threading_in_dreams | Entries tagged with lumine

I can finally link to these here! Yay!

I'll go with the main event first, the "I'm just gonna write a quick hurt/comfort" fic that ended up being a 23k one-shot.
I've been meaning to write this ship forever. The 3 or 4 different outlines I got in my drafts folder attest to that. So, when I got the email with a request for Diluc/Kaeya, I literally squeed.
Then I blacked out and two weeks later I had this fic (fine, fine, I did not black out. I actually spent only a couple hours on it a day.) I'm pretty proud of how it came out, specially the investigation bits, but also the tiny soft moments. I wanted it to sting, I hope it did.

Like frost at first light (22998 words) by threading_in_dreams
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Diluc/Kaeya (Genshin Impact)
Characters: Diluc (Genshin Impact), Kaeya (Genshin Impact)
Additional Tags: cameos by most of the Mondstadt gang, Diluc and Kaeya are Not Siblings (Genshin Impact), sworn brothers but in the danmei sense, Mutual Pining, the inevitable angst of a shared past, a bit of hurt/comfort, a dash of mystery, Quite a lot of angst actually, Diluc and Kaeya reconcilliation but make it gay

Summary:When Kaeya gets attacked by an unknown person and needs somewhere safe to recover, Diluc takes him in at the Winery. Though he tries to focus on investigating the attack, feelings they both tried to ignore surface once more.

***

Oh, and there was a small extra scene as well. Here it is:

The spark that sets the flame (524 words) by threading_in_dreams
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Diluc/Kaeya (Genshin Impact)
Characters: Diluc (Genshin Impact), Kaeya (Genshin Impact)
Additional Tags: very much pre-canon, Diluc and Kaeya are Not Siblings (Genshin Impact), Fluff, Little bit of emotional hurt/comfort, First Kiss

Summary:
A small moment, a cherished memory.

***

Next there was the Wanderer/Lumine ficlet, written because I had this scene in my head for ages and was overjoyed to have a reason to put it into words. I just can't deal with the fact that he can fly. The moment I pulled this man I knew I'd have to write him (yes, there is a bigger WIP in my drafts).
Also, the giftee sounded so happy in the comment, it just made my day ^^

Sparks fly (352 words) by threading_in_dreams
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Scaramouche/Ying | Lumine (Genshin Impact)
Characters: Ying | Lumine (Genshin Impact), Scaramouche (Genshin Impact)
Additional Tags: Fluff, Romance, Scaramouche is Called Wanderer (Genshin Impact), gratuitous ficlet about flying

Summary:
A moment of color, then it's gone.

***

Third fic is a Xiao/Zhongli, which I admit is not a pairing I usually read. Rare pair, after all. But the request made a good case for the thousands of years of pining my boy Xiao could have going on and who am I to avoid writing some light angst?

Like soaring on golden wings (1785 words) by threading_in_dreams
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Xiao | Alatus/Zhongli (Genshin Impact)
Characters: Xiao | Alatus (Genshin Impact), Zhongli (Genshin Impact)
Additional Tags: Thousands of Years of Pining, feelings realization of a sort, introspective, Xiao | Alatus-centric (Genshin Impact), Angst with a Happy Ending

Summary:
After a couple thousand years, Xiao mused, time stopped being important.

Or rather, he stopped counting how long it took between the moments he had been called. Stopped waiting and started enjoying every second of his Lord's presence when the chance meetings came.

***

And that's it!
Except I came out of this experience with two extra WIPs.

A Childe/Diluc fic that is borderline crack (and which will be ready as soon as I manage to write the smutty bit *awkward ace smile*)

and...

A Childe/Zhongli. I just went and wrote 90% of a fic before I realized it would fold neatly as the last chapter of an older WIP, so now I have about 75% of a multi-chaptered angstfest about Childe finding out he's bad at moving on. Which also involves a fair share of Childe/Thoma, because that's how he tried to move on.
I took a look at what I had already written and most of it is the smut. Honest to god, I had no memory of ever writing M/M smut, yet there they are, two whole sex scenes.

So, yeah, I'll probably have to finish those and unleash them upon the world.
(writing is fun, y'all!)

Current Mood: excited

Linky link or, if you're sitting here wondering why it went from 25 to 27, that's because I forgot to post here, so here's the link to chapter 26.

Synopsis:
Diluc meets his captor. Lumine and Ajax find out more about the people that took him. It's not exactly what they expected.
(Someday I'll write enough of these that'll be good at them. That's not today, though today's synopsis is at least is concise.)

Remember what I said about softness in this chapter? Bold-faced lie, we got at least a couple more before that scene. Same thing with the whole "I'm close to the end." Not that I'm bitter with myself for it or anything (though I did manage to sneak some sweetness on chapter 26, you know, before the fighting).

About 20 days too late
The time between updates was thoroughly fucked by my sister's wedding last December and my own incapacity to think during too-hot high summer days. I'll do my best to write fast, but there are some specifically touchy points in this arcs plot that I can't write carelessly and I prefer to post later but not have to edit it afterwards.
Also, I do have an exchange fic to finish (already got 10k in that and it was supposed to be SIMPLE. I just don't know how to chill), but on the plus side that one is Genshin Impact as well, so if you like Masks you'll probably like it. I think. Unless you're only here for the gen vibes (that is one shippy fic I'm writing, it's got pining and kissing and everything).

The actual chapter
So, this chapter. Big setting up for the interesting things that are to come in the next two chapters. And you get to meet Daniel Lawrence and learn how much of an asshat he is. I hope you hate him! :) If you're wondering, he's supposed to be Eula's uncle, not father or anything like that. Damn I love coming up with villains.

I also enjoyed my little side-characters, the citizens of the fort. I challenged myself to give you readers as good a sense of the people that lived there and how they ended up there as I could in as little words as possible. I hope it worked. I also hope you felt the sharp contrast between the people and the rulers, as well as their situation and their hearts (not to forget Ajax' opinion and the reality.)

All in all, it was a fun chapter to write. And the next one will have some angsty fighting, which is the best kind of fighting.

Current Mood: relieved
Current Music: spoon - the hardest cut

Of masks and dances
Chapter 24: Dive
In which Lumine's path becomes clear.

The last set-up chapter for the Abyss arc. I was really looking forward to writing that bit, and now am drowning in notes and half-written scenes. Halp.

But the chapter, yes. This was a breeze to write, I even finished it early and had the luxury of letting some days pass before giving it the last 3 revisions. At which point I decided to add that smol Childe POV bit, which meant I had to move some things around and, well, I ended up not posting on the saturday anyway. Still posted earlier than I've been posting, so yay for that.

While I was writing this chapter it became clear it was a mirror to the one chapter in which Diluc makes plans to save Kaeya from Anthiosa, so I tried to make the distinction shine. How Lumine plans (very little) as opposed to how Diluc plans (with a checklist and a thorough set of measures).

Also on contrasts, if you'll allow me to go all r/relationships on you, how much of an avoidant attachment style Lumine is, as opposed to Diluc's anxious, co-dependent thing. Fun times for people that will now spend an unknown amount of time stuck together!

There are some narrative decisions I had to make a couple chapters back that really show in this one, though I don't expect people to care as much as I do. I'll list them here because it's my own blog:

Kaeya's POV has been missing, since he's been busy, but also there was Stuff going on. I love the idea that, in another world, there would be a hero's journey structured fic about him (the last heir to a fallen empire, plagued by horrible thoughts) and Albedo (the smart, capable boyfriend with hidden depths and maybe clones) descending into the Abyss to get rid of the cursed sword. Since this fic is not it, I hope someone picks up the idea and runs with it.
Childe was black boxed for dramatic reasons. I do hope the uncertain loyalties bit came across, because otherwise I've been depriving me of writing my murder boy for nothing. Seriously, it was such a joy to write that one scene. I actually have another Childe fic going on (Childe/Lumine, nothing published because I need to nail it down a bit more), but I play him more of a ingenue in that one, it's just not as delicious as writing Childe-the-trained-operative POVs.

[On a side note, I recommend every fic author to go and keep several versions of their blorbos in their mind. There is no reason to get chained to a specific head canon, explore all possibilities of those blorbos. Go wild.]

I skipped around with Lumine's research so not to make it boring (bonus point for making it dramatic), but I understand I also deprived the world from several cameos, namely Chongyun, Xiao and Yae Miko. I am sorry/not sorry. Also, Lumine did not show up in Ei's doorstep asking for help because if there is one person that would just say "I'm sorry for this" and cut her down, that would have been Ei.
My baby boy Diluc learned the skill Flirt! That is not the only thing he learned from hanging out with Childe, but it's the easiest to show. I really hope the amount of character development that he had shows.

So, Abyss arc. That would be 3 to 5 chapters all in all, depends a lot on how much I decide to write. That would mean we're about 6 chapters from the end. This fic will easily be 300k by then. What a fucking journey.

Current Mood: cheerful

Of masks and dances
Chapter 23: Lies and sweet things
In which everyone has a little lie to share, but they all have good reasons.

I should write this postmortem before I forget about it. Writing this is very interesting to me, because while I might mostly know what I'm doing while I'm writing, I don't really notice a lot of things until afterwards (yes, even after about 10 rounds of revision) (most of my writing time is revising, I revise each chapter for about a week's worth of time). Writing this helps a lot with finding out what I need to pick up in another chapter.

Not that I needed much of it for this chapter, though, this one was mostly following the outline. And, oh, I had stupid amounts of fun being contrarian to my own outline and pushing scenes towards things they were not really meant to do. There were also just Fun With Words moments.

That first Lumine fragment in which she isn't seeing things, so I have to rely on what she thinks is going on? I loved doing that.

Diluc trying to piece together things and noticing it doesn't really matters because he's worried about her and will Be There regardless? Lovely. Fun with words all of it.

Kaeya acting like a dick to Diluc while trying to communicate, then turning around and being stupidly in love with Albedo? Yes, please.

I don't have many things to say plot-wise, because this is a "moving things along" chapter. If this story was a tabletop RPG, this would be the session in which the players run around like headless chickens before they find out what they really need to do. Since that isn't as much fun to read as it is to play, I chose to focus on Diluc and Lumine, on how they'll rebuild their relationship.
There's still much water to sail until we see land, though, so all I can offer is some sweetness to offset the exposition fest of this chapter. I truly hope the readers had fun.

Next chapter, though? Next chapter I'll have some real fun.

Current Mood: cheerful

I absolutely forgot to post chapter 21 here, so just assume I did and let's go (in my defense, I posted chapter 21 in a migraine day).

Of masks and dances
Chapter 22: Farewells and reunions
In which Lumine has an unexpected reunion and things get worse before they can get better.

This is probably the most misleading of all my titles, but I got attached to it, so I kept it even after reworking the chapter for the third time.

When I say a chapter gave me grief, I don't mean it in any bad way. I love writing, this fic is what I write for fun, it's interesting and I get to try different things. The Genshin Impact setting is full of interesting takes to be picked up and carried to conclusion, there is just too many possibilities.

So don't get me wrong when I say this chapter was painful to write.

I wrote around 20k words for this chapter. The finished chapter has 8.895k words.
Many of the extra words will be showing up in chapter 23 or 24, because I'm not a wasteful person (and there are at least 2 scenes there which I have to put into the fic, because they're cool), but the fact remains that it took me four tries to get to what I wanted and let me tell you that those other paths were quite different from each other.

The fact is that things are lining up for the ending, though I know I've been saying this for a while (my original expectations meant chapter 24 would be the last. Ha.), so I have to make a couple of choices about the story I'm telling. One of them you already noticed, by which I mean Childe's presence (and what does it mean for Lumine/Diluc?).

I'm not gonna lie, Childe was originally going to be a mirror character, someone to help Diluc get a grip on himself, to model a functioning version of what Diluc wants so he could, you know, get better. I was going to get him with Zhongli, even, because that's how things usually go with Childe and there needed to be a model relationship.

That approach failed the moment I realized my Zhongli is too ascetic for that and my Childe too self-aware to keep trying.
(oh, he's hurting, of course, but he's not gonna keep trying. That scene on chapter 21, in which he gives Diluc a "this is important" look and tells him how Zhongli did not take his challenge seriously enough, how he did the bare minimum? That was how I knew I fucked up. That was a man saying he felt rejected, and Childe is proud.)

I tried to have Diluc walk away. It just did not rang true, so I scrapped it. Thankfully, things worked out interestingly and Childe will be doing his narrative job anyway, just in a different manner.

Lumine's side of the chapter was part of the original outline (as much as it exists). I still wrote three versions of the conversation with Aether, plus two versions of what happened after. I considered milking her spiral into despair, but then I remembered that I prefer to write about healing.

The only bright side in writing over twice the amount of story that went in is that I at least know exactly how the next chapter plays out. Childe stays for the while, his side of the story will play itself before we get the ending. I promise I won't do him dirty, I love that man.

Current Music: too much Mountain Goats, mostly Bleed Out (the whole album)

Of masks and dances
Chapter 20: The art of letter writing

Now that Lumine had explored every corner of Inazuma over and underground, she was left with no other choice than facing the thing weighting on her heart for so many months. She stared at a blank sheet of paper, the paper stared back.

There is very little explanation as to why it took me so long to write this, but if you want one example, catch me spending about 4 hours to come up with Diluc's verses. These here:

Maybe love's not fate but destination

At the crossroads, shelter, simple and stark

Does the star that cuts night knows of morning?

Is it closer, then, respite from the dark?

Pale starlight traces the road I follow

My heart, and only burden, bears your mark

I'm even happy with them, as they do what they were supposed to: sound a bit juvenile, express angst, have meter and rhyme, get a bit lost on imagery. Yes, yes, I know, it should have been easier to manage "not very good" when you're trying to write poetry, but it turned out being as hard as writing something I'd actually admit to calling my own.
Damn Diluc. If only his type of bad poetry lined up with mine, this would have taken all of five minutes.

Now, you might have noticed that I took a perfectly good Traveler and gave her PTSD. This came as a shock to me, because it just showed up while I was writing chapter 21, so I had to come back and edit 20 to include some signs (which is why I ended up redoing most of the chapter. I can't trust myself to "just add a quick scene").

It's weird, now that I think about it, how little Traveler angst re: Inazuma is there in this fandom. People are very happy to angst about We Will Be Reunited, people will comment how the Teppei questline absolutely wreaked their hearts, but no angst? Yeah, I'm on it chief.

This chapter is missing Kaeya's second letter, his response to Lumine's, which I thought would take away from the chapter flow. Maybe it goes into 21, maybe I'll decide to leave 21 all in the same night (it's mostly in the same night. Big night, much happening). If I do, then I might make some sort of bonus just to drop his answer. It's quite heartfelt, I liked writing it.

What else? Oh, our guest stars. We have the Kamisatos for today. I love the Kamisatos' dynamics. There's something soothing about writing siblings that love and support each other after so much time writing Diluc & Kaeya. Ayaka is sweet and pure (even too pure in my opinion) and Ayato? Do not get me started on Ayato. I really wish I had reason to write them supporting each other in a fight scene, that would be awesome (alas, I can't scrounge a plot for that right now).
The last part of the sweet family is Thoma, my lovely boy. I enjoy writing him far much more than I enjoy playing him (I did build Thoma. Do not recommend). I actually have a draft of this filthy smut fic that's mostly Childe/Thoma, not sure if it'll ever see the light of day, but that's how I learned Thoma is the best.
Will they show up again? Most probably no.

Current Mood: accomplished

Of masks and dances Chapter 18: The problem with unattended fires

Things that happen when you leave Diluc to his own devices, and their consequences.

My brain fizzled after I posted this chapter, so I forgot to drop the link.

Today's menu is angst and I hope you like it because, while there is a light on the end of the tunnel, there is a few thousand words before we get there.

At this point I guess I should come clean and say there's some Ragnvindr bros reconciliation going on in this fic.
That specific trope is not tagged because it was not exactly on my original plans. The thing is, the moment you start making explanations for the problems* Diluc and Kaeya have in their personal lives, it all boils down to a duel.

This chapter is me presenting a solution of sorts to the conflict they've been going through the whole fic. Of course nothing is settled, but they! come! to an agreement!

I'm very happy with it.
Also, I got to poke Diluc with the feelings stick a bit more, and that is the whole point of this exercise.

Songs and poetry
Some small god** might be able to explain why I took upon myself to add not one but two bits of original poetry inspired by songs in this chapter. Then I looked at it, thought it was too much and turned one into a simpler quote.
Still wrote two things of the sort I don't normally do.

Poem 1 is Kaeya's. I made it to fit a quote from a D. C. Fontaines song (the direct quote is the last two lines).

I'm wary of happy moments
butterfly winged joy,
spun-glass contentment
My hands are sword-calloused, you see
unfit for fragility
What good is happiness to me
if I have to wield it carefully?

I like this poem, it really gives me a Kaeya vibe.
Oh fuck, I just remembered I wrote THREE poems. Poem 2 is another Kaeya poem, the one he writes impromptu as a reaction, and refers to Diluc (in case it's not obvious by the subject matter):

Heart bright as lighthouse
but smoke will take you under
sure as any wave

Why am I under the impression Kaeya is a poet? Mainly because he was raised to be a Mondstadt gentleman, so not to put a bad light on Diluc, which means he was educated. Poetry is both art and rebellion, poets have always been transgressors, it fits him (as the fact that Diluc can't do it also fits him).

Poem 3 is an excerpt from "The Ballad of Dawnlight", a ballad written by an anonymous bard from Mondstadt's Late Aristocratic Period. Not Venti's work, though he knew the author.
I made it by playing around with the words to a song by Legião Urbana. I'm terribly sorry for anyone that recognizes the song and, thus, gets it stuck in their head. But, hey, it's been stuck in my head longer.

To be a captive with a smile
To have him kneel before you, your conqueror
To stay true to who would kill you
Ever so conflicted is this love

The context for this song is the story of Ragnvindr and the Dawnlight Swordswoman, which is a love story if I've ever seen one. A tragic one, as it ends with her death. Ragnvindr buries her sword "where the winds meet" and decides then and there that his loyalty doesn't belongs to his lord, but to his land and the freedom Dawnlight defended, calling himself Dawn Knight from then on (he later joins Venessa's rebellion, so his heart was truly changed).
So the point Jean is making here is that Diluc's loyalties are as painful to him as his ancestor's were. And perhaps she might also mean that the only solution for his problem would be to lay his loyalty on Mondstadt only. But that would be Jean, wouldn't it? For Mondstadt, as always.

* To quote Mother Mother, like the goth I am: "Not just the ones that are little".
** It's obviously all Venti's fault.

Current Mood: accomplished

Of masks and dances
Chapter 17: Silent starlit nights

Words unsaid and plans unrevealed, stretching through so many nights.

The one which I almost called enjoy the silence, because I was literally fishing for a title at the last minute before posting (while listening to my obviously old goth Of masks and dances playlist). Honestly, next time I'll leave it at numbers.

After I posted it with no more notes than that reminder that No One Dies Everyone Lives, I remembered I could have warned people there is some NSFW front-loaded into this chapter.

Ooops.

I've revised that thing so many times over it stopped even meaning anything besides the narrative beat it was there to fulfill.

Does that means I should have left it to stew for a few days before I gave the whole chapter another pass and posted it? Possibly! I do not, however, possess this much patience and/or attention span.

This chapter was interesting to write in the sense that, once again, I just went "ok, but what if I made a chapter that is another person's whole fic*?".

I had a couple things I needed to put there: Diluc's plan and his reasoning, the slow evolution of his and Lumine's relationship, how each one of them felt about what was going on, how their thinking about their relationship drifted through those weeks. The choice to timestamp was exactly because I needed things to happen over time.

Did it work? I mean, can another human understand what I was doing there? Is it confusing? Do the romantic bits work? I have no idea.

Maybe I should really get a beta reader.

* At 12k and a whole tiny arc in it, I get to say this. No judgement at all on people that write less, on the contrary, I know at least one fanfic author that could do what I did in 7k and it kills me that I can't. *sighs* I'll learn it eventually.
** I mean it's obvious from the fic's over 200k that my wordcounts run long rather then short. 12k for a chapter is pretty ok in my brain. I'm really sorry.

Of masks and dances
Chapter 15: Fair
In which a date is interrupted, then recovered.

The date chapter! I was not looking forward to this because I'm not from a dating culture, so the whole thing has always been a bit of Thing Other People Do*. Not only that, I am not on my best ground when writing cute fluff. It's not that I can't do it, just that I feel this need to splice story into it. If you read the chapter, you'll see right what I mean.
But it was an interesting experience. I like how writing fanfic of all things led me to write adventurously (well, it's an adventure for me). It really does feed back into my other writing.

* Fine, Tinder has made it so that even around here people have dates now, so we do have a dating culture as of now. It doesn't means I've ever actually gone on a date. And, bestie, I've been married.

The fair and the fairings
I wanted to make Windblume more like an old time fair, with fairings for the challenges and sticky-sweet confections. I skipped on the confections because it would bring about another bout of People Bothering Diluc and it would be just repetition. I hope you forgive me.

Of masks and dances
chapter 13: What was lost

In which conversations are interrupted and everyone gets to fight.

This one is shock full of things I (and hopefully, someone else out there) enjoy: romance, fighting, badass battle duos, strange magics. It was a blast to write, even if it took me two whole weeks and change.

The thing is, my mind isn’t working in linear time anymore so I spent a whole week working on the chapter AFTER this one, then remembered I should kinda write this one because it goes first. The good side was that I knew exactly what needed to go into it, since we're so close to the end, the bad side was that I spent very long trawling my own fanfic to check for consistence and dropped plots.

But I did it! And writing this gave me much serotonin so thank whatever god that blessed me so.

My favorite bits on this chapter are the cute little scene in which Diluc and Kaeya fight side by side (because it’s lovely in a blood soaked way) and Diluc and Lumine's conversation on the meadow (because it's sweet).