thirteenone | "christmas (not) alone" reflection

cross-posted to tumblr

title: christmas (not) alone
word count: 2,057
pairings: hsu nientzu/yoon seoyeon
link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76319201

background

like many of my works, this one wasn't planned at all. however, unlike my other wips, this one wasn't even preceded by concepts of a plan. the only reason this happened was because yesterday (12/22 pst, 12/23 kst) my friend was like Huh christmas is in three days. and that set a sense of foreboding in my stomach that was kind of groundless because i never planned to put anything out for christmas in the first place. and so, when i happened to finish my side wip today i thought Hey! maybe i could post this one for christmas and think of another one for 0131 (what it was originally planned for).

but this also didn't sit right with me because if i was going to make something for christmas, i wanted it to be christmas-related (which the side wip wasn't) and i definitely Did want to put at least Something out for the holiday, so my next thought was "i'll just Make a new wip in the next 12 hours specifically so i can post it on christmas." three hours later (two hours of writing) and it was finished. but it wasn't really done, because i was unsatisfied with the word count being under 2k, so another half hour later we pulled it up from its original 1.7k to its current 2,048 (like the game LOL). and that's how this one shot was born

plot

going in, all i knew about this was that i needed it done in 12 hours and i needed it to be christmas/holiday-themed. my thoughts went to those mall santas, and suddenly nien had a beard.

and that was another thing: this was the first time i wrote primarily in nien's POV, not just as supplementary or bonus. i like to think it came out well, and it's also interesting to see her humor straight from the source (her brain)(in case it wasn't already obvious, nien [+as a person/idol] really connects to me—especially her humor—so the things that she says is basically what i would say irl, except maybe with some more leaning into the cheesiness).

about yubin, at first i was going to go the safe/typical route of nien's friend who ropes her into it being nakyoung or tone, but then i remembered her recent cosmo live (the one where she blows air[???] into yubin's mouth cause the tteok was too hot and all the while yubin's on a phone call [with jiwoo i think, but idk for sure] and they're both ctfu) which was hilarious to me, and it made me want to see more of their dynamic. they're like a somewhat odd, kind of bro-ey pair? also, i've been rewatching the sunnyz/jjinchinz radio appearances which were just PEAK!!! and i've often found that people who like sunnyz also happen to like jjinchinz (me included) so it just fell together really naturally. we love you yubin 🫰

with chaewon and soomin—well, most people seem to regard soomin as seoyeon's child, so that's the rationale for her. and you know i adore my 13121 family so i had to have chaewon in there, too. and even unrelated to sunnyz, i've always thought that the two of them are so sibling-coded, so this was just perfect. the concept of nien being good with both of them while seoyeon watches fondly Wow this is true peak.

final thoughts

i even wrote this at a normal time, too, at 7pm instead of 11pm. i think i can be satisfied with it, especially since the word count's been bumped up (i have a habit of changing miniscule things even after publishing that ends up shifting the wc slight, but since this one's at 2048 words i'd probably edit it less than my other ones unless it really needs it). it would appear that my short ones tend to hover around 2k words, while the longer ones get closer to 20k (stay tuned for Two more...!).

(as it turns out—in google docs the word count is 2,048. on ao3, though, it's 2,057. bummer 😕)

of course, i always love seeing the 131 tag grow, which is a big motivation for me to write in the first place, so im pretty good with this one!