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sophia_sol) wrote2024-07-27 02:34 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2024-07-27 02:34 pm
Entry tags:
dvd commentaries on some of my fics
I recently did a little game on fedi where people could ask me about any of my fics (or a chapter/paragraph/line of one of my fics) and I'd post a mini dvd commentary on them. I'm crossposting them here! If you want some comments on any of my other fics, btw, feel free to ask :) my fics are here!
so this section was begun out of a desire to see if it would fit this fic to work in anything about ling wen nonsexually domming pei ming. because I think they both deserve this, plus it's a notion that always brings joy to consider. So I stuck them in a room together to try playing them off each other to see what might develop.
Then I wanted to show the kind of casual intimacy the two of them have in their friendship, because it's clear from canon that the three tumours are very close to each other. But at the same time they don't talk nicely to each other, even as they do see each other and support each other, so I wanted to include that kind of dynamic, a friendship that isn't outwardly pleasant but that is a vital part of their lives.
I also enjoyed drawing a contrast between the two characters, because they're not people who seem to have a great deal in common, despite their closeness, but at the same time highlighting what IS similar, their interest in power and control. Drawing attention to the power and control aspects of their characters is interesting in itself, in the context of a fic about Ling Wen maneuvering to become the next heavenly emperor, but it's also something I was playing with because I wanted to go for that nonsexual domming aspect.
But unfortunately it didn't end up fitting what the scene needed, so I ended it with just the promise of some kind of potential there that Ling Wen could take control over Pei Ming in the future if she wanted to.
helpfully, this is a fic that postdates my discovery of how to keep notes for myself as I write a fic, so I have info to refer back to in terms of what I was thinking!
so this is an exchange fic, and it was written for a recipient who expressed interest in a variety of things I wanted to try to work in:moshangbingqiu or shangbingqiu; outside pov; leaning into characters' demonic traits; communication challenges; fight scenes; blood.
So I was immediately like: mbj as an outside pov on shangbingqiu would be SO fun!!! and would allow me to play with the demonic traits and the incomprehensibility across cultural lines. I decided that my angle would be that mbj&sqh a vital relationship in mbj's life but he does Not Understand the appeal of of dating bingqiu. but he wants sqh happy and fulfilled. so he's going to make sure it happens for sqh.
and then I figured that to get fight scenes in, I should make up someantagonists, so obviously I needed to make up a non-human demonic species, so obviously because I'm me they had to be birds, so obviously I had to go do a bunch of research on birds in china.
As I wrote, I figured out more of what I was doing with the various relationships and the themes and stuff, and discovered that I really needed to have mbj fight lbh directly, so then that became something to work towards. As well, my recipient expressed that they particularly wanted to see the development of the sqh/lbh part of the relationship, so I really wanted to make that happen, so I worked hard on sprinkling in some of sqh's thoughts on lbh throughout, in order to lead up to sqh feeling up to actually approaching him in the end.
The way I conceptualized the sqh/lbh relationship, and what would allow it to move to something closer, is that sqh needed to be able to complain at lbh without being nervous of how he'll respond, and lbh needed to feel like he could be fussed over in a caretaking way by sqh. So that's what I was really aiming for with that side of things in the fic.
the mbj relationship with sqh came easily to me, as did mbj's pov in general. the idea I went with for my take on mbj is that he's very blunt inside his own head, and knows exactly what he thinks about things, but doesn't feel the need to say anything aloud very much at all. he'll just take action (or not) based on what he knows about himself instead. he's not an agonized soul-searching kind of guy.
and given that I was writing an mbj who's 100% team sqh, I wanted to lean into an sqh who's an obnoxious asshole as well as competent at his job, to allow mbj to admire all sides of him. mbj LIKES sqh's particular flavour of obnoxiousness! it's all part of the dream package.
I also was careful throughout my writing of the fic to try to keep my prose free of idioms that wouldn't make sense contextually for mbj to think in -- and to add as many winter-themed ways of thinking as I could, just for fun.
the thing that surprised me the most in the writing of mbj's pov was how much mbj was like....sexually into fighting lbh. it became very clear to me early in that fight scene that mbj found the whole thing a turn-on, and I was just like, lol, ok, good thing the recip is ALSO fine with moshangbingqiu because mbj IS getting himself involved in some way!!! and then I leaned further into the mbj/lbh attraction. bc like. it's great.
so the basic premise of course came from the fic I was remixing, which was Antaresia's ficlet from sqq's pov about discovering himself to be a ghost haunting lbh in the abyss. I was like, that's SUCH a fun idea, I want to explore that, I want to see what it might do to bingqiu's relationship as it continues! and I also decided to swap to lbh's pov because as the character who knows the least of what's going on, it's an interesting perspective to explore. and then I made them both trans because WHY NOT :D
this is the fic where I discovered that keeping notes on a wip fic in a separate document is a useful habit to cultivate. I needed to organize in my head what the structure of the fic was, when I was partway into writing it, so that I could know what I needed to write next. and writing that down helped me see it. In the abyss/in a dream with shizun/in the abyss/in a dream with shizun. and then an interlude of frantically reaching out for connection to shizun but not succeeding! before returning to the pattern of in the abyss/in a dream with shizun.
fairly early into writing the fic, I realized that the right thematic ending for the piece would be to bring up again whether shizun accepts binghe’s demon identity. and as I worked through my writing, I discovered that bingqiu's transness could actually be thematically linked to it - sqq accepting lbh's gender identity so comfortably and easily, and yet seeming to struggle so much with lbh's demonic identity. both are important parts of who lbh is! what was different about it to shizun?! but I kept a light hand on this because I didn't want to turn the transness into a metaphor. you get me.
another important thing to me in writing this fic was that I wanted to let lbh marinate in her feelings of anger and betrayal. sqq pushing her into the abyss is a fresh pain for her and she's NOT ready to just forgive and forget, even as she still desperately loves her shizun and craves her approval, and that's going to come out in a variety of ways.
the fic doesn't go anywhere explicitly sexual (except a few hints within lbh's longing thoughts) because this is before lbh's abyss glow-up, and sqq is still very much seeing lbh as her little bun. (don't worry, sqq will get to have an OH NO SHE'S HOT moment about lbh later on, post-fic!) but it was still important to me that the young and uncertain freshly abyssed lbh has sexual thoughts about her shizun as one of the many dimensions on which she's obsessed with her.
I wrote this fic at about the time when I was discovering how light-sensitive I am, and I thought it would be fun to make the abyss a place where the light is a glaring, threatening, unpleasant presence, in contrast with how darkness is more traditionally associated with abysses. So the abyss sections are all bright bright bright wide open, and the dream sections are dark, candle-lit, cozy vibes in comparison.
and finally, the beetle demons are because my initial instinct was bird demons (...of course) but I had already had sqq lecturing lbh about dangerous birds of the abyss so I figured I'd better mix things up. and I will always err in the direction of non-mammals when given the opportunity, is something I've learned about myself. so beetles came to me, and then I simply thought it would be fun to make them a highly cooperative, eusocial species. so I did!
in general, I think, one of the things the fic is about is muddling through when so many things are unsaid. even though in the end an amazing amount is said, there's still a lot that they just cannot manage to talk to each other about! I love how even when communication is a challenge, they love each other enough (are obsessed with each other enough) to keep on moving forward together.
(and then the beetle demons with perfect beetle-to-beetle communication and teamwork are a contrast to bingqiu!)
1. the ling wen & pei ming scene from "free to be the greatest"
so this section was begun out of a desire to see if it would fit this fic to work in anything about ling wen nonsexually domming pei ming. because I think they both deserve this, plus it's a notion that always brings joy to consider. So I stuck them in a room together to try playing them off each other to see what might develop.
Then I wanted to show the kind of casual intimacy the two of them have in their friendship, because it's clear from canon that the three tumours are very close to each other. But at the same time they don't talk nicely to each other, even as they do see each other and support each other, so I wanted to include that kind of dynamic, a friendship that isn't outwardly pleasant but that is a vital part of their lives.
I also enjoyed drawing a contrast between the two characters, because they're not people who seem to have a great deal in common, despite their closeness, but at the same time highlighting what IS similar, their interest in power and control. Drawing attention to the power and control aspects of their characters is interesting in itself, in the context of a fic about Ling Wen maneuvering to become the next heavenly emperor, but it's also something I was playing with because I wanted to go for that nonsexual domming aspect.
But unfortunately it didn't end up fitting what the scene needed, so I ended it with just the promise of some kind of potential there that Ling Wen could take control over Pei Ming in the future if she wanted to.
2. "precious treasure"
helpfully, this is a fic that postdates my discovery of how to keep notes for myself as I write a fic, so I have info to refer back to in terms of what I was thinking!
so this is an exchange fic, and it was written for a recipient who expressed interest in a variety of things I wanted to try to work in:moshangbingqiu or shangbingqiu; outside pov; leaning into characters' demonic traits; communication challenges; fight scenes; blood.
So I was immediately like: mbj as an outside pov on shangbingqiu would be SO fun!!! and would allow me to play with the demonic traits and the incomprehensibility across cultural lines. I decided that my angle would be that mbj&sqh a vital relationship in mbj's life but he does Not Understand the appeal of of dating bingqiu. but he wants sqh happy and fulfilled. so he's going to make sure it happens for sqh.
and then I figured that to get fight scenes in, I should make up someantagonists, so obviously I needed to make up a non-human demonic species, so obviously because I'm me they had to be birds, so obviously I had to go do a bunch of research on birds in china.
As I wrote, I figured out more of what I was doing with the various relationships and the themes and stuff, and discovered that I really needed to have mbj fight lbh directly, so then that became something to work towards. As well, my recipient expressed that they particularly wanted to see the development of the sqh/lbh part of the relationship, so I really wanted to make that happen, so I worked hard on sprinkling in some of sqh's thoughts on lbh throughout, in order to lead up to sqh feeling up to actually approaching him in the end.
The way I conceptualized the sqh/lbh relationship, and what would allow it to move to something closer, is that sqh needed to be able to complain at lbh without being nervous of how he'll respond, and lbh needed to feel like he could be fussed over in a caretaking way by sqh. So that's what I was really aiming for with that side of things in the fic.
the mbj relationship with sqh came easily to me, as did mbj's pov in general. the idea I went with for my take on mbj is that he's very blunt inside his own head, and knows exactly what he thinks about things, but doesn't feel the need to say anything aloud very much at all. he'll just take action (or not) based on what he knows about himself instead. he's not an agonized soul-searching kind of guy.
and given that I was writing an mbj who's 100% team sqh, I wanted to lean into an sqh who's an obnoxious asshole as well as competent at his job, to allow mbj to admire all sides of him. mbj LIKES sqh's particular flavour of obnoxiousness! it's all part of the dream package.
I also was careful throughout my writing of the fic to try to keep my prose free of idioms that wouldn't make sense contextually for mbj to think in -- and to add as many winter-themed ways of thinking as I could, just for fun.
the thing that surprised me the most in the writing of mbj's pov was how much mbj was like....sexually into fighting lbh. it became very clear to me early in that fight scene that mbj found the whole thing a turn-on, and I was just like, lol, ok, good thing the recip is ALSO fine with moshangbingqiu because mbj IS getting himself involved in some way!!! and then I leaned further into the mbj/lbh attraction. bc like. it's great.
3. "practicum and applied theory"
so the basic premise of course came from the fic I was remixing, which was Antaresia's ficlet from sqq's pov about discovering himself to be a ghost haunting lbh in the abyss. I was like, that's SUCH a fun idea, I want to explore that, I want to see what it might do to bingqiu's relationship as it continues! and I also decided to swap to lbh's pov because as the character who knows the least of what's going on, it's an interesting perspective to explore. and then I made them both trans because WHY NOT :D
this is the fic where I discovered that keeping notes on a wip fic in a separate document is a useful habit to cultivate. I needed to organize in my head what the structure of the fic was, when I was partway into writing it, so that I could know what I needed to write next. and writing that down helped me see it. In the abyss/in a dream with shizun/in the abyss/in a dream with shizun. and then an interlude of frantically reaching out for connection to shizun but not succeeding! before returning to the pattern of in the abyss/in a dream with shizun.
fairly early into writing the fic, I realized that the right thematic ending for the piece would be to bring up again whether shizun accepts binghe’s demon identity. and as I worked through my writing, I discovered that bingqiu's transness could actually be thematically linked to it - sqq accepting lbh's gender identity so comfortably and easily, and yet seeming to struggle so much with lbh's demonic identity. both are important parts of who lbh is! what was different about it to shizun?! but I kept a light hand on this because I didn't want to turn the transness into a metaphor. you get me.
another important thing to me in writing this fic was that I wanted to let lbh marinate in her feelings of anger and betrayal. sqq pushing her into the abyss is a fresh pain for her and she's NOT ready to just forgive and forget, even as she still desperately loves her shizun and craves her approval, and that's going to come out in a variety of ways.
the fic doesn't go anywhere explicitly sexual (except a few hints within lbh's longing thoughts) because this is before lbh's abyss glow-up, and sqq is still very much seeing lbh as her little bun. (don't worry, sqq will get to have an OH NO SHE'S HOT moment about lbh later on, post-fic!) but it was still important to me that the young and uncertain freshly abyssed lbh has sexual thoughts about her shizun as one of the many dimensions on which she's obsessed with her.
I wrote this fic at about the time when I was discovering how light-sensitive I am, and I thought it would be fun to make the abyss a place where the light is a glaring, threatening, unpleasant presence, in contrast with how darkness is more traditionally associated with abysses. So the abyss sections are all bright bright bright wide open, and the dream sections are dark, candle-lit, cozy vibes in comparison.
and finally, the beetle demons are because my initial instinct was bird demons (...of course) but I had already had sqq lecturing lbh about dangerous birds of the abyss so I figured I'd better mix things up. and I will always err in the direction of non-mammals when given the opportunity, is something I've learned about myself. so beetles came to me, and then I simply thought it would be fun to make them a highly cooperative, eusocial species. so I did!
in general, I think, one of the things the fic is about is muddling through when so many things are unsaid. even though in the end an amazing amount is said, there's still a lot that they just cannot manage to talk to each other about! I love how even when communication is a challenge, they love each other enough (are obsessed with each other enough) to keep on moving forward together.
(and then the beetle demons with perfect beetle-to-beetle communication and teamwork are a contrast to bingqiu!)