ponyohoon

and when i say extended, i mean extended. i always feel like i have so much to say about my fics, and i’m not big on being active on my twitter account, so i usually just have to rely on someone on neospring asking the exact question i want to answer if i want to talk about my thoughts. but i thought it’d be fun to just compile them all here, instead (but still, ask me as many questions as you’d like because i always have more to say about anything truly). one of my goals for this year is to be more intentional with what i post and how i post it, and i want to make sure that when i do post a fic i’m really truly happy with it and i give it a little more time and attention once it is posted instead of just breezing onto the next one. so if listening to me yap about every source of inspiration and piece of lore that didn't make it into the actual fic sounds fun to you, then buckle in! it will be long-winded and ultimately will say hardly anything of substance at all. the ponyohoon way, if you will.


first, let's talk about our three main characters (sunghoon, jay, and wonyoung) and where the inspiration for them came from (spoiler alert it's all just an amalgamation of other media i enjoy. shocking)

ice dance & jangkku & me

so. before 2018 i was not aware of the existence of ice dancing, and before starting to work on this fic in april of 2024, i had no idea how fucking absolutely bonkers bananas interesting it was. and the only reason i was aware of its existence was because of canadian ice dancers tessa virtue and scott moir and their 2018 pyeongchang olympics performance that absolutely changed my brain chemistry when i was a wee little 17 year old hopeless romantic canadian girl. i knew nothing about the technical side of things (and i still absolutely do not, to be clear) but i knew i wanted, no, needed these two to get married and have one million babies. they got me. they still kind of got me lowkey i’m still disappointed they didn’t end up together. the CHEMISTRY. the HUG. the SECOND HUG!!!!!! it’s unbelievable. anyway all this is to say that this is the vibe that jangkku would have been bringing to the table for their olympics performance and like. tell me y’all wouldn’t have been shipping them too. tessa and scott had a grip on the nation of canada for actual years because of this performance alone and i think the jangkku effect would have been very similar. can you even imagine the slow motion dramatic tiktok edits that would come out of that. i actually need to find a way to live in my own fic universe so i can like every single one of them.

originally, jangkku were going to just be pair skaters, but i ended up deciding to go with ice dancers instead because i really was just so captivated by the sport. like, all figure skating is absolutely impressive and awe-worthy to someone like me who literally can’t even stand up with a pair of skates on, but something about ice dancing just really felt so sunghoon to me (and that is to say that i loved it because i love anything that feels like sunghoon). it’s just as restrictive and rule-heavy and organized as figure skating (and excuse me while i get a bit speculative and perhaps a little parasocial) and i already love to think about how sunghoon would have Capital F Felt growing up in an environment like that, but then – throwing in the fact that ice dance is also about connection, about relying on and trusting another person, i thought of how sunghoon talks about preferring the company and friendship he has as a part of enhypen over doing it alone as a figure skater, and i thought it’d be interesting to explore how he might feel about figure skating with a partner. wonyoung was the natural choice, because, well:

“honestly, she helped me a lot, since she debuted earlier than me. i’m always thankful to her.”

i think their personalities would have worked as well together as ice dancers as they did as mcs. i also think they’re maybe the two most beautiful people alive and my ults and i want to imagine them skating together in pretty outfits. sue me!!!!!

so, then, that’s the vibe of their olympics performance. but if you’re wondering about their final, gold-winning performance that they would have done in the italy section, i would say it’d be along the lines of papadakis and cizeron in beijing 2022. i discovered this after falling down a rabbithole of ice dance performances and it just blew my stupid head right off my shoulders. crazy crazy work. one of the most beautiful things i’ve ever seen probably. again, i know nothing about the technical side of things but i know what i like and i LOVE this. i cried the first time i watched it. i cried again watching it when i looked it up to link it here. that jangkku performance, being their first final after the olympics and setting the trajectory for the rest of the career they have remaining, i imagine being so triumphant and so emotional and this just captures that perfectly.

of course, it would have been nice if i could have described any of that in the actual fic, but i knew from the very beginning that i was going to have to keep all the skating talk pretty vague and brief. i’m not very good at describing things i myself do every day. i struggle to write a scene where someone brushes their teeth. so i knew there was no chance of being able to write out descriptions of something that i find so moving and so beautiful. but i hope that watching these two performances can fill the void of that!!!

(also, if you’re at all interested in learning about the basics of ice dancing, this reddit post i found about halfway through writing this fic was super helpful in making me feel like every single word i typed related to skating was completely inaccurate and made me sound like a dumbass. it was an actual miracle when it came to learning what they would/wouldn’t be doing compared to the little information i knew about figure skating, and i probably would have given up completely on this fic if not for it. i don’t like doing research. can you tell)

I'M THE ELDEST BOY aka jay's characterisation

i wish i was lying when i say i used three sources and three sources only for every bit of business related talk in this fic: hit hbo drama succession, the accompanying wiki, and my gf with a desk job who told me that a fiscal year does not necessarily need to end in march and therefore the fic could be set in july if i wanted it to be. but mostly the first two, although the third continued to be a true pillar of support in other ways of course. i really don’t know why i decided to write a fic about so many things i know absolutely nothing about but i did and i had a blast and a half anyway and that is truly the power of Keeping It Vague and Not Doing Any Research. but still, i did manage to look up things like “how much is logan roy succession worth” and “what the fuck is waystar royco” and i think that’s so brave of me. in another universe, where this fic had more jay-focused angst and less sunghoon-focused angst, jay would have been so kendall roy-esque i would have probably gotten a cease and desist from hbo. but alas, he’s just a silly sweet misunderstood guy who isn’t tortured by the need for approval from his father. or, alright. he definitely kind of is exactly that BUT by the time the fic actually begins he’s over it. mostly. love that journey too

i feel like jay is always the Guy Who’s Doing Okay in my fics. he’s just so unbelievably well adjusted irl that it’s kind of impossible for me to picture him as anything else. i think that’s why i love writing his ships so much, particularly jayhoon jaywon heejay etc, because i’m kind of obsessed with couples where one person is experiencing horrors beyond human comprehension and the other is like. really truly just chilling. here if you need me babe. there’s something so special about someone loving you through the worst time of your life… especially considering that jay, at the beginning of the fic, is in a brand new chapter of his life built around freedom and happiness and chasing whatever will bring him that, while sunghoon is trying to put himself back into a chapter that he thought was closed for him forever. like. they’re not in the same headspace at all when they meet. they’re living completely different lives with completely different goals (superficially, at least, with sunghoon trying to force himself back into a routine that doesn’t fit him anymore and jay trying to break out of a routine that never worked for him to begin with) but jay understands sunghoon anyway, because that’s just who he is.

so, then, with all of that being said about our main characters -- sometimes i wish i didn’t enjoy writing in only one pov as much as i do, because i can never find a way to weave in information about the non-pov characters, even the love interest, and i always fear that things feel a little unresolved because of it. and while i do like to leave gaps for assumptions and speculation in my fic (seriously it’s a hobby/problem of mine) there are some gap-filling pieces of info i would have sprinkled in if i was a better writer. so, if you’d like your gap filled (please get your mind out of the gutter i didn’t even mean it like that omg) here’s a section called:

Things Going On With People Who Aren't Sunghoon

• jay’s dad is not necessarily a cartoonishly evil villain, but he definitely is not a good guy or moral billionaire ceo (because that is an oxymoron and doesn’t exist). in my mind park co. is a media company primarily, and they own a major news source of some kind, one that they’ve been pushing progressively more in a right wing direction over the years. bad bad stuff. and i think jay probably had a hopeful delusion about being able to change the trajectory of the path they were going down when he took over but once riki left, he realized it wasn’t really possible, so he got out of there and made sure there was at the very least someone there who can and will challenge his dad. i also think that a couple years after the story takes place jay and riki do work together to do kind of a takedown on the company and expose some secrets etc etc
• yujin puts up a fight for exactly two days after the heejake wedding reception afterparty extravaganza before she agrees to go on a proper date with wonyoung. they also go skating because sunghoon and wonyoung both have only one (1) Big Move and it’s literally just showing off. bless them. yujin and wonyoung are far more careful when it comes to getting caught than jayhoon ever were, because yujin is just more aware and also because they’re not dumb idiots who make out in airport bathrooms. so if it wasn’t clear that’s why yujin is pretending to just be at their last comp of the fic as jay’s manager and not as wonyoung’s very supportive gf. (and yes, they did dtr way faster than jayhoon did. shocking, because my usual annyeongz characterisation would have them taking anywhere from one to five years to even figure out they even have feelings for each other. i still stand by that but i just think this wonyoung would have done absolutely whatever it took just to have something to hold over sunghoon’s head, considering how much she teased him about a four month long situationship dkjsfhkgdsh)
• now if you’re wondering why heeseung hated jay so much, here’s the truth: i honestly forgot to come up with a reason. sometimes i just write dialogue without actually thinking about what it implies because it makes me giggle and then i have to retroactively come up with a Lore Explanation for it and this time i just. could not. and then i thought it’d be funnier to just not explain it so yeah. feel free to come up with your own theories on this one cus i got nothing
• the sunki situationship of it all is another thing that i did not really think too much about – because, fun fact, the fic was originally supposed to have side wonki instead!!! and the only reason why it didn’t was because i couldn’t come up with a way for riki and jungwon to meet and fall in love with the amount of scenes i had left to write, and because the idea of america’s sweetheart actor diva sunoo and mysterious jetsetting supermodel riki had me foaming at the mouth a bit. what can i say. and then in a last minute impulse i was like. let’s throw in our very reserved practical no-nonsense manager jungwon. who else could make this situationship a relationship but him. He Can Fix Them.
• and, speaking of, the whole thing about sunjay being mistaken as a couple by the media was also a throwaway line that i had to come up with lore for. i was trying to emulate the way a gossip magazine would randomly bring up an ex of a celebrity when they’re spotted with someone else, and i already knew at that point that i wanted sunoo to be a huge actor in this universe, so i just put his name there as a placeholder until i thought of someone else to put there and then eventually decided that i liked him being mentioned so early on in the story, that way his arrival later didn’t feel out of place. because he’s such a minor character and i have this compulsion to make sunoo important in everything i write, i settled for having him kind of loom over the story as an unanswered question for a bit. and i also think it ties into the whole overarching theme of like. how the narrative that is created for two people can shape their relationship. like sunjay just being spotted together hanging out as friends a few times (because in my head, i think jay kind of saw sunoo as a way to hold onto his brother when they weren’t speaking, aside from also just enjoying his company) and suddenly there’s this whole story of them being on-and-off lovers and that part of the reason jay left for a year is because he and sunoo broke up etc etc meanwhile it’s sunoo and riki that actually have all of this going on. idk. i thought it was kind of fun
• now. listen. if you're waiting for me to talk about heejake and everything going on in the background with them well. Well. i will not be doing that……. because (and since you read all of this yapping i’ll disclose this to you as a show of my deep appreciation) i’ve already written a sequel about them !! and it should be out sometime around valentine's day. and it's probably one of my favourite things i've ever written. SO. DON'T WORRY :)

one of my absolute favourite things about writing fics is making a playlist for them, and literally nothing helps me figure out what i want to happen/what i’m trying to say more than listening to said playlist and Pondering. and i’m always very very intentional (read: obsessive) about what gets put in each playlist and the order they go in and what it adds to the story, so i thought since this is a relatively small playlist it’d be fun to go through all the songs and talk about why they’re in there!!! for each one i’ll do what i’ll call “Lyric That Made Me Actually Question If I Accidentally Plagiarised This Song While Writing” and then briefly expand from there… organized chaos

bad for business: the playlist

come down soon - lizzy mcalpine

lyric: the entire first verse but also it’ll come down soon / nothing this good’s ever really good for me

this is the first song because i think it perfectly reflects what sunghoon is thinking/feeling at the beginning of the fic. like, he meets jay, and it’s good, but a lot of things that were good for him at first (read: skating) eventually wore him down, and he fully expects that a relationship, even one as fun and carefree as the one he’s having with jay, will do the same.

end of beginning - djo, it’s time to go - taylor swift

now ok i can’t even stick to the organized chaos but i’m pairing these two together and not doing lyrics for either Because i think it’s just about the ~feelings~ in them. both of these songs are Certified Sunghoon Songs for me and i think they work so well for this story too, and the feelings sunghoon is having about being unsure if he’s on the right path or, if he is, how much longer he can walk it. end of beginning is a song about reflecting on the time before you committed to something that changed you forever, and it’s time to go is about, well, knowing when it’s time to go. and specifically there’s a lot of talk about how jangkku decide they haven’t reached that time yet, but also about how to make peace with the fact that they will, sooner rather than later, and i just think these two songs compliment each other well thematically in that way.

pink balloon - samia

lyrics: when they can see it in your eyes / that you’re about to hit the sky / i’m hanging on the line that ties me to your pink balloon

and

i must have let you down / ‘cause somewhere between then and now / i broke a promise that i didn’t even know i made / how are you supposed to wanna love me anymore?

is it even a ponyohoon fic without a samia song in the playlist….. no!!!!!! this song makes me want to rip the skin off of my face and i think that if pre-janggku-reunion bad for business sunghoon heard this song he would have a similar reaction. samia said about this song once (and this truly haunts me), “i wanted to tell it from a bird’s eye perspective and learned quickly that’s impossible. even when you think you know someone well you only have your vantage point.” and i ahhshjdsjfskjldfdkjlsfj GOD. i think that’s exactly what’s happening with jangkku here. sometimes you think you have someone so figured out it actually becomes impossible to predict how they’re going to react to things/how they’re going to feel, because you’ve already decided for them and you can’t see past that idea of who they are because it’s gotten so entangled with who you are. sometimes you love someone so much you turn them into a mirror. there’s another lyric from another samia song, dream song, that didn’t make it into this playlist, but i think the line is also worth mentioning – “you can think of everyone / and still only be staring at them”. she gets me so bad. my god.

to me, jangkku is absolutely the beating heart of this story and writing their progression from two people who know each other so well but still can’t fully understand each other to actual, true partners who share their worries as much as they share their hopes and goals, and sunghoon’s feelings of bringing wonyoung down (hanging on the line of her pink balloon, to get back to talking about the song i’m supposed to be talking about) turning into his want to be able to lift her even higher (metaphorically of course. he can’t lift her too high because this is ice dancing of course) and be there to watch it happen whether he’s on or off the ice (but for now he is still On That Ice!!!!! and he’s not going anywhere yet!!!!!!) made them my favourite part of this fic to write.

reset button - haley blais

lyric: you say that i am a good person / but my condition, it may worsen / so hit the reset button after i have gone

just some sunghoon angst really. i honestly still do not know what i think this song is about but it resonates with me anyway and think it fits with the themes of like. legacy, and what we leave behind, and have we done enough etc etc. i also think that “i’m not scared of taking chances / i think failure is romantic” is soooo jay it makes me actually kind of insane. just a little insane though nothing to worry about

keep the rain - searows

lyrics: nothing’s ever really quiet / when you need distraction to survive

and

i don’t know what steps to take / i do the easy ones until it helps

ok yes this is just more sunghoon angst sorry everyone i’m just a girl. i’m so sunghoon pilled it should be illegal. they’re going to lock me up for thinking about bad for business sunghoon too much soon so. say your goodbyes. anyway this song sums up his feelings on skating to me. i don’t really have much more to say than that because this song makes me nauseous and if i think about it too much i’m going to yack.

weird - hana eid, fast times - sabrina carpenter, starting to get to you - jensen mcrae, moves - suki waterhouse


this stretch of the playlist is just about them falling in LOOOVE basically. kind of awkward kind of stressful but mostly FUN!!!!


the first taste - fiona apple


lyric: adagio breezes fill my skin with sudden red / your hungry flirt borders intrusion


this one is just in here for uh. reasons. no comment at this time.


making breakfast - samia


lyric: spending time together / watch out, don’t let it get you down / nothing is forever / that’s right, but don’t let it get you down


this one is like. for montage purposes. just use it to imagine jayhoon in love and domestic during the time skip from july - october. minding their own business and yet gaining the public’s increasing affection anyway because they’re just that naturally adorable.


old bones - shallow alcove


lyrics: having bad thoughts / but i’m still believing / by the first frost, i will know / that you’re a paradox / and i’m just a whisper of way back when


and


how am i to hold the days when they’re fading so fast / you get up just to go / now you can’t come back


the third act post time skip regression to the first act angst!!!!!! let’s go!!!!! continuing doubts of whether or not good things can last and whether you’ve made the right choices!!!!! hell yeah!!!! this time i do think sunghoon is obviously far more confident in himself but he’s also still feeling everything he was feeling before and this song has such a bittersweet vibe to me i just think it went well with it!!!


ankles - lucy dacus


lyrics: what if we don’t touch? / what if we only talk / about what we want and cannot have? / and i’ll throw a fit / if it’s all i can do / if it’s the thought that counts / let’s think it through


and


how lucky are we to have so much to lose?


i think this and come down soon kind of sandwich the beginning and end of the playlist quite nicely in terms of like. sunghoon is still sunghoon. he still has apprehensions, he still has hesitations. but the tone of this song compared to come down soon is him deciding like… fuck it!!! i’m going to put all of those hesitations aside and take hold of this moment and this person even if it’s a bit terrifying and even if it might not last forever. and i think that is, broadly speaking, the theme of the fic, both in terms of the relationship with jay and the relationship with skating and wonyoung. he’s just going to go for it, and try to hold on to all of it as long as he can, and learn how to fit it all into his routine.


bad for business - sabrina carpenter


lyrics: used to get to work on time / but now you’re taking up my nights / never been so glad to be so tired


and


i would try to fight these feelings / i can’t find a single reason / i’d make all the same mistakes again


and


he’s good, it’s bad / the best i’ve ever had / and he’s so nice, it’s sad / he ruined all my plans / and he just makes me so crazy / i know everyone sees / that he’ll be the death of me


the titular song!!!!!! i’ve been saving this song for when i would inevitably write my first celebrity au, and it actually has several appearances in my google docs because it’s been used for three entire other wips before i either abandoned them or changed the title and then abandoned them. originally it was going to be for a jaywon manager/rockstar au that i wrote approximately 1k words of before giving up on instantly. but i’ve known since then that i wanted to use this title for something, and so when i decided i wanted to do a jayhoon celebrity au, that was the title from day one!! and that’s pretty rare for me. usually i cycle through a few different titles until i find one that feels right, and i did make an attempt to find another at one point just to be sure there wasn’t anything better out there and in the end this one just sounded the best and Felt Right. i think it just really concisely summarizes what the fic is about like. sunghoon is kinda blowing his whole life and career apart but it’s so good for him.

and that is all i have to say i do believe... really glad i managed to keep it brief (4.4k words later). thank you for reading my silly little fic and especially thanking you if you read any part of this silly stuff too !!! i really truly genuinely appreciate it and i had a blast writing both :) <3 and if you enjoyed this extra long end note please do let me know because i would love to do them more often !!!