writing meme

[fwcu]

LMFAO I saw this and I wanted to do it. as I have said I love to talk about my thoughts on everything. I love to document my thoughts/experiences/takes.

weirdest topic to research
honestly I don't do research. however I was searching up eye diseases/injuries to figure out how to make gojo have fucked up eyesight in a normal guy au. LOL.

thing you like but haven't written yet
there's a lottt... I love comedy fic but I'm not confident enough in my humour... I love slowburn and A Lot of Romance however I only write repression and understated feelings... honestly yeah. I want to write something that is extremely romantic and deeply felt and super about Love and Being In Love but I'm a freak so I get embarrassed. honestly I just want to write shoujo manga but in fic form LOL.

guilty pleasure fic trope
I like abo. I don't think it's like guilty pleasure? because reading it isn't really fun unless it's like 2014/15/early16 fic, but au-ing it is really fun. TO ME.

feature film is being made about my favourite work...what's the theme song.
the first fic that popped into my head was >Enter An Everyman and Three Lovers< I think... shine by pentagon? is the song that would fit most? loser who loves you, I'm a leech, I'm a nuisance ... yeah? I'm not sure the actual mood of the song works, but the lyrics do. as for a fitting mood.... circus taeyeon?

okay I just realized that this was about My Own Favourite Work. the soundtrack to jenozine is sunflower. 

ideal writing location/set up
it's like 12pm, I'm in bed, it's dark and I'm writing on gdocs on my phone LOL. that's when I do my best writing LOL.

kidnapped, how would someone know your fic isn't you
well, the fact that it's published. I don't know. it's actually a relationship study and not a character study pretending to be a relationship study.

alternate titles
arrival of the birds was actually called 'we move like water' but then I wanted to save 'we move like water' for something else that fit it more... or actually, I think I preferred <arrival> to that.
I think unspoken dance is my favourite title.... twin primes was going to be called something else too but I forget what. something about parallel lines? it was more poetic and the gp liked it better but people who actually knew what twin primes were liked twin primes better LOL.
wip-wise... debating between >where the west wind rises< [jean constellation name] versus >fragile heart< [hk charm name] vs. >windsong< [kazuha talent name]
I think titling something is the funnest part and I do put a fair amount of thought into it LOL. my main schemata is that it has to relate back to what I'm getting at with the fic.

writing tastes/smells/feels like
a clean, made bed. almost impersonal and a little dull, mundane as hell, but still a bed.

first ever fic
...dan and phil. (i was obsessed with parentheses)

theme/line/play on words...
in unspoken dance, a really big thing for me as femininity. especially, mean girl, stereotypical femininity, about makeup and nails and looks. the fandom take on aelwyn [at the time] was that she cuts off all her hair and rejects everything feminine and all... which wasn't my preferred interpretation. first of all, mean girls don't get enough credit for being themselves, and girls who adhere to strict ideals of femininity In Fandom Spaces, isn't really a Thing. for well-founded reasons, of course. but I think >redemption< immediately meaning breaking out of societally imposed femininity is a little... especially since aelwyn was Not redeemed.
a method of character building that I have an appreciation for, is how a character appearance/build reflects the character's personality/complexes...and so aelwyn using femininity as a defense mechanism, adhering to standards of how she should look and only every focusing on the shallow, surface level things, was an important reflection of her character to me. it wasn't actually commentary on femininity really, it was an idea of how she could use it, or how[why] she would embrace it.
it was secondary to the relationship between the sisters, but it was also the mechanism that drives them closer.

nicest review...
ash or lin can have this spot LOL. ash's comment on never strangers... I think I read it like three times a day for a couple days. and also why like, I can acknowledge the fic is good probably even though I don't really see it myself. I personally prefer? twin primes, but again twin primes is something I wrote for myself.
and lin always is so nice to me about my writing! also she understands the romance in every nonromantic romantic moment I write so I feel very seen always.

style/technique you want to try
"Chanyeol used to think it was weird that the human heart wasn't at your centre, under the thickest shield of bone in your body. He thinks now that maybe it was intentional, that maybe the heart has to be a little vulnerable and out of place, pulled towards the kin that calls for it." (x)

"Maybe he drags it out from under his bed and tries to forage the truth from it, his own or Sirius’s or all of theirs together, scavenging through bones long picked clean, trying to put two and two together alone.

But the problem is, two and two doesn’t always get you the truth, or redemption, or anything worth fucking with at all. Two and two is a man moaning in the deathbed darkness of a prison cell; two and two is another man a thousand miles away sobbing on a bathroom floor, I loved you, I loved you, as if they are the only words that mean anything at all. Two and two is thinking of the way Peter used to teeter at the edges of a room, how he could stitch himself to the shadows and find a weak spot in the thickest castle walls and thinking, you idiot, you stupid motherfucker, you should have known, you’d’ve seen if you had half the brain you thought you did, and then looking at twelve-year-old Peter Pettigrew grinning at him over Gobstones and pumpkin pasty from Remus’s photo album and knowing, deeper down, that it’s never that easy. Two and two equals the empty space between himself and Remus on the sagging bed they share every night. Two and two is twelve dead years. A living man is not his labelled bones." (x)

I think about these lines all the fucking time. also ao3 user topazios.


talk about what you like best about your style
I think the way I cut scenes.
I think sometimes you read fic, especially longer fic, and mediocre fic, and as a reader you're like 'why am I reading this, what's the point of this scene.' and there's a lot of writing, not just in fic, where things are padded out for no reason. I think in fic is where quality over quantity matters most, because at the most base form, the reader only wants to read about their otp interacting. so anything that's not about that, is a waste.
it goes for adding funny moments or scenery description or whatever as well.
I hesitate to say this, but I'm very chekov's gun about what I write in and what I don't. like I don't need to describe that these characters go from a park to a convenience store. the reader can intuit that.
that's one part of it, the other part is where you cut the scene. I think it's pretty commonplace to indicate that the scene ends here, and in the writing, it's the equivalent of a fade to black. I prefer to straight up change the shot? a lot of my scenes end where they need to end. and instead of having a smooth transition to where it continues, I just cut to where it continues. I commonly cut someone off after they start a conversation, because I don't need to write it out when I know it'll come up later, so I don't repeat the same thing twice when I don't need to. this works mostly in fic and short fiction, because in books you have a lot more time to pad out the inbetween space, whereas you don't have that in fic. you don't need to remind the reader of it's contents, you can just write it out because they'll be anticipating.
obviously, I don't know if it's Amazing or Great or really adds to my writing, but I do think it's very characteristic.
also when I mention cutting scenes, I mean especially when the set stays the same, but it's moving through different moments.

easy characters to write for
serious, earnest characters. point-blank. characters who are serious are so easy because they know what's important to them, and therefore you as an author know what to write and narrate that much more easily. cases being: renjun, jean, lyx. etc.

hard characters to write for
characters who don't know what's going on/characters that don't reveal their cards/characters who are funny and innately charming. the thing is I stick very heavily to character voice, so I'd like to be as authentic as possible. and it's just soooo hard to balance what the characters knows/what they pay attention to versus what the reader should/can intuit from the situation... especially with like characters who don't want to reveal their intentions... it's like!!! how do I make this obvious without making it obvious!!! cases in point: KIRIHARA AKAYA. who is just the dumbest person in the worlddd. TO ME. kaeya probably [guy who doesn't want to think about his past, however his past informs everything he does in the present so ???]. haechan. I am not good at writing guys who are flashy and charming and funny.

also I meant both of these as like... characters who's povs are hard to write from. I think it's very to write a character being observed TBH because the observation hinges on what the narrator thinks the character is like LOL.

dvd commentary
aaaah....I'm going to cheat.... this scene isn't even finished LMFAO

"— He is a child of Mondstadt, just like me. Just like Diluc. Like Klee."

[...]

Geraldine Lawrence had left, but Kaeya’s grip on his wineglass remained tightly wound, the stretched skin over his knuckles nearly white.

“Margaret,” Jean asked as the woman passed by, “Could you get us another glass of Death?”

“You don’t drink,” Kaeya says. It's rare for him to be this stupid.

“Kaeya,” as always, Jean says his name with softness. She gestures. “You’ve ruined your wine.” Ice had formed at the bottom, where he’d been gripping it.

He looks at her. He would collapse to the ground and hold her legs if he could at that moment, and she knows that it’d be far less humiliating for him to do so, than to swallow his pride and not say a thing. He looks so miserable. In all his grace and elegance, the bird feather and swan posture, it all fails him when accepting kindness. He can never swallow it well.

Jean wants to offer him her handkerchief. Jean wants to cover him up and not let a single other soul see. Jean wants to fold him up and curl him to her chest, where his finely shaped nose will press against the crook where her shoulder meets her neck, and she can feel the cadence of each of his breaths against her skin until she knows he's fine.

Instead, she stands straight and she stands still. Offering the chance. He could kneel at her feet still, and she would let him, because she knows. She would accept his disgrace, his humiliation, his gratitude, and she would kneel down and wipe his tears and say still, he is a child of Mondstadt. He is her best knight. Of all the lions, and all the wolves, and all the falcons in their long history, she would want him still. She loves him most. She picks him out, against all the better hunters, all the birds with more fire, all the softer animals. She would do it again.

A flightless bird is not only worthy of pity. It can also be beautiful.

well honestly... the most important part of this scene to me is the last line. it's a direct rip off of Queen's Gambit, where beth says 'Chess isn't only competitive. Chess can also be beautiful.' the other important parts of this scene: Jean's Grandmasterlyness. Kaeya the disowned orphan who is not from Mondstadt. KAEYA THE FLIGHTLESS BIRD.

uhh step by step commentary. sorry this scene is like the pinnacle of my kaejean thesis.

okay, first of all, I think one of the defining things about kaejean is the difference in social status and how Jean is and will be Kaeya's saving grace. within the knights and with civilians, it doesn't matter because they're knights. but within aristocratic society, it's a different matter because both their family names carry so much weight. and jean IS the golden child of mondstadt, their fairest and kindest protector and the embodiment of what the knights and her lineage stands for. while kaeya is an orphan from a traitorous nation who has been Disowned by the family that took him in. OBVIOUSLY I want someone to COMMENT on it. people like legit just ignore the fuck out how precarious his social standing is unless it's like being used as a plot device but I think he would be very very aware of it. especially because he has been abandoned by his family TWICE now. and I think the whole point of this fic, and of kaejean is that they are perfect knight/lady romance. jean is the prince and kaeya is almost a cinderella of sorts. that he is her damsel in distress!!! and obviously, if anyone DID speak out in defense of kaeya, jean's words would have the most effect as to whether or not he belongs in mondstadt, and whether or not he belongs in the knights.

and all of this is also about how. kaeya is literally an abandoned orphan who does not belong here. I think maybe the trope of orphans<>not feeling like they belong is overdone, but also it's so good. and part of why it's so good with kaejean is because kaeya thought he found a place with diluc and the ragnvindrs but he hasn't! and the reason why he joins the knight is to be diluc's shadow, and once diluc severs ties with him, it's like he no longer has a place in mond, and all he has left is this position with the knights. this, less importantly, compounds on both their workholic tendencies, but MORE IMPORTANTLY. jean IS the knights of favonious. and jean IS mondstadt, and her acceptance of kaeya as her most trusted aide and her acceptance of kaeya as a child of mondstadt, is the word of god is it not? it's LITERALLYYYY ABOUT JEAN CREATING A PLACE FOR KAEYA TO BELONG IN... because she has the power and the authority to make him that and give him that if she cannot give him anything else!!! love as an act of service!!!

and it's about this Mondstadt, the city of wind and freedom. and KAEYA who is a flightless bird [PEACOCK] and therefore embodies the opposite of these ideals!!! he who is unfit for a place here!!! and YETTTTT it's jean [also chained] who decides that he belongs here anyway.

and this is where Jean Grandmasterlyness comes in. JEAN WHO IS SOFT AND LOVING AND KIND AND CARING BY HEART. but jean who is the grandmaster, who cannot show impartiality, who needs to stand strong and stiff-backed and be a pillar. jean who is not the dandelion, but a lion. DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT THE STRINGS OF FATE. a lot of this fic and also kaejean methodology is about no matter how much she loves him, she can't offer him the softness of that love. that she can't offer him that love at all, because to her, first is always mondstadt. her priority is mondstadt, her priority is in being it's protector, her life is dedicated to it and it alone. love is not worth thinking about. AND THAT IS WHYYY JEAN IS THE BEST CHARACTER. forsaking the ideal of love for her city. THE SELF-SACRIFICE OF IT ALL. it's literally like that and about that.

also ties perfectly back to boy-girl reversals where jean is the workaholic husband that has no time for her personal/family life and kaeya is the pretty wife who is more an ornament than anything else. IIIII... allude to it throughout the fic, but there's mentions of how jean can't ask for a romantic relationship with anyone because her citizens will always come first and that's something she won't ask of anyone, to accept that. except, and this is where kaejean is so perfectly WRETCHED to ME, kaeya who has 'no right' to accept anything of anyone, who already owes an endless debt of gratitude to jean, who likes material things and can and should be shallowly satisfied with them, would accept it. would have to accept it. would be able to accept it. etc etc. IT'S ABOUT. power imbalance via social status, and role reversal, and accepting nonromance as your life. it really is like kaeya deserves to be nurtured and loved and cared for and is Not going to be receiving that and jean who also deserves those things will also not be receiving that.

again the whole point of her standing straight is that she can give him her acknowledgement as Mondstadt's Grandmaster, as the head of the knights, etc etc, she can accept him on behalf of mondstadt, yes, but she can't do it personally. and it's because of her kindness that she offers him this chance. it's because he's a child of mondstadt that this happens. if it was because he was kaeya, she would've held him. YOU KNOW HOW IT ISSS. also the point of "He is her best knight. Of all the lions, and all the wolves, and all the falcons in their long history, she would want him still. She loves him most. She picks him out, against all the better hunters, all the birds with more fire, all the softer animals. She would do it again." is that these are just words. she means them, yes, but that's the brunt of what she can offer. words. knightly courtesy. not the Real True Worldshaking Love. not a soft touch, not love. not like that. YOU KNOWWW.

and the whole point is that he can't ask her for that affection, and he can't ask her to take it back, and he can't ask her to defend him again. he can only stand stiff and accept it. THE LIFE OF BEING AN ORPHAN AND ACCEPTING THE HANDOUTS OF LOVE YOU'RE GIVEN. he also can't thank her for it because it gives him away... you know how it is...

what's my last point here... ahhhh... "his finely shaped nose,"/"it can also be beautiful." ... a lot of his fic is also just about how jean looks at kaeya. that she loves him sure, but she also loves the way he looks. something about the worth of girls/ladies being their looks. youuuu knowwwwww... guys who are ornamental birds who will become ornamental wives.... no one bring race into this. I will acknowledge that jean being white and kaeya being brown makes this aspect weird and not exactly feminist, however, racism doesn't exist like that In Genshin Impact AFAIK. like it exists in the building and making of the game/characters but not In Universe. and I'm only thinking about it In Universe. also I'm brown girl writing this. so it's not a crime against brown men, it's actually just MY RIGHTS.

anyway. line by line breakdowns.
“Kaeya,” as always, Jean says his name with softness. - very important that his name is always soft on her mouth.

In all his grace and elegance, the bird feather and swan posture - kaeya lady... it's about how he's very aware of how he looks/carries himself yk.

He is her best knight. Of all the lions, and all the wolves, and all the falcons in their long history, she would want him still. - Lion and Wolf are both titles granted within the knights, the Falcon is what Vannessa was and is the symbolic animal of the KoF. this was to imply that he isn't a lion nor a wolf nor a falcon. though, wolf-knight kaeya is prettyyy popular and also is not bad LOL just not the hc for this fic imo. also just generally, none of these would be my pick for kaeya anyway.

She picks him out, against all the better hunters, all the birds with more fire, all the softer animals. - 'birds with more fire' = diluc, 'softer animals' = amber [bunny] THIS ONE IS REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT BTW, 'better hunters' = generally anyoneee... I guess most importantly Eula. 'better hunter' btw is just that jean/diluc/varka are all predator-coded, as are the titles within the knights [wolf, falcon, lion], and kaeya is An Ornamental Bird. just think about that will you. diluc, btw is coded as three different birds of prey. just thinkkkkkk about that.

also specifically with regards to narration, jean allows herself to think of kaeya in a very gratuitous way, but the whole point of that is how it contrasts with what extent of that is conveyed in their interactions. and the answer is: not much more than it is with anyone else! and THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT!!!! OF KAEJEANNNNNNNNNNNNN. OF JEAN HERSELF. OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE LIONFANG, FAIR PROTECTOR OF MONDSTADT. just in case that was like. actually not that clear LOL.

 

do irls know about the fic
I send SIB my wips pretty often... people know that I write kind of maybe but not much else LOL.
I actually think I might let my mom read kaejean if I ever finish it but also I don't knowww.

overused phrases in fic
I love 'the thing is' I love it so bad. it really is like 'the thing is...'

I repeat dialogue tags a lot...but I feel like they're just really useful and also would just be repeated. I think other people have better ways to convey the emotion accompanying what's being said, but I prefer the sparseness? of short direct dialogue tags. 'he says faintly', 'she says, voice quiet.', 'he frowns', etc etc. I think gives away Just Enough about what the character is feeling, without revealing all their cards yk.
also I know everyone uses '(...) says' but recently I have just been soooo obsessed with '(...) says' like.. Oh my god... Yeah, Yeah. (...) SAYS. I just think it's so simple but so poignant almost. I do like it better than said LOL.

I think...pretty noticeably, I always tend to describe >the line of their mouth< as my go-to facial feature/expression tagger. line of mouth/line of shoulder/line of neck. etc etc.

why do I write
I like it? I think it's satisfying? I don't know. I actually don't think I enjoy the process of writing and I don't think it's very satisfying I don't like to be complimented on it but I don't want my effort to go unacknowledged.
I think, it's just my preferred medium to convey my thoughts, so it's what I come back to. I write when I have something to write, and I don't write when I don't have anything to write. very often I forget that I have things to write.