For The Wip Challenge: I Wish I Could Just Ask For Every Wip In Your Post But I Guess It Will Be Too

For the wip challenge: I wish I could just ask for every wip in your post but I guess it will be too long 🙈 so I start with these two lovelies 😌

Korean Myths & Destination Seoul

HELLOOOO <3 thank you @orphicpoieses for the ask!

ahhh you can ask anything you want! just letting you know that 12:01 has already been answered in my previous posts hehe.

ooh, destination seoul. the project that has my heart and also the project that drives me insane. basically, it's: a fake dating ya romance set in Seoul, Korea where a teen tries to escape the blind dates her chaotic family sets her up on for her aunt's wedding. mostly it touches upon going back to your roots and really accepting it, as i've seen (and felt personally) more of a trend where as people are pulled between two cultures, they struggle to choose both, and think that they can only choose one. I just hope it represents the idea that it's not too late to accept your culture, and you don't need to live in a place to accept your family's origins!

anyways. onto the korean myths because this is still in the work and an interesting one. the premise is still in the works, but it's based on the tale of the abandoned princess in one of the folklore there, and possibly with a mix of beauty and the beast.

an abandoned princess sets out to find the cure of a disease plaguing the kingdom while it is on the brink of rebellion in order to prove her family's worth and save her father from treason. the cure: a dragon's pearl, except the owner of the pearl - the exiled prince - is cursed to turn into an imoogi, a beast of war and destruction. one desperate to save her family, and the other desperate to prove his worth, they set off to the depths of hell to truly find the plague's origins, and who caused it.

and that's kind of what i have for now? i'm still plotting act 1, but there's definitely all kinds of mythical creatures (gumiho, dragons, etc.) and betrayals and themes of worth and found family woven in!

Art by Richard Lay

Hi! Are you still writing what fate decides? I love it it’s so sweet ✨💖

hiii <3 wowowow feels like I've been gone forever. sorry for this super late ask as well hehe. uni has started for me once again, and i've been outlining + trying to decide on other projects, so it took the back burner for a while and now wfd is returning!

currently the next chapter of what fate decides is done and undergoing edits, so it'll be up soon! sorry for the long wait!

god i understand that people pitch stuff this way because 1. thats how publishers want things pitched in this day and age and 2. it's honestly a kind of pitch that the majority of consumers understand much better than, like, an actual description of a thing. but seeing every new work be branded as "[popular media 1] meets [popular media 2] with a [list of marginalized identities] protagonist!" is soooo supremely soulsucking

when my name was keoko

ahhhh hello hello (not me coming back from the dead to talk about a novel of all things) but i just wanted to get this post out first before giving myself time to breath and enter the social media world again haha.

i think i spent the last few months researching about korea, its history, and just the folklore surrounding the culture. and there's just one book i stumbled on that i thought i had to talk about: when my name was keoko.

set in Korea during Japanese colonization and WWII, this book alternates the POV between a young boy and girl, both siblings, who have not only lost their names but identities as Koreans. it's the most heartwrenching and heartwarming book you'll ever read.

and it's hard, finding a book about Korea colonized. i'm just grateful that this book exists, and I had the opportunity to read it.

so if anyone wants to check it out [and read my long ass grateful/sappy review] go right ahead!

i'm just grateful for this book for existing.

if you don't know, Korea has been colonized by Japan for years, decades even. as a Korean American, there's barely any readings (much less teachings unless you search for them) on this topic; it's also even more difficult to find a novel based on the context of this era.

this era is so, so, important. it is the cause of the strained relationship between the two countries, a consequence that continues to this day. it is an era that all, and I truly mean all koreans remember. colonization has shaped us, but haunted us as well.

I come to Korea, and my grandmother remembers like it was yesterday. my mother lived through the park chung-hee era, under a dictatorship and through the march revolution. so many historical events and issues in Korea that I was never taught as an American, that I could never follow, that i was ashamed to learn.

it just shows the strength that we had. we lived through this. we found ways to fight back. we found ways to preserve our culture - our names, our language, our national symbols.

it's insightful, horrific, intriguing, heartwarming, and tear-jerking. but I'm just so grateful that somewhere out there, this book is piecing together another part of Korean history that is unheard and untold of.

plotting day 25 (or something along those lines, maybe longer)

We live in the same four walls, in the same courtyard, in the same pagoda. And yet, we couldn’t be more far away, like when there was a vast ocean between us. There is no glue to reunite my family together—only determination and desperation. 

everything and nothing makes sense.