opening growl, but it's so much more than that; idk how to describe it, but they both inspire the same spark in me and I love it and I love them
-
as alluded to above, there's a part of the process that I put in the AO3 author note:
"I wanted to write something (1) short (2) that didn't get over-developed (3) in a short timespan. Although my success on those three points is debatable, I am pretty happy with the final product."
''debatable''
I am a Fandom Old, I have written fic since the early 00s, and over the years, through trial and error, I have developed some Core Fic Tenets - and ranked high among them is 'neither in your summary or your author notes should you insult yourself or your work'
[insert half a dozen attempts to articulate]
however, extended author notes are a bit of a different beast (if you are reading this, (1) hi! (2) you are here because you already read the fic and are interested in the behind-the-curtains, which allows for a bit less polish and a bit more candid talk on the overall process, which includes a wider scope of the emotional span while ); thus here I can say, had I not trained myself out of self-deprecating talk, the a/n would have read 'and lololol I failed on all three accounts'
(though I would have kept 'but I'm happy with the final product' because I am)
breaking it down-
(1) I would define 'short' as 'under 4k' ; thus, lol nope, did not succeed;
(2) this is the area where I am more willing to provide some leniency; I don't know that over-developing the backstory is fun for me as much as not-over-developing the backstory makes me anxious and makes the writing process more difficult; as well, this ties into the length, of
(3) I started this fic on feb-26 and I was like 'okay, this is gonna be a short fic, I can get this done by either tomorrow or the 29th*, let's go!' - which obviously did not end up being the case; another lolol nope, did not succeed;
⤷ why not the day after/feb-28? because I am particular on the date that I post a fic, and generally prefer odd dates than even dates
⤷
⤷ ''considered'' ''delaying'' jk it just hit half til midnight and I realized I had another 2.4k to finalize
and like... it's this odd conflict of 'I want to set a goal and prove to myself that I can meet goals I set for myself' but also, idk, my therapist and I are working on DBT - so, it's this cross between 'I am disappointed that I did not meet this goal that I set for myself' and 'I am able to forgive myself for not meeting my goals, and I am able to be proud of what I ended up producing.'
-
also, gonna say it here: I'm not entirely happy with the summary. I got two of the key points of the fic - they're on a super easy job doing nothing, and Wooyoung is bored. I feel like it's incomplete without adding 'and Wooyoung is on the end of a bet where he can't say he's bored and also he feels like his boyfriends are ignoring him' but like; I was afraid the other members would come off as jerks unless I contextualized it, but that would require at least a few more sentences in the summary, which would bog it down; so I opted for a short and semi-incomplete summary (with the tags picking up some of the slack of 'why you should read this') than a longer more-complete summary that might be off-putting in its length and over-specificity.
-
references
| Admiral |  |
| Zico (a dork) |
 |
| his boyfriend |  |
| - | |
| the woosansang cabin |  |
| the cuffs |  |
+
what I listened to on loop while writing
(okay actually I made a 'playlist' that I could loop, where it was the above ambience video and then the 20121101 M Countdown Nillili Mambo stage, so that if it were in a background window, I would be made aware of when the three hours had passed. and also because I really like that stage.)
-
what got cut:
(or just didn't make it in to begin with)
- this is so small and benign, but I am so proud of myself, because when I first outlined the story, the first bullet point was 'omg! the Admiral is stopping by the ship!'
⤷ and then I just kind of stared down at the page and was like 'cory... do you really need to write this scene?' and part of me was like 'yes I want to read Wooyoung being cute with Jihoon' but then I was like 'no, no I do not need to include this exposition' and thus didn't write it! - like, I love writing, and I've written a lot that I've had to end up scrapping, but this was a moment of... judiciousness that I rarely exhibit, so, good job me
- hair colors:
SH: [undecided]
HJ: leopard platinum
YH: [undecided]
YS: honey blond
S: dark blue
MG: [undecided]
WY: lilac silver
JH: dark cherry
- Yunho bought each of them an old school Game Boy Color ~ it was cut for brevity, but, for the record, Yunho got each one each customized, so the color of the cases match each member's mic color.
• okay but So far, in the past five days, Wooyoung has read the first five Harry Potter books (and is waiting on Mingi to lend him the sixth) is the nth iteration - originally it had been One Piece, and there a metric fuckton of convoluted exposition about how one of the Admiral's crew (Yukwon) lent them his One Piece manga collection, which was passed around the crew; but then also, wouldn't it make more sense if there were eight series, and they all passed them around? and then Wooyoung was waiting for Mingi to finish; and then I was like, what if I just simplify all of this?
• originally one of the things Wooyoung did to avoid boredom was rearranging the cabin - only when I did an image search for cabins, I realized that most furniture was built in place; thus it became redecorating
• Wooyoung stares him down. “I know where Yunho stores your lube, and I will throw it overboard.”
for the record, Mingi's lube is cherry flavored, which is why the threat of throwing it overboard is so effective; otherwise Mingi would have been like 'okay so i will just steal yours :)'
• for the record, I fully believe Park Kyung would be willing to dislocate his thumb, but also that he would make everyone believe that he wouldn't be willing so he could have that option as an unknown ace in hole
.
and I'm sure there's more, but I'll add those in as they occur to me
[still being tinkered with, I have a Lot to say...]
I was scurrying to finish a fic for Hongjoong's birthday (which I missed just by a day... ...which I missed by a few days, but if I get it a week late exactly, that'll be fine, right...? ...missed by over two weeks...)
and somewhere in that, I had a thought process of-
fic origin
I was scurrying to finish a fic for Hongjoong's birthday (which I missed just by a day... ...which I missed by a few days, but if I get it a week late exactly, that'll be fine, right...? ...missed by over two weeks...)
and somewhere in that, I had a thought process of-
- 'oh hey wooyoung's birthday is coming up'
→ 'oh hey I rewatched the HALA HALA dance practice about five minutes ago and the dance ends with wooyoung surrounded by a circle dead bodies, and now I'm watching Heart Burn and there's a shot of Sunmi surrounded by a circle of dead bodies'
→ 'oh hey I love the Sunmi-Wooyoung sister-brother dynamic, what if I gave Wooyoung the love fever that Sunmi suffers, and all the other members are his lovers from different time periods'
→ 'oh well I'm trying to finish hongjoong's birthday fic before wooyoung's birthday'
→ 'oh hey I'm probably not going to finish the hongjoong fic, I think I'm going to pivot to writing that wooyoung birthday fic' - fun fact: I made the graphic for the fic p early on in writing, and I really like it, and when I was struggling with writing, one of the motivators was that I wanted to be able to finally post it'
- I think I've said 'haha this fic was only supposed to be 4k long' for every fic I've posted so far, but like... this was supposed to be in the 4k-6k range, the fact that it ended at 31k??? like, once I hit the 11k range I was like 'haha I should have expected this, I guess this will be a 15k fic then' and then just.......'
- and it is genuinely just a smidge frustrating, if only because so much of this fic was planned as a parallel to the Heart Burn MV; when I started outlining it, yeah there were a lot of scenes, but I was envisioning it having a lot of scenes the way the Heart Burn MV had a lot of scenes – vibrant and meaningful, but short. '
- but at the same time, [personal personal personal], and so committing to and finishing a piece of writing of this scope was pretty satisfying'
- and then also I was bewildered af because I am a staunch woosansang'er, and then surprise woosansang drop a thirst unit song? and here I am writing a multiship fic when I am not a multishipper???'
- and it is genuinely just a smidge frustrating, if only because so much of this fic was planned as a parallel to the Heart Burn MV; when I started outlining it, yeah there were a lot of scenes, but I was envisioning it having a lot of scenes the way the Heart Burn MV had a lot of scenes – vibrant and meaningful, but short. '
general notes
- of all the fic I've written, both posted and WIP, this is the fic with the most description spent on clothes.
- the wardrobing of the MV was so good at setting the scene, and I wanted to mimic that; (fun fact! in an interview, Sunmi was asked if there was any significance to the time periods chosen, and the answer was no, it was just a matter of functionality re: wardrobing, re: periods they could convey the best with clothes)
- my writing has really gotten scarce on more-detailed descriptions over the past few years, and I thought it would be an interesting personal challenge;
- Wooyoung is attractive and he deserves to be imagined in attractive period-piece outfits'
+ and the same goes for Sunmi
- between awintertiny and main pseud, I have been on AO3 for over a decade! but this was the first time I’ve ever added a skin of my own, so that was exciting
- and it was very important to me, too – I tinkered w my GDrive doc to have the section be centered Georgia font as well, because I really like how it tied back to the Heart Burn MV
- also - I had a minor tearing-my-hair-out argument with myself regarding the location settings - in the MV, the locations are listed as Los Angeles, Texas, Bogota, and Tokyo. which,,, three are cities, one is a state,,, which is more important, matching the MV (and thus keeping 'Texas') or maintaining consistency (and thus having all locations be cities)?
- obvs the answer - both as it can be seen in the final project, and that it is the only possible option for me - is to match the MV
- (the way I internally justify it to myself is that the setting within Texas is too small to have a proper city name)
by time period
Pohang, 1811 / Yeosang
- nothing I write is by any metrics genuinely based on the Actual People; but at the same time, there are some bits I consider to be ‘essential canon’ - and Wooyoung-Yeosang besties is one of them, so having them be the first duo (sub-unit?) was one of the first decisions
- plus, like, the ‘canon’ of Yeosang leaving Wooyoung being what led Wooyoung to meet the rest of ATEEZ
- and okay, I looked up "Pohang beaches" and having one come up as Ilsan Beach??? one of the most fucking punch-the-air satisfying moments of YES! PERFECT!!!
Busan, 1824 / San
- along the lines of 'essential canon,' we have WooSan being soulmates; which is why San is the first that he meets, and why San was the one to reincarnate (first)(*)
- I wanted to have the first meeting to be relatively soon after Pohang, and part of the reason why I picked mid-20s was because I wanted to set it during the cholera outbreak; but in the midst of researching the cholera outbreak(s), I found out that fever isn't a symptom of cholera? which is wild to me? idk, I feel like 'fever' is a symptom of just about every illness, so for it not be was super bewildering
Texas, 1854 / Hongjoong & Mingi
- to a certain extent, these two motherfuckers are why this fic exists; like, yeah, sure there was the parallel of ‘standing in the center of a circle of dead bodies’ between Wooyoung and Sunmi, but for Sunmi that scene was in her 1856, Texas ‘wild west and cowboys’ era… and Bouncy was semi wild west-set, with Hongjoong & Mingi as cowboys… so my kneejerk thought was ‘okay so Yeosang would be Wooyoung's first lover at a to-be-decided-later time, Hongjoong & Mingi would take place the same time as Sunmi’s romances, What Else’
- the last scene for them was originally going to take place in an abandoned church, and I did a lot of research into 1850s Christianity, and while they are both actually kinda atheist, Mingi was raised Episcopalian and Hongjoong was raised Presbyterian.
London, 1890 / Seonghwa
- Seonghwa's sections were perhaps the most – idk, I had a lot of trouble pinning down some elements (aka, where he would go geographically, when he would go chronologically), but once I had my outline Set In Stone, his scenes were some of the easiest to decide on;
- for all the “what are you” convos, I wanted one where WY brushed it off / it was asked in a more intimate moment, so combining Seonghwa's messianic MV imagery had him
- yes I researched New Years Eve kisses; in my research entry, I have a note that says a NYTimes article stated 'one early recorded reference' was in 1863, but I didn't include the link? {to be added}
- I originally wanted him to be in Australia (see: him studying there for a few months), but at the same time, London is apparently Seonghwa’s favorite city, and I thought it would be more romantic
- so then I just made it so Seonghwa was from Australia, which had the benefit of easing English-speaking-related questions, and being a reason for Wooyoung to then travel to Australia
Melbourne, 1929 / Jongho
- in my first jotted-down outline, Wooyoung went from Pohang, to Texas, to NYC, to London, to Sydney, to LA;
- the reason it was set in 1929 Melbourne was because that’s when and where Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries took place, so I had a passing familiarity with the aesthetic and ambiance
- also I want a crossover
- Jongho’s final scene was originally a funeral, with more internal angst from Wooyoung, and a lot of detail in regards to Jongho and the Korean emigrant community, (and me researching funeral customs in 1920s/1930s Melbourne,) but it was a bit of a… I knew even as I was working on it, that it wasn't the Right Choice;
- I think a lot of my 'this fic is becoming too bloated, it is getting less and less like the music video' frustrations started to bubble over, which lead to me rehauling of the scene, and it was absolutely for the best, I liked having the quieter/scarcer/more poetic propse
- his “what are you” scene was also totally rehauled; originally it was Jongho bringing Wooyoung to his flat (and originally there was a lot more with regards to Jongho and the Korean emigrant community), and feeding Wooyoung something homemade, and Wooyoung got super emotional, saying how he hadn't had homemade korean food in so long, etc, but it just never really came together, and so after the rehaul of the above, I was like ‘...okay, what else would prompt the what-are-you conversation?’ and part of me was like ‘hey remember how you wanted to add some exposition re: Wooyoung’s possessiveness and how it brings out the more predatory nature of being a siren?’
Los Angeles, 196 / Yunho
- there were some logistical difficulties, but when I originally mapped the story out, I really wanted Yunho to be the most recent (as it feels like Wooyoung has been obsessed with him the most lately, esp with them as a duo in Crazy Form), and it worked so well to have him in the Golden Age of Hollywood; while it wasn’t the same immediate decision of YS or HJ-MG, he was the next easiest to place
- Eustace!!! it took me Quite Some Time to come up with an English name that I was happy with
- per his name in hanja, Yunho means "live well and correctly" ; the closest that I could find was Eustace (from Eustathius) meaning "well-built, stable"; I'm p sure I have notes that further detail how I made those congruous, but said notes are currently misplaced
- his brother is named Harmon;
- I didn’t want to make him a 1:1 proxy, but as I was writing, I did some research on Korean-Americans in Hollywood, and I came across Phillip Ahn, and definitely used him as an inspiration for what I envisioned Yunho’s career to be like
- this motherfucker was the most difficult to write; like, all his scenes were within the last four to write
Seoul, 2023
clothes
| . | ||||
| 2023, Seoul | Sunmi | Wooyoung | . | |
 |
[omg I cannot re-find the insp photo...] | |||
[Her red hair] contrasts nicely with the lagoon green of her dress, the fabric shimmering in blues and golds as she moves. The top is long-sleeved and loose, the bottom more form-fitting as it ends just above her knees. |
His dress shirt is patterned in a thin black and charcoal striped, unbuttoned to reveal a black tee with a deep v-neck. |
|||
| 2023, Seoul | Sunmi | . | ||
 |
. | |||
She is wearing a simple-but-chic white-black striped shirt, and her hair pulled into a side plait. |
. |
scenes that didn't make it in;
- * scene/dialogue that did not make the final draft: Sunmi and Wooyoung talking re: whether the reincarnations are cycling in order, and whether or not he Missed Yeosang, but it was too… idk, me-covering-my-bases, rather than a genuine part of the story, and the Sunmi-Wooyoung scene flowed way better once I omit it
~~yosh~~
Tags:
Jun. 11th, 2023 06:11 am
awt | base post
Hello~
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➢ post-stasis extended author notes [in progress]
➢ broken windows, quick service author notes [in progress]
➢ burning, beating (let's meet once more) author notes [in progress]
➢ anchors laid author notes
➢ words sweet like honey author notes
➢ bottle green and peach sweet author notes
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dead-ass, if you are here, if you are reading this, I would be 1000% willing to write you something if you wanted; either comment below or dm me '323 base claim' with what you want - I'll admit that I'm picky about the ships that I write, but so long as it fits within those, I'm game.
.
➢ post-stasis extended author notes [in progress]
➢ broken windows, quick service author notes [in progress]
➢ burning, beating (let's meet once more) author notes [in progress]
➢ anchors laid author notes
➢ words sweet like honey author notes
➢ bottle green and peach sweet author notes
.
dead-ass, if you are here, if you are reading this, I would be 1000% willing to write you something if you wanted; either comment below or dm me '323 base claim' with what you want - I'll admit that I'm picky about the ships that I write, but so long as it fits within those, I'm game.
Tags: