sol ☼

When you love someone, you let them know. This is what Minho’s mother told him when he was very young. Back when he had to tiptoe to peer over the countertop, observing quietly.

Minho’s mother wore an apron with ruffles and pockets, more often than not. She bustled around their small kitchen with the fluorescent lights, and she was skilled at handling a knife. She always cut the skins off of Minho’s apples, but she made him peel his own tangerines.

“Eomma will handle the knives, but you’re big enough to eat those on your own.”

Minho hated it. The way the undersides of his nails were stained after the ordeal. How the stringy branches of the pith would cling onto the flesh. When the citrus smell would linger hours after the sweet-sour taste disappeared from the crevices of his mouth. It wasn’t worth it to him and his yellowed nails.

It’s funny, Minho thinks, that he’s doing it now without a single hint of a complaint in his head. Minho hates peeling oranges, but Yongbok hates it more. So he sits there, nails orange-yellow, mouth devoid of sweet fruit, and everything is okay because the shine in Yongbok’s eyes is worth every hour he can’t get the stain out from underneath his nail beds.

There’s a certain type of meditation that comes with preparing food. Just stimulating enough to hold Minho’s focus, just repetitive enough to let his mind wander. He cuts an apple into the shape of a crab. Thinks about Yongbok’s pudgy hand curled into a fist when he sleeps. Cuts pineapples into cubes. Thinks about Yongbok sticking his tongue out when the acid bites back.

It’s about the anticipation. The build-up, and the guessing game of how Yongbok will react. Will there be sparkles in his eyes, like how he gets when the toast is just right? Or will his eyes be scrunched up completely, like how he gets when Minho bakes his favorite savory pastries? Chan would argue that the reward is the process itself, but Minho vehemently disagrees. The best part of it is watching, with sore hands, the pure elation that takes over Yongbok’s entire being.

Minho looks at the spread of fruit before him. Ponders the balance.

fanfic doesn't really have the best reputation. it's cringe, it's immature, it's just porn- i've seen it described as every single one of these and worse!

but it is such an integral part of me that i simply don't understand the hate around such a cool niche part of the internet. it's art! it's made by people For people... and for the love of the game! no monetary value attached to it, only passion and sharing!!!

however, since it's a less socially acceptable topic, it's a little difficult to talk about it with people who aren't necessarily In The Know. but i'm being brave. in the past year, i've been Softlaunching the concept of me being a fanfic writer to my friends. asking them questions like Hey What Do You Think About Yaoi? Yuri? Fanart? Fan... Fiction? and their responses have been really positive! some of them even consume it like crazy!

i'm very grateful that i have such a creative and welcoming group i associate with. but also, it got me thinking. why are some people drawn to fanfic more than others? and what do people get out of reading it?

for me, it's about exploration. learning by experimentation. throwing all the possibilities to the wall and seeing what sticks. i've been writing consistently for about two years now (jeez!) and the vast majority of it has been surrounding the same 8 people, so i'd say i have a pretty good grasp on them.

the concept of people- humanity and society and everything that makes us complex and multifaceted and contradictory- all of that is so incredibly fascinating to me. and it's really ironic because i'm Horrible at dissecting social situations. i'll never understand the purpose of a blind date, or workplace hierarchies, or jokes that aren't immediately obvious.

but when i Can understand something? when i can observe the well-oiled machine that is a gathering, or when i can visualize the actions people take in order to find the best mode of communication? when i can rationalize and figure out the puzzle of Who Means What? i'm FEASTING.

and i guess that's why i'm so drawn to fanfic. when i'm making my own stories, putting characters through conflicts and resolving them, and building a world around one single conversation, it's all controlled by me. i get to spin the narrative around and try to solve it. it's like an ultimate logic puzzle where the prize is people saying "thanks solarfyn i liked this one"! a win for all!

when i first started writing, the stories i had in my drafts were fairly straightforward. it usually featured some outside factor. there's an apocalypse, jeongin's having some religious conflict, jisung has to confess his love to minho, etc. when i look back on them, i see that they're all things that have a very clear "ending". these are stories that require a resolution to feel finished.

as i started to write more, i started trying out more experimental windows into worlds. messy poly relationships where all three members have some sort of inner conflict that they can't talk about. or very short and sweet examinations of the bubbling tension between two roommate-friends-maybe-something-more.

while i can't relate to all of my stories because they're fiction and. y'know. made up inside my head. i found out that i still put a piece of myself inside every one. hyunjin is an artist that struggles with perfectionism. seungmin thinks washing the dishes is a romantic activity. chan doesn't know when to stop and sometimes needs a little more support. whether intentional or not, i am in everything i write. spamming my google docs actually helped me process and work through my flaws and gave me time to figure out my own interpersonal relationships too.

because at the end of the day, i am practicing. i am learning. and i am improving! and it might not be the most traditional way of doing those things, but it works for me, and i hope this makes a bit of sense as to why i write Like That.

thankyouuu i am getting down from my soapbox now <3

^^ extremely unserious footnote under that MONSTER of a blog post. thanks for sticking with me btw...

anyway i think about this post a lot... like yeah dude next time i'm going through a weird social thing i SO am going to visualize felix shrugging and being like "haha be brave. #yolo"

ok ok starting with the ones i want to keep:

writing: still going strong! i have a lot of projects i have planned out this coming year... with a separate post about this planned out!

reading: i have another post about why i'm gonna read more found here.

blog? posting?: i don't know what to call it but i want to keep doing it. i think it's a really great way to sort through and slow down my thought process!

digital drawing: this is something i've been gatekeeping more, only because i'm not too confident in my abilities quite yet. specifically in 2026, i hope to be able to share some more!

embroidery: this is something i discovered this year! super super fun and i've done so many projects and yet. i'm still itching to do more

plants: i want more greenery in my house. always. typically that means getting to steal cuttings from my friends (isn't that cute? i have a bit of my friends whenever i'm at home now, as long as that plant is alive!)

hobbies i want to revive:

ceramics: i was suuuper into ceramics all of high school, and for the first year of college. unfortunately i got pretty busy after that and abandoned it, but i still hold so much love for everything pottery! my school has a pretty cool art studio open to the students so i hope to sign up for a studio slot sometime in the spring :)

building simple electronics: again, a high school hobby. i was really into building mechanical keyboards, but this time i want to expand on that. i want to build mini computers (tinkering with raspberry pi)!

going to... the gym: not really a hobby but i'm still putting it in here. ugh. i was super active in my childhood and teenage years and did multiple sports that brought me joy. cue the sports injury. cue the year of rehabilitation. cue the hesitance in trying again in fear that i'll get injured. but that's all in the past. i was pretty consistent in going to the gym this past month and i want to go more! if you're someone like me (needs to exercise or they'll go crazy) i highly suggest finally accepting your gymfriend's invites and become gym buddies hahaha

sewing: i used to sew all the time. sol lore drop but i've made every one of my halloween costumes from ages 10-17! (after that i just got too busy around halloween and usually just pull together what i have by using fabric paint and thrifting haha) but this is something i'd love to get back into. a lot of my friends are actually fashion design majors so i'm grateful to have them to lean onto while i learn!

stamp making: this is a really niche one but i used to carve into those pink erasers to make stamps. they came out looking wonky but i loved them. anyway i keep getting those wooden stamp carving videos on my instagram so i thought... this is definitely something i need to get back into

hobbies i want to try:

cooking: i'd say i'm pretty good about cooking for myself, but i definitely need some work. i rely heavily on recipes and i'm not confident enough. and i want to fix this, because i love the idea of feeding my friends and family! i just bought an emulsifier for black friday so i'm hyped about finally getting to make my own cream soups...

glass art: i've done this a total of One time (i blew glass and made a cup) and i want to try it again... it was so fun! i keep seeing people make tiny beads or sculptures of animals and i think it's so awesome...

rock climbing: oh yeah. the canonical asian american early twenties trap. sue me. i wanna try it too.

cocktails??: i kind of already do this- i love making different teas and nonalcoholic drinks... i just need to find someone to drink my drinks because ya girl is a serious lightweight and cannot handle more than like. 2 drinks. before i'm sloshed

sending letters to people: i have way too much stationery that desperately needs to be used. and i need to do that soon or my stickers will lose their stickiness!

i think that's all??? this is a really crazy list but even crazier, i really think it's doable... i definitely won't sustain all of them but i think it's better to just keep in mind what i really like... for the future!

i've had a few conversations with a few different people about starting to read again. there's a couple reasons for this.

first, i miss it! when i was in middle school, i read a hundred books a year. no exaggeration, i kept a chart in my composition book of every book + my rating + dates i read them. in high school, that number dwindled down to half- around fifty books a year. now, i'm at a grand total of (staring at my goodreads account) four.

i was having some trouble looking for new material to read- the last time i seriously committed to reading as a pastime, i was solidly the target audience for the YA genre. now, with every year that passes, i'm outgrowing it! so recently, i've been asking my friends (some english majors, some hobby readers) for their own recs so i can hop back on the reading train...

i think i have a good amount collected to start with, and i'm optimistic, because it's kind of like learning myself again! i'm sure my tastes have changed, so it's a really exciting time for me because i get to rediscover all of that.

also adding onto this, in the past few years, i've been making so much stuff. writing fics, engaging in crafts, art, etc. i think i need to balance my creative hobbies with my more consumption-related hobbies (watching tv + movies included) because i'm kind of doing something or making something all the time that i don't have any time to consume anything!

second, see title above. that's right, i'm resorting to paperbacks so i can write Stray Kids Yaoi better.

in all seriousness, i started writing seriously in spring 2024. my first fic was published in june 2024, and since then i've been writing pretty much every week, for several hours. (for context, it's almost 2026 now if you're reading this after it was published).

my first year writing was pretty rocky. i had a lot to learn, and i spent a lot of time figuring out how characters interacted, how to make a story engaging, how to even build a whole new world with every fic. my writing improved exponentially with every fic i released (and i wrote a lot! almost 20 from 2024-2025!)

now that i'm used to writing, my writing has sort of... plateaued. i used to read a lot of fic and was able to improve simply by consuming, and recently, i found out that i've gotten to a point where i can't just improve from reading fic anymore! which is both a plus (because i've "graduated" from that) and a negative (because i don't know what to read anymore!!!)

this actually was a major cause in my recent writers' block. during this past summer, i was having a lot of trouble loving my words- nothing felt right and everything felt distressingly mid-tier. it wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't good, either.

realistically, it was just because i no longer saw my skill shooting all the way up- i was improving, as one does when they practice a hobby, but it was at such a slow pace that i couldn't deal with it.

now that i recognize this, i'm excited to start trying different methods to try and mend that gap between my judgment towards my writing. one of that is by literally switching things up, by reading more.

in the age where consumption by fandom is arguably at an all time high, it's difficult to find that sense of community when there are no more message boards to discuss your favorite fics, and when the biggest platform for kpop rpf is twitter, a platform where you literally scream into the void with a couple sentences per post and hope people respond back. it's not ideal for community building, not at all. (like seriously. what happened to the art of blog posting? twitter even discourages that, with their word count limit. but i digress.)

admittedly, i'm pretty young. i'm in my (very) early 20s and therefore never got to experience message boards of the 2000s. i grew up taking anonymous fandom quizzes, saving screenshotted tumblr posts on pinterest, and found out about fanfiction through those sites. i wasn't even around for the tumblr golden age, and by the time i was brave enough for twitter, it had already been transferred to fuckass elon musk.

but here's the thing. before twitter, before tumblr, i was a discord user. and that was probably the closest thing i experienced to an early 2000s messaging board.

it was a bubble of response and appreciation. people posted their fanart and talked about fan theories instead of ragebaiting for engagement (because engagement literally doesn't matter in a messaging platform like discord). you could go beyond responding- it was a place where you could discuss. it was wonderful. it was magical. and when i joined a new fandom on twitter (yikes) for the first time, kpop rpf, i wanted to see if i could find the same culture.

i thought to myself, maybe because it was focused on writing and creating rather than just regular stan twitter it was different! maybe because i was sharing a space with adults instead of kids this time it would be better!

(i was. so wrong.)

like many people, i soon found myself getting sucked into the consumption mindset and reading completed-only, high-kudosed fics. i was reading So Many fics per week, an uncountable amount, really, and i couldn't remember any of them. i only read through, and kudosed. rinse and repeat. and i didn't see a problem with this because everyone else was doing it.

i feel like a lot of people (at least the people i talk to) participate in fandom as a form of stress relief. it's somewhere to return to at the end of the day, and writing is also a way to kind of relax and have fun. i guess reading fic was similar as well, so it's easy to just want to shut off your brain and just . Read.

(that's how they get you!!! that's how the only-consumption-no-engagement demons grab you and never let go!!!)

i was thinking to myself. I Am Not Enjoying Fandom in a way that i Want To Be. but i didn't know how to change my mindset! but that's where my lovely mutuals swooped in and started doing beautiful things with my timeline...

a few months ago, i noticed a few of them were quote retweeting fic posts with their thoughts. promoting the fic itself, giving the writer more of a platform, opening up a space where people could read and comment and genuinely fostering a community. some retweets were for rare pair fics, some were more popular pairings- it didn't matter, because they were doing something beautiful.

i was so mesmerized! wanted to join! i started leaving comments on every fic i enjoyed even mildly, and i think this is the thing that's most important. i actually cut down on my reading so much- i read only a few fics, maybe a handful on the higher end, per week now. and i remember all of them, because i'm taking the time to leave a conscious comment and promote the fic on twitter if i can.

leaving comments can be so beneficial- to both the author and the reader! the author, for obvious reasons, it motivates them to keep creating. and for the reader, it locks the fic inside your memory for a bit longer. you're literally using your synthesizing + paraphrasing skills and all that stuff you learned in high school english class to analyze + pick out parts you enjoyed. that's an actual skill you're practicing!

anyway, i've been so inspired by my fandom friends. i'm in the process of revamping my bookmarks for easier rec purposes- slowly adding notes + my own tags and whatnot. and it's a great way to re-appreciate the fics i've loved/forgotten in my past!