Jelly practices writing

I did a blackout bingo for the qzgs october-ish fanwork rec event!

More info on the event here: https://shadaras.dreamwidth.org/181475.html

Full list of recs below!

So I realized I said I would write up a post about my 2022 qzgs bigbang fic in like July, but I never got around to it, oops. But I just wanted to post something with my thoughts on wjx and why I portrayed him the way I did because this fic is special to me.

Take your time (Oh, how we've grown) - WJX/YX amnesia/time travel fic, 16k oneshot. romance, rated T.

Summary:

“Wang Jiexi, what season do you think it is now?”

Wang Jiexi frowned. “It’s midway through season 8, why?”

Ye Qiu closed his eyes, taking a moment to process this. “I think we need to get you to a doctor,” he said with careful measure. He drew in a deep breath before answering Wang Jiexi’s question. “It’s not season 8. It’s the summer before season 11.”

Spoilers below!

In between their second and third rounds of PK, Yu Wenzhou noticed the near invisible sheen of sweat on the captain’s forehead and hesitated.

One battle later, Yu Wenzhou pulled away from the computer, a bitter smile on his face.

Wei Chen didn’t say anything but stared, haunted, into Yu Wenzhou’s eyes.

Fics posted/updated: 11

Fandoms posted in: 1 (lol)

Total word count: 40,917

2020 Memories

Most proud of: My bigbang fic! Seas, snails, and puppy dog tails: how to make him fur-ever yours

The fic everyone was yelling at me about: my fated, my glory

The masq fic that only one person was able to shoot me for: muscle and nerve (rest easy)

our apple blossom spring love

Yu Wenzhou lacked a good reason to refuse Ye Xiu, so he just nodded. It was only the four of them, two men and two dogs, walking along the beach to the rhythm of the waves as the sun disappeared beneath the horizon.

There’s an odd sense of anxiety in the air that infiltrates the room the way a thick bank of fog creeps in over a valley and smothers everything in its path. Everyone’s a little on edge. You can hear the whispers as you pass through the hallways on the way to the team meeting. How far the virus has spread in other areas. How maybe the company will shut down. How you should start making preparations just in case. 

You’ve never been one to keep up with current events. It doesn’t seem so bad when you look straight ahead and hurry straight down the hall to your meeting. Later, you might lament that you didn’t take your time. That you didn’t stop by the front desk to congratulate the receptionist for her nephew’s birth, that you didn’t poke your head in to greet your coworker as he shuffled in after his lunch break with a bag of Chipotle, that you didn’t sneak by the kitchen to grab a coffee and pocket a couple of chocolates from the candy jar. But you didn’t know that this might be the last day you would be able to slink into the conference room five minutes late, so you make it to the meeting, coffee-less and on time.

The team leader happens to be your best friend and roommate. He’s always been the image of perpetual calmness, and today is no different. Seeing him act the same way as usual sets your mind at ease. Within the soundproof bubble of the conference room, the virus doesn’t exist and you can talk freely about future plans to contact so-and-so and schedule as many pointless meetings as you want. 

It’s not until everyone else leaves that your best friend sinks into his chair and rests his head in his hands. 

“I’m really worried,” he confides in you, and suddenly you can’t pretend anymore. You want to comfort him in the way that he often does for you, but all of the usual words roll around uncertain on your tongue. 

“Me too,” you say instead, and you sit there with him in silence until the hour changes and you need to go back to your desk. 

It’s hard to focus on your work. You alternate between checking your email, Twitter, and newsfeed every fifteen minutes. You’re feeling antsy in your seat, so you get up to stretch a bit. Every day around 3:45, you take an eye-break from staring at your monitor and make rounds around the office. You hope that the light exercise will help settle your nervous energy, but instead it seems to build as you feed off the buzzing apprehension radiating from your coworkers.

The email you’ve both been waiting for and hoping never comes arrives in your inbox only a half hour before closing. Like an iceberg finally calving into the sea, suddenly everyone is rushing about, trying to figure out what needs to be taken home in order to continue on the project, if the project is even still running. 

You stuff some files into your backpack. Files from today, files for tomorrow, files you’d been planning to get to next week. You then pack your work laptop, but hesitate holding your wireless mouse. It technically belongs to the company, but you’ve always preferred using a mouse to the trackpad. The mouse ends up tucked into a pocket. You can return it when you get back you figure. 

The last part is tricky though. You have two potted plants on your desk, but can only carry one of them in your arms. If you leave one at the office, it would surely dry out and die.

Your best friend saves you once again by offering to carry the other plant. 

You breathe a sigh of relief. 

“At least you’ll be with me,” you say, and he gives you an exhausted smile.

The two of you exit the building and hop on the bus like you would on any other day, but with two potted plants sitting on your laps. The neighborhood has a different feel when you finally get off the bus. These waters are familiar, and yet, uncertain

He blocks the opponent’s sword with a parry of his spear. The red health bar on the left side of the screen is less than a quarter of the way full, but the opponent’s health bar on the opposite side isn’t much longer either.

Beads of sweat roll down his neck. It’s the coldest night of the year, but he is warm from the heat of battle and the warm air blowing out from his desktop. The room is dark but for the light coming from the monitor and the shifting rainbow colored glow from the backlight of his keyboard.

His left hand taps rhythmically at the keyboard while his right makes adjustments with the mouse. Half of the icons in the tray at the bottom of the screen are grayed out as skills used previously wait to come off cooldown.

He leans slightly forward from his high-backed gaming chair. He has bags around his eyes from too many nights of staying up gaming, but his eyes are wide open and focused, pupils making rapid movements from opponent to status bar to skills.

Clang! Clang! Clang! The sounds of the battle flood the neon green headphones sitting atop his slightly long dark hair. The view on the screen whirls around as his character evades and blocks the enemy attacks while sending out a few jabs of his own.

Both health bars are dangerously close to zero. His heart is pounding in his chest like a prisoner banging against the walls of his cell. His bare feet press deeper into the hardwood floor.

The enemy’s sword flashes white as it slashes down with a high priority skill. He tanks the damage instead of dodging, holding his breath at the few percentage points of health left. The enemy has miscalculated, failing to kill him off in one strike. Using the extra second gained from the ending animation lag, he holds down his T key to charge up his spell, causing the black iron spear to light up with crackles of purple lightning as a dark ball of magic grows at the tip.

Releasing the spell, he maneuvers the spear to send out another stab right as the dark orb pierces the enemy’s armor and explodes, sending shockwaves of electricity through him and knocking the character backwards in a smooth arc. The swordsman lands in a bloody heap on the sandy gravel of the arena while the golden word “VICTORY!” falls over the screen.

Releasing a breath as he shakes out his wrists and leans back in his chair, he adjusts the microphone of his headset closer to his mouth.

“Come on, bruh. Are you even trying?”

There was still light shining from underneath the door to Jamie’s bedroom when he finally clambered up the stairs to bed. 

The hallway stood in eerie stillness, the quiet of night indicative of just how late it had gotten. Shadowy piles of boxes stuffed to the brim with old picture books and clothing to be donated stood watch against the banister like silent soldiers. Standing in front of the blue and white painted door, he shifted his weight under their gaze, the floorboards softly protesting the extra fifteen pounds he’d put on since last June.

“Jamie,” he called out lightly, pressing an ear against the white dotted stars he and Jamie had painted together one summer afternoon when Amanda had decided that the boundary to her older sibling’s sanctuary was an appropriate display for her Sharpie artwork. 

With a gentle twist of the doorknob, he pushed open the door to see Jamie laying splayed out in front of their laptop, with their head resting on a folded arm and one hand still cradling a green cased iPhone. A stack of spiral bound notebooks was pushed to the side of the desk, atop which sat a half-eaten bowl of salt and vinegar chips-- the remnants of a late night snack.

He sighed in defeat at the child. 

Jamie had already changed into pajamas, a pair of old cotton shorts and their favorite graphic T-shirt that they insisted was not cool to wear in public, but their dark mop of hair was still wet, a used bath towel hanging haphazardly off the back of the desk chair. Their legs, tanned and muscled from the long hours of spring lacrosse season, were tucked underneath themselves with one foot up on the seat of the chair and one foot brushing the floor beneath it.

The laptop screen was angled slightly downward, as if they were still watching the Brookline 9-1-1 or whatever that was still playing on low volume. He reached over the sleeping teen’s head and pressed the spacebar, freezing the two figures in their wildly humorous discussion before closing the lid with a gentle click. 

“Don’t complain if your neck hurts tomorrow,” he murmured, gathering up the wet towel from its precarious position on the chair. 

“Sleep tight,” he said, flicking off the lights.

It doesn’t feel like everything is spinning.

It’s the sensation of rocking.

Back and forth, 

constant,

like you’re on a boat.

Sometimes the waves are small.

Peaceful rocking, docked safe at the harbor, one step away from the shore.

It’s enough to not mind, to lose notice, when you concentrate hard enough.

When you were a child, these waves rocked you to bed at night,

the last thing you remembered before slipping into a dream.

You were once told that it was nothing but a dream

so you learned to keep it to yourself, a whisper lost among the waves.

Now though, your boat goes out to sea.

The waves are bigger now, out on the open ocean.

There’s a feeling that something is not how it’s supposed to be--

Your legs are looking for dry land, but the ground is moving beneath your feet.

You can still move if you walk slowly,

but running on deck feels like it could be dangerous.

Occasionally, you’re hit with a big wave.

Six foot swells that make you pause in place.

You feel like you should hold on to something, 

but of course, everything is moving with you.

There’s nothing you can do but wait for it to pass.

It feels like you’ve been on the water for a while now. 

It’s getting harder to remember the feeling of solid ground. 

You want to go back there,

Works published: 11

Chapters published: 23

Word count:  39,949

Self-Awarded Achievements: 

Until My Body Breaks: 1 year anniversary award, 10 chapters award

destiny within our hands: masquerade winner

translations: crackfic of the year award

catch a falling star: darkfic of the year award

forget-me-not: first fic translated award

It felt like a thousand eternities contained within a single second.

“Don’t you think that palm reading is like a self-fulfilling prophecy? Even just the state of knowing influences a person’s behavior. You wouldn’t know whether it was true or not until the very end, and even then, would you change around the experiences in your memory to match what you thought was destiny?”

Ye Xiu wriggled himself further into Han Wenqing’s arms.

“We don’t need to get married. Let’s make our own fate.”

To stand aside and watch you