threading_in_dreams

The problem is that I've been writing too much poetry. Some of it is just that tortuous path to painting my mind needs to take sometimes, squeezing a feeling into an image, stretching the image into a poem, then trapping it in canvas.

(It's a strange process but it makes sense for me and that's the whole point of contemporary art. So, there.)

But the vast majority are verses showing up unannounced and making themselves at home, so that I have to write them because they plague me, same reason I write prose.

The problem with this is that, historically, I only do that when I'm in a specific sort of hopeless love. Not because I set out to write poetry to express my feelings, but because I get feelings that I can't really parse and writing has always been how I get around to processing emotions (see how the painting process makes sense now?) And, of course, not all feelings are hopeless love, it's just that I'm very good at recognizing other feelings. I've trained a lot for it.

Actually, now that I mentioned it, I have trained enough to recognize hopeless love that I could, technically, catch it before I start going into free verse.

At this point my hypothetical reader might have understood where I'm going with this. The thing that strikes me is that I've been writing too much poetry-- grief-striken poetry, pure sense of loss-- but I have no idea what I'm grieving. What I do know is that it's some powerfully goth stuff, very much what my teenage self would have considered worthy of blogging.

Which is why I'm posting two of them here. In honor of my teen self and all the poems they never posted:

*

I

Time and space are thieves,
and what they take from us
are small moments of silence inside a car
a glance shared between playlists
the wait outside while you finish your dumb cigarette
both of us shoulder to shoulder under the precarious shade, existing.
Nothing so precious we'll notice,
all gone before we do.

**

II

As dawn traces stars on wet cobbles
I walk through the streets
a blank canvas, stretched thin
and I miss you.
Soon it'll be day again
they'll all be gone,
dew, stars and fog
but, right now, headlights still catch
the last of the night in warm amber
I hope I'll see you soon
drawn into daylight, harsh and true
I hope you want me to.

***

(that's it, Hypothetical-chan, you can leave now)

Current Mood: thoughtful

"Don't worry I'm still alive just really busy" is a classic blog post, isn't it? Haven't made one of those in over a decade, but it's an absolute classic.

That said, I am both still alive and busy with life stuff. Turns out going back to finish my bachelor's takes a bigger part of my schedule than I expected, so I don't have a lot of time to write and think about writing. It's fun to be a student again, though, after all this time. Class hits differently. Everyone is young and living through things that make you go "oh, sure, I remember being like that". You feel a little like you've been isekaied.
Absolutely recommended (but only if you live in a "free and public education for all" country.)

On writing:
I have been working on Masks. Chapter 30 is mostly written, chapter 31 is completely outlined and has some scenes and dialogues already done. Beyond that it's all outlines and snippets. But, hey, as long as I manage to make up my mind about a specific plot-related decision, I could get chapter 30 out next week!

(except, if I'm gonna be honest the one fic-related thing I'll post next week will be a Childe birthday fic. Assuming I pick one of the WIPs to finish and do it on time.)

The point here is that Masks is not in an actual hiatus. It's just taking too long because it needs me firing on all cylinders so I can pick up all those threads and make sense of them. But I think about this story everyday, and write at least twice a week. It's just going slower than I'm used to, which feels like punishment because the one thing my brain wants to do is hyperfixate on a thing and do it for 20h at a time.

This, by the way, is why I dropped so many smaller (though not really small) fics from exchanges this year. When I have very little time to write and know it will do me no good to the efforts to try and wrestle the plot of Masks into submission, I just sit and write 2k words of whatever. That Childe/Xiao fic I wrote took me 3 sessions on evenings, with an extra one for weird research and a couple more to edit.

To be perfectly honest, the best thing that could come out of writing an absurdly long fic was that I learned to move subplots around, something I had a really hard time doing in my original fiction. It's like writing it expanded my ability to keep track of a story.

Going back on the story to do an extra coat of revision (while picking up any dropped plot threads) I also noticed that my writing evolved a whole lot. Not only because I learned about proper dialogue punctuation in English (help!) but also because I learned to write things in different ways. If you pick up one of the most recent fics-- Once, under the plum blossoms-- and compare it to the first chapter of Masks, it's almost like it couldn't be the same writer.

I think that's really cool.

As long as you're alive, you're changing. As long as you keep going, you'll get better. That's a good feeling.

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

Just gonna leave the 100 Ships prompt table here, because I intend to start this when the year turns. I've got so many ideas!

#01 – Adamant	#02 – Snow	#03 – Lion	#04 – Spark	#05 – Amber
#06 – Lust	#07 – Bronze	#08 – Mint	#09 – Arctic	#10 – Black
#11 – Moonlight	#12 – Sunlight	#13 – Blue	#14 – Navy	#15 – Tea
#16 – Neon	#17 – Twilight	#18 – Blush	#19 – Wine	#20 – Nude
#21 – Rhythm	#22 – Brown	#23 – Linen	#24 – Ember	#25 – Thistle
#26 – Cherry	#27 – Orange	#28 – Vanilla	#29 – Bone	#30 – Harlequin
#31 – Cadet	#32 – Chocolate	#33 – Peach	#34 – Lead	#35 – Cream
#36 – Sand	#37 – White	#38 – Crimson	#39 – Pink	#40 – Ocean
#41 – Dove	#42 – Platinum	#43 – Yellow	#44 – Earth	#45 – Midnight
#46 – Pearl	#47 – Frostbite	#48 – Pumpkin	#49 – Electric	#50 – Purple
#51 – Coral	#52 – Salt	#53 – Crow	#54 – Rainbow	#55 – Cloud
#56 – Flame	#57 – Red	#58 – Ash	#59 – Rose	#60 – Slate
#61 – Green	#62 – Ruby	#63 – Olive	#64 – Lipstick	#65 – Spice
#66 – Grey	#67 – Denim	#68 – Rust	#69 – Flirt	#70 – Sunset
#71 – Sable	#72 – Desert	#73 – Jade	#74 – Sage	#75 – Buff
#76 – Jet	#77 – Plum	#78 – Leather	#79 – Liberty	#80 – Metal
#81 – Sepia	#82 – Lavender	#83 – Scarlet	#84 – Crystal	#85 – Chestnut
#86 – Shadow	#87 – Lemon	#88 – Mystic	#89 – Silver	#90 – Coffee
#91 – Seafoam	#92 – Lime	#93 – Punch	#94 – Pickle	#95 – Champagne
#96 – Copper	#97 – Bittersweet	#98 – Honey	#99 – Candy	#100 – Gold

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

If my intention with these wordcount posts is to keep myself on check, I should really have posted this last saturday.
So pretend I did just that.

Wordcount on Of masks and dances is as follows:

8.2k on chapter 20
1k on chapter 21, but I'm not sure those scenes belong there

As things usually go, this is not a bad number. Only when I think about how I'm missing 50% of the chapter I sigh and admit that many of those words are Wrong and I need to take a walk and think about what's supposed to happen, what I want to happen and what sort of candy* I can sneak inside the chapter.

That said, I regret to inform you that I'm getting brainwormed with 2 (!!) different stories related to Masks. They might be extras or I can mush then into a single follow-up (I got a perfect name), but then again they might just go into Story Limbo. I got so many fics into Story Limbo. So many.

Regardless, this is a spot of trouble, since I'm supposed to think about a certain point in the story's timeline and I'm drifting into 2 other points (one past, one future). So yeah.

* Candy, of course, is how I call a specific sort of self-indulgent scene. Fanfic in general is self-indulgent, but I tend to write plottier, which means there are things I need to write into certain chapters. Candy is what I give myself as a pat in the back for being a good human and picking up my plot threads.

Current Mood: hopeful

Of masks and dances
Chapter 19: Hearts, fire and dangerous games

In which Diluc is very much not ok. At least he makes an unexpected new ~~friend~~ ~~rival~~ sparring partner.

Sooooo... I did use the Tartaglia scenes I mentioned before. Not because they were too good to ditch, I said I was about to just spin an another fic out of it, but because those scenes became the key to what I was trying to do with Diluc's character.

You see, I needed him to be violently shaken out of his dissociative state. I needed him to feel his own heartbreak. Childe was very useful for that, because he is his contrast character from the very start. The romantic undertones were just me having some fun. Fuck, there aren't enough Diluc/Tartaglia fics in the world.

And I really just can't write duel scenes without serious erotic undertones for some reason*.

Of course, the whooping 17.8k words managed not to be enough for me to also show what change, exactly, was enacted by the whole ordeal. That'll come in chapter 21, since chapter 20 goes back to Lumine. I also avoided saying what else he was doing besides playing fight club with a Fatui. That was on purpose.

But I had time to flesh out Kaeya's newest team member! Lol, yeah. I know. I just like writing these kind of layered stories and braiding a small side-character in and out of the story is catnip for me. Also, Evelyn is a very reckless, foolhardy person and I love those.

* I usually blame Chris Claremont's run on the X-Men, which was formative reading for me, but it's probably some psychoanalytic bullshit. I mean, I know my kinks and only some of those can be traced back to reading X-Men comics while young.

Current Mood: drained

Updating wordcounts on Of masks and dances:

Chapter 19 is now at over 13k, but I'll be chopping some off as an extra. I think.
Chapter 20 is kept at 3.5k because I'm not really working on it right now.

Writing is hard, yes, but mostly because it's like solving a puzzle.

I love puzzles, my second favorite type of game, so it's no wonder I love writing. That feeling when you finally (finally!) get the right shaped words into the right shaped place of the story and suddenly the plot makes sense and you know what you're doing? That is as good as solving levels in The Talos Project, a high as soaring as completing a whole crossword puzzle in a minute and a half.

So, what I mean is, the words started to click together yesterday.
Joy, oh joy!

Now, let's finish this thing.

Current Mood: ecstatic

Here is the deal, when I started writing Of masks and dances, I knew I was writing romance, but I also knew I'm drawn more to the indie side of things, so if I'm going to write romance it'll be less rom-com and more indie romance (I'd give book references here, but romancelandia is far more diverse than hollywood and my favorite romance books have a lot of fantasy and adventure, so the romance beats walk along with the plot).

For the record, the romance beats would be these:

Set up: the before times.
Meet cute: bumping into the love interest while running to school with a toast in your mouth, yes, but also the moment two friends see each other in a new light.
Complication: whatever divides them makes itself shown.
Hook/The "oh" moment: whatever brings them together makes itself shown. Shoujo manga uses a lot of sparkles for this and I like to do my best to imitate with words.
Swivel: their differences show and it's painful. Turns out complications don't disappear because
All is lost/The break up: things go wrong, it leads to some seemingly irreparable damage to the relationship. You can fit a whole lot of angst in this bit, but also, crucially, you need some character growth. ➡ we are here
The moment of truth/Resolution: the characters realize they would rather be together and we achieve our HEA or HFN.

The thing is, between steps 6 and 7 you need to set up some sort of resolution to whatever was stopping the pair from being together, otherwise you're just making someone settle for less (and if you're thinking of many movies that indeed do that, yup, this is why many Hollywood romances are so bad) (on a second note, sometimes all you want is to say "Yes, this person settled for less." If so, more power to you, I actually love reading tragedies and fucked up love stories when they're intentional).
In this fic's case, I have two problems with this:

One is that what drove them apart is the fact that Diluc is, frankly, too damaged to work properly in a healthy relationship. Lumine might not be the healthiest of all people, you could even say she's guilty of the very same things he does, except she knows to depend on people to keep herself in check. She doesn't need the help, she's a fucking killing machine, but she needs the checks that come with having someone around.

Two is a continuation of that. Diluc's problem isn't something I can actually solve. His bad coping mechanisms are part of his character, they were fixed there by a wealth of bad situations, they 're a reflection of how he sees his place in the world. I could maybe have him get stronger ties to his community, since isolation is part of his issues, that thing with throwing his life away is basically thinking anything else is more valuable to his community than himself.

This is where I am with this chapter. I need to do some character development and I'm having a hard time conciliating that with my plans for this story, because damn it would be easier to make up some ol'regular Hollywood solution for this, with an alternate romance that is there only to be ditched.

I actually wrote a scene that could lead to this, then cut it out to make it into a separate one-shot* in the future, because it would be Wrong. Diluc clearly knows his heart about Lumine. The one who could go for a rebound romance is Lumine and she wasn't even interested in romance to begin with, so it's not like she'll be falling all over anyone in Inazuma**.

So, no. I'll have to figure out how to make my broken boy whole.

I mean, I can wrap this up in 3 more chapters if I play my cards right.

* Because waste not, want not. Also, there is no way I won't write a Diluc/Tartaglia enemies to lovers. Yes, yes, it's borderline crack, but hear me out, I have four good scenes pinned in place.
** In the specific world of this story, of course. I never tag canon divergence because my opinion is that you can't quite fic without diverging, but the whole set up for Masks is about 50k for a good reason. Anyway, in canon the Traveler is falling all over a lot of people in Inazuma.

Current Mood: working
Current Music: Fetch the Boltcutters, by Fiona Apple. The whole album.

I know I make my own life harder because I'm a dumb bitch that can't see a challenge without taking it on, sometimes without even considering if this is how things are done.

You have no idea the amount of times the feedback I got from something was "You mean you did it from scratch?" or "People usually do this with a friend." or "I meant a bit less, but this is good."

(If you noticed all of those were examples of lousy feedback, yes, I'm plagued with not-feedback my whole life. Not even my art school teachers were into telling me where I should do better. It seems people decide I'm smart enough to tell even if they don't say, which is how other people set themselves up for failure.
When you add this to the fact that I have very little context awareness, you can tell why I have strained relationships with colleagues)

Dumb bitch mode showed itself this week when I decided I wanted to add "songfic dimension" to this one chapter, but also decided I should come up with lyrics instead of using modern songs, because this is a fantasy setting. When I say it like this it sounds almost sane. Let me rephrase:
I decided to write small bits of poetry and song lyrics so I could quote them throughout a single chapter, because I think it fits with the setting.

Of course I could change my mind and scrap the idea, but I'm a dumb bitch and I'm both attached to the idea and interested in the challenge.

This week I wrote smut for the first time since I was a teen. And I did it twice, as in, two different scenes. One was a oneshot and the other was in the longfic. I was supposed to finish the oneshot first, it was written exactly to sharpen my filth muscles, but I did it the other way around.

Turns out I didn't felt like I needed a lot of sex in the longfic scene, a fade to black was perfectly fine there, even though the erotic bit of the scene was a journey. And I mean it in a Dean Pelton way.

Dean Pelton, from Community, saying "This better not awaken anything in me."

This left me with an oneshot that was written up to the point things got explicit, so I had to psych myself up and write some porn.
Which I did today.
It was pretty tame, though I think it might be sexy.
I still feel a bit self-conscious about posting it.

Might post it anyway because life is too short not to post tame smut on AO3.

Current Mood: weird

I have already decided I won't be adding smut into Of masks and dances. I might make a couple of bonus chapters, but no smut in the main story.

So this is not about the fic I should be writing (sorry not sorry).

This is about me looking at writing challenges and thinking "this dick or treat thing looks cool, maybe I can do some deranged rare pair smut" and proceeding to write 4k characters of crack featuring Kaeya and Eula before I noticed I was not writing smut.

Girl, help. How does one gets to the sexy bits?
I have no idea, my blorbos are just getting drunk and annoying Diluc. It's funny, though, which means I'm doing something different, which means I'll keep writing.

Current Mood: amused

Of masks and dances
Chapter 14: And what is found
In which Kaeya doesn't knows how to take a break and Lumine is ~~scared~~ just a bit apprehensive about all of this, what it means and whether or not she should just run away.

A slower chapter, though there is some spice in there to shake things up. I needed to have Kaeya make sense of what is going on in text, so that the reader can keep up. I do hope the reader can keep up.

Also, Lumine sets things up to run away from her scary feelings, which prompts some conversations. I feel like I've let myself down with writing Lumine, there is more going on with her than I manage to pin down with words, so maybe she comes across weird for a reader. I can't know, because I have very strange feedback from this story, generally positive but it doesn't tells me what people like. It really made me review the way I leave comments.

Mind's-eye candy
I really love describing Kaeya being hot and absolutely abuse Albedo's POV to get this through, though this chapter has the extra moment of Kaeya appreciating Albedo.
Who amongst us doesn't wants pretty scenes lavishly described? I write all those scenes with Kaeya stripping because they amuse me, then I find something to do with what I wanted to write anyway. Catch me throwing some mysteriously bisexual light upon a shirtless Kaeya, like I'm an action movie director.
And then there are things like that one paragraph from Lumine, wait, I'll excerpt it:

She hid her face again, this time because she was afraid everyone would be able to see the memories flashing behind her eyes. That time in the Domain. Then that dance without a song. His lovely sleeping face. His stupid soft hands and his ridiculously silky hair. That T of soft hair in his chest. Damn, she wanted him.

I wrote that not just because I wanted to remind everyone that Lumine Thirsts, which is actually important for the scene (*gasps*), but because I have that idea about Diluc's chest hair ping ponging around my mind for, what, months now? I need to have someone else worry about that. Next time I'll have you thinking about how muscle is actually soft when relaxed, so his claymore wielder arms and torso would be the best bear hug in existence.

Hm, this here post is gathering its skirts and running away from me. I should do something to bring it to a close.

Well, I have 50% of next chapter written, which is not how things have usually worked since I've gotten to the middle of this fic. Part of it is because I just know where things go right now, part of it is because I had written both couple's windblume specials (lol) in the same chapter then I thought it took away from both and separated them into two chapters. Which means the Dilumi candy comes in chapter 15. I liked writing it, but I'll talk about that next time.

'till then

Current Mood: chipper

Whenever I get close to the end of a story my brain starts rebelling.

What happens is I just can't continue. It's like the plot starts falling apart. I question every single creative decision I made. I get caught up in different possible paths to the ending. I question the very choice of ending.

It's just 100% pure anxiety, that's what it is. And it's got its claws in me right now.

Thank the gods I went with posting this fic as I write it, otherwise I would never post it. At all. Because I'd be too busy thinking it is WRONG

Why can't I just chill out and do it wrong?

(while I can't tell you the actual reason, I have my suspicions and do not need anyone to tell me "take it to your therapist" tyvm)

Current Mood: distressed

I can't believe it's friday already, I thought I had two days to finish this chapter and NOOOOOOOO

Current Mood: shocked

One of the things that gives me the biggest kick about writing videogame fanfic is that I get to imagine everything that is only hinted in the game.

So while in the game the map might be scaled down, the fauna and flora reduced to things you can use, the magic and systems all squared off into useful (read: combative, protective and so on) niches, in my mind things are much more lively. I get to think about things like what Jean keeps in her desk (vs what Kaeya keeps in his desk, vs what Albedo keeps in his desk. It was a lot of fun, thinking that) and what sort of technology was invented using the world's elemental capacities. I get to extrapolate that there are seven languages besides common and that some characters are not fluent in all of them. I get to think about waypoints and how they work.

And I get to make fights fun.

It's kinda great, really, picking up an interaction that would be a boring fight with minions if this was a quest in the game and stretching it into a whole scene with danger, adventure and descriptions that do not match the game.

I love describing fights in such a way that matches the character's style but goes beyond what you can do in the game. So much fun. As much fun as making the badass characters actually look impressive (instead of how they look when they're low level and I haven't learned how to use them yet).

And then there is the whole romantic/smut aspect which is too much fun because look I took these characters from a game and made them kiss. It's pretty obvious how much fun it is to do that.

Of masks and dances - chapter 12 - Dream logic

In which Kaeya is having a bad day and it is Not Improved by monsters, a Harbinger and hallucinogens.

I know I posted this sunday and it's wednesday, but in my defense time does not exists and the calendar is a social construct created to facilitate trade.

This is the chapter in which I fucked myself over by:

having an outline that used concepts that happened to show up in an actual in-game event after I had decided on them. It was Shadows Amid Snowstorms, but you could guess from my use of a shape-shifter. No, I did not anticipate fakebedo, I merely wrote an arc in which Kaeya, Albedo, Tartaglia and Zhongli had to cooperate in Dragonspine while having a shape-shifter infiltrate them. There was a The Thing aspect to it. AND I HAD TO SCRAP IT
thinking that going for a small Albedo POV, as a treat, would be something I'd have the self-control not to abuse. I should know myself better. I also should have considered that Albedo has a lovely voice as a character, and would be this smooth to write. Thinking in images, patterns and colors is the thing I was actually trained for and it's good to use it for something. I also like Sucrose a whole bunch more now that I have headcanons about her
writing a bunch of scenes that I scrapped completely. Again. If you think my chapters are long, or if you wonder how I manage to write that many words, well my only answers are that I generally scrap about 5k words from any one chapter and that even the ones that get to the post are not exactly the best words. They're the words I managed. This is how you get a high wordcount.

Honest I say all that but I love writing this fic. It is all over the place and has about as much dropped ideas as your regular chinese webnovel (I say this with much love, there is nothing I like more than a story with 100 ideas a minute), but I'm having so much fun.

All my love to people that plan and write something coherent, I read those fics with awe, but I'm not quite capable of the same feat
And I'm just fine with it.

Current Mood: cheerful

Everyone has their own preferences about romantic scenes, so I don't go around assuming the scene I'm writing will work for everyone. The kiss has to work for the scene, has to fit the characters and their arc, their reactions and feelings have to be consistent with their inner narrative so far.

All very good ideas, except I have a terrible time trying to remember how it feels to be kissed, so I get stumped on "but how does that feels, exactly?".

This sounds pathetic, I know, kinda like those old TFWNG memes. But the thing is: I have difficulty putting words to most things that relate to tactile senses. Probably something to do with my relatively high pain threshold or ND brain or both.

In any case, the result is that I get stumped trying to describe how it feels to be kissed by someone in that specific situation, going through memories and pulling my hair while I try to remember. And there are so many types of kisses.

The kiss from a person that adores you and is just so happy you're there, by their side. The passionate kiss from someone that really wants you. The curious kiss from one that never thought about kissing you before but is game. The nervous kiss from the person that thought a lot about this and can't really believe this is happening. The smug kiss from the person that was just waiting for you to take the shot, certain that it would eventually happen. The stolen kiss. The very last goodbye kiss. The very first good morning kiss.

I just need the words *grabby hands*

I have several issues with the way people like to make binaries out of everything (I'm literally demisexual and enby, you can tell I don't like forced choices) and that plotter | pantser continuum in which people like to place writers gives me hives.
What do you call a person that:

makes a very general outline
does not follows the outline
writes scenes out of order just to see if said outline works, also because juicy scenes are better
makes "goal lists" for the inbetween scenes so they can work away the inconsistencies
still has to edit the hell out of everything because the characters have their own ideas of what should happen
ends up deleting half the juicy scenes

I've had people say I'm a chaotic plotter or lawful pantser (lol).
In any case, I got another day with my trusty notebook and the question: how do I even make this happen?

Current Mood: frustrated

I'm currently writing a chapter of my fic that involves Kaeya and Albedo Doing An Investigation, fighting monsters and contemplating some moral questions (also: kissing, because yeah I got your kaebedo right here).

Since I got Diluc and Lumine far away doing other things while this goes on, it only makes sense that the only POV character I got is Kaeya. Which won't do, because I have invested a lot of brain into a multiple POV narrative, so suddenly having a single blorbo is making me antsy.
So of course I added Albedo as a POV.
(I couldn't pull that off in original fiction, but fanfic is a godless land)
And damn I'm having ✨fun✨

This here polite alchemist that is just ruthless enough to be interesting and has no idea of the effect his words or actions have on people because thinking about that would be too exhausting and/or boring. Writing him is sooooo good. Writing the way Kaeya sees him is so good.

I might have to write a spin-off.

Current Mood: bouncy

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Entries tagged with writing

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