Andy, my OC from And After All You’re Still Not My Type, certainly doesn’t celebrate christmas for any religious reason, neither does he decorate the whole apartment for himself. Yes, christmas is quite alright, but for Andy that’s nowhere near a good reason to spend hours on decorating. He’s spending all these hours for someone else. My guy right here, is ought to be a big family-person.
His loved ones are allowed to bother him as much as they like - his tolerance for that is incredibly high. Even though he usually loses his patience very soon (and kind of explosive).
Doing all the work of decorating on his own had started out as joke one year, then turned into a stress-induced last minute task, before finally settling into a tradition. Every year, for the past couple of years Andy had chosen, put up and decorated the tree by himself. A tradition no one seemed to mind, though, Eli and Toby had offered a few times to help him, Andy had always declined.
Now, thank you for reading and special thanks to @love-me-a-good-prompt, for gently putting this idea into my brain where it left me sleepless because I got so excited to write this. Please, enjoy, the actual writing is below the cut.
Happy Holidays.
The tree is bigger than head-tall and it perfectly fits into the room. The very small space between the tip of the tree and the ceiling doesn’t even leave the opportunity to put a star on top. Not that that was planned anyway. Now, this tree fills the living room, positioned right at the parting to the kitchen area. With a sigh, Andy starts opening all the boxes and spreads them on any surface he can find.
He starts with fairy lights. Two long strings wind their way up the tree from the foot almost to the top. The lights neither flicker nor do they change colors. Instead, they illuminate the room with a very soft and warm lighting, almost imitating a fireplace. Andy has never really understood why christmas lighting has to be as unsteady and irritating like a lot of people like it.
With a simple shake of his head, Andy turns the very much not christmassy music up. Loud drums and guitars sound through the apartment and fill it with a controverse atmosphere. A premature decorated christmas tree spreads his light onto a scenery of chaos. Boxes and paper and bags are splattered all over the room. While on the sofa the boxes are neatly positioned, the small table in front of the sofa contains all the tops and paper for the boxes. Bags, their content already spilled to the floor, rest against furniture, ready to take unobservant bypassers down.
With the right music and all boxes sorted, come the christmas balls. The first ones to be chosen are of a shiny red color. It’s not bright, yet, they are of that typical christmas-red. Decorated with some golden and glitter ornaments these little balls fill the tree in no time. And some more globes, almost identical to the first ones follow right after. These ones are of a classic christmas green and stand out only slightly to the dark green of the pine tree.
The third and last box is not some store bought finished set of decoration. It is an old shoe box filled with mostly evenly old newspaper but in between all the securing sheets of paper, very few clear crystal balls can be found. Careful Andy picks the first one up, in the middle, they all contain different photos. Some show family photos, or childhood photos. Pictures of children playing in the snow, or kids with gleaming eyes unwrapping their presents on christmas morning.
The people in these photos are Andy or Toby or Eli, sometimes all three, sometimes other friends and sometimes their families. These crystal balls are the most important part of the annual christmas decoration. The most important things kept secured. With great precision Andy puts them onto the tree, making sure nothing and noone will accidently make them fall in passing.
The tree is now almost finished and Andy takes a step back to take in the whole thing. Almost tripping over some bags, he stands at the entrance door trying to imagine a first impression. Noticing something off at the unfinished tree, Andy squints. No sweets adorn the dark green tree that is now left shining. But they won't be put up anyways. Even more throws him off, that a color is missing. After a few more seconds Andy recalls what it is. The bright white of fake snow.
He scrambles through the bags on the floor until he manages to pull out a spray-can. For minutes he stands in front of his work, simply shaking the can until his arm goes numb, then the second to last step of decorating the christmas tree begins. Andy is careful with the snow. He uses it sparsely, only covering some tips of the branches. A nice little extra for those who pay attention to the details.
He quickly turned his head and focused. […] For the time of a heartbeat he felt like suffocating and twitch bored into his heart. A weird feeling which he hadn't felt in a long time.
Guys ‘n girls ‘n all those who identify as neither, welcome to my WIP introduction!
I started writing this one in February 2017 and a few months ago my writing on this work came to a halt. I had taken down every idea that popped up in my head and wrote it out neatly until I realized a very important thing about myself: Getting ideas out of my head, by physically writing them down, is all fun and games until they’re about single scenes in a longer work; because once I’ve written a scene, unattached to the current state of plot, it kinda vanishes from my memory.
But here we are! I’m picking up writing again, working through everything I’ve put down to maybe one day finally being able to present you a finished work.
Current Work Title (will be changed a lot along the writing process): And After All You’re Still Not My Type
State Of Process: Somewhere between brainstorming, first draft and keeping myself from re-writing every thing.
Genre/Main Topics: Romance, Friendship Building, Slow Burn (I will loose my mind over this but I want to push myself), a lot of sub-plots which will loose importance to the point where they’ll probably get their own WIP (I’ll consider working together with other writers on this; DM me if interested or for more information),
POV: Third Person (in the beginning focus will be on one person per chapter, though)
Summary: The colliding of two groups of friends isn’t exactly a walk in the park. So when a young party enthusiastic causes said clash, things are bound to change for both parties. While some find friends, others have to part. And where attraction goes beyond a platonic level, pain can be caused. New friends and old friends sometimes don’t get along and it needs effort from all sides to finally make it work. But it’s the people that you’ve been counting on the most who throw you off the track the furthest.
Main Characters (a bunch you’ll see in the first chapters): Let’s start with the girls. My “Group of Friends A” consists of four girls who all live together in a flat.
April, 23, Student, LGBTQ+ character (bisexual) [If any of you have some do’s or don’ts for this character - feel free to hmu!]
Jennifer, 26, loves to party [Also, she’s totally NOT into Josh!]
Elizabeth, 27, barista/waitress
Samantha, 28, photographer
Heading on to the guys, we’ll find practically the same structure in my “Group of Friends B”.
Tobias, 21, student, LGBTQ+ character (gay) [If any of you have some do’s or don’ts for this character - feel free to hmu!]
Eli, turns 24, doorman in a night club
Andrew, 29, owns a bike shop
I’m almost finished I promise. But all of these are character you’ll see quite often in the first couple of chapters.
Josh, 24, works at Andrew’s bike shop [Also, he’s totally into Jennifer.]
Jake, 25, barista/waiter, LGBTQ+ character (gay) [If any of you have some do’s or don’ts for this character - feel free to hmu!]
James, 31, tattoo artist
Thank you very much for reading! Please interact with this post if you liked it and if you have any questions or want further information on certain things- please feel free to contact me!
