poppyseed

Quick extended authors notes to talk about my yuletide fic from this year, since it wasn't revealed by the time I put up my end of year wrap up :) I wrote this fic for the Teixcalaan duology by Arkady Martine (if you haven't read these books I'm so sorry but I do need you to drop everything right now and then come back. Good luck) and it centers around a character we meet in the second book, Nine Hibiscus.

I ended up brainstorming while at Brenna's house. Brenna do you have dreamwidth. Sound off. (I'll ask her in like 90 mins when we're on a call.) Anyway I like to handwrite for brainstorming when I get the chance, and below are my notes :')



I ended up being somewhat faithful to this! The major divergence was that "framing through OC?" because "OC POV, OC backstory, I made this OC and I love her and she's the star of this show I am so sorry to anyone else" (I wasn't sorry). The fic ended up being mostly prose from her POV with the occasional epistolary/media excerpt, as well as a surprise cameo (it was a surprise to me as well until I had fully decided to keep it in). The brainstorming above is really true to my usual process whether I write it down or not—I am far more likely to start with framing and themes and then get into specifics rather than think about the logistics of what I'm doing first.

I am pleased with the end result! As I was writing I was convinced I was making a MESS because Martine writes with such elegant, rich prose... it was so scary to try to emulate even a little bit and I felt daunted by the task. By the time I started writing the letters though I hit my groove and I ended up especially happy with those segments of the fic. 

In the end it was just a lot of fun to come back to this world and I wanted to give a lil behind the scenes of how we got to the finished product! That's all thanks so much. <3

So you know those recipes where the author talks at length about their own life and opinions in seemingly irrelevant ways and you have a to scroll a ton while muttering "I came for the recipe, get to the point, oh my god"? Haha, sorry in advance.

I am structuring this so you can skip to the recs if you want to! But I want to give some context first for a) why I love minsung, b) what I look for in minsung fic, and c) what I recommend and why.

Without further ado:

Why I love Minsung

I've said it before and I'll say it again: it takes a LOT of stamina to be this weird about someone for five years. This isn't a primer because if you're here you ostensibly also at least enjoy minsung, but you are getting a quick sketch of what draws me to them as a ship.

• the absolute ease of their inside jokes - this is HARD to capture in stories and is so so fun to watch. they're so quick!
• the amount of their relationship that ostensibly happens off camera - are they attached to the hip on camera? yes. do they give us, the fans, a picture of the deeper parts of their relationship while being recorded? no! and i kind of love that about them. protect your peace kings.
• the married-isms of it all - jisung loves being married to multiple members it's one of his talents. but the minsung lived-in relationship of it all. the 'i know you inside out and still delight in calling you pet names.' the cafe trips, the shirtless facetiming. there is something so well-worn about the way they engage with each other that brings me deep joy.
• their push-pull! they love taking turns messing with and flustering each other! they both give as good as they've got!
• AND the quiet they can exist in. their little dates. the "you get me"-isms. soooo essential.

Basically: they like each other soooo much, and everybody knows it.

The other thing that I do literally all the time in fandom is I laser in on the most popular ship and despair that the fic for them always skews ~generic fanfiction. This is just a general fandom thing. In the fic for a popular pairing you will inevitably get what I call mad libs fic, which is where you could replace the names with different characters and it would still make sense. It's not inherently bad! It just isn't what I'm looking for when I'm having feelings about a specific dynamic and two specific guys that I think are so good and interesting both on their own and together.

What makes a Minsung fic a banger to me

 

Minsung fic misses more than it hits for me! I'm pretty picky about their dynamic and I think it's extremely difficult to get right (look at my ao3 works, there's a reason I've only written 1.6k of them and have no wips—they're intimidating!), so here are some ways I know a fic has hit the mark:

• minho is sharp and prickly without being mean / kind without being soft / funny and also weird / diligent, dedicated, and organized re: the things that matter to him
• jisung is introverted without being uwu-ified / too clever by half and emotionally savvy (please give him more credit here authors) / really multidimensional while still maintaining a sense of consistency in-story
• they like each other!!!!
• seriously if they're not also friends who like each other a lot i cannot buy the romance, they enjoy each other's company SO much, why are we erasing that ;___;
• another character at some point acknowledges or complains about how weird these two are about each other
• even if there is angst, we get some of the FUN that makes minsung a ship i enjoy shipping! these two don't scan particularly tragic to me, so i tend to prefer angst to come from outside sources (and/or the realization that because it's easy between them they don't know how to put in the work to sustain a more complicated long-term relationship but that's mostly a pipe dream fic for me.. someone write that please...)

And finally: THE RECS!

godlight by automaticshine - explicit, 53k, post-disbandment future fic breakup makeup angst palooza that heals you by the end

• let's get this one out of the way now. if this fic has one fan that fan is me. thankfully it has more than one fan as it should but i will never get off of this hype train
• deft writing, accurate and touching portrayals of mental and physical health challenges, solid pacing and dialogue that bangs
• i just don't know what else you want out of a fic!!
• one thing i love here is that we do get glimmers of that ever-elusive "the fact that it was easy wasn't always a good thing" that i LOVE for this pairing. they have to work to keep each other. they have to reckon with their own guilt along the way. it's so well done
• my comment on this fic literally filled up an entire ao3 comment box, here is a choice excerpt:
• "And now my feelings. Hold on I need to go scream in the woods. Okay great I've metaphysically done so. First of all let's talk minsung. I'm devastated. I'm a little husk."

solid ground by LadyAscalon - series, rated t, 45k ish, queerplatonic relationship and navigating coming out and choosing someone despite everything against you

• okay honestly life changing
• in this fic minho is gay and jisung is straight and they navigate being each other's favorite person on earth. the first fic in the series (slip safe) is an achronological exploration of what it means to do fanservice with a straight guy when you're in love with him, the sequel dives more into building a queerplatonic life partnership, and there's also a meta essay by the author about rpf i found fascinating - while i didn't agree on every point, i also didn't feel like i had to! good food for thought regardless
• it's one of the freshest and most exciting fics i've read in a long time and i loved it desperately
• fantastic characterization, delivers on a trickyyyy premise, upends relationaship hierarchies, and simply fucks
• from the summary: "Minho and Jisung aren't in love, but that's not what's important."

until you fall it's painless by taotu - explicit, 24k, proximity soulbond/curse in idolverse

• if you know me you know that i love a soulbond and i love idolverse + magic and i especially love when a fic commits to it
• this is so fun!! i was really in my feelings and interested in this complicated almost-dubious-consent situation of being near another person and navigating a desire for intimacy that does and does not originate within yourself
• the tension and pacing were both so tight which i appreciate a lot in fic
• felix's subplot was both hilarious and charming and ALSO life ruiningly sad. thank you author for that, legend behavior
• from the summary:
• "There’s no playbook on how to navigate waking up soul-bound to someone, cursed to both suffer through worlds of pain if physically apart for too long. What Minho really needs, though, is a chapter on what the fuck to do when that someone is his best friend and fellow group member whom he happens to have feelings for."

Disposable Income by Blizzard96 - gen, 32k, AU where minsung are probably platonic life partners and also are henchmen looking for a new supervillain to work for

• this fic is a gem and I am sooo delighted to rec it to all of you
• primarily humor and friendship driven, with punchy settings and fun cameos from the other skz members as well as assorted mostly 4th gen idols
• their dynamic is wonderful, the banter is fun, and this author takes an objectively wack premise and plays it straight (while winking at the reader along the way). it's so effective and joyful!
• i'll leave you with the end notes:
• "Minho: Do you ever think that life would be easier if we weren't actually evil henchmen?
  Jisung: Sure, but then I couldn't do this [shoots a laser at the company vending machine and starts grabbing snacks]"

beneath my glass house by sharpa - explicit, 13k, non-famous au, trans character, hurt/comfort (heavy on the hurt!)

• do you ever wake up and go wow i want to take a hammer to my own chest a bit? and it leaves a bruise and every once in a while you press on the bruise and make a sad little face? this is the fic for you!
• sharpa is so good at understated aches and realistic, slow-moving train crashes—this fic takes place well after the crash and is about two people in a hard position doing their best.. and it's hard! and it's really moving because it's hard, but also just because it's real
• also in case i've scared you too much the ending is definitely hopeful!
• i love the well-worn edges of a fight here
• i love that they are both fallible and yet it's still so believable that they're in a long-term relationship
• more established minsung please fandom my heart needs it
• from the summary:
• "Two years ago, a mental breakdown derailed their lives. Now, Minho and Jisung are on a slow march away from the wreckage."

catch a glimpse of the hollow world by the24thkey writes - teen, 100k, technically a persona 4 au but idk the game and it was fine, high school au set in korea about coming of age and facing your shadows and killing monsters

• all right listen i am one of the foremost high school au haters you know and i need you to put that aside if you're in the same boat and read this wonderful fic
• this minho is a delightful protag and perfect outsider character to help get us accustomed to the world and watch as he learns more about the systems and powers he's coming up against to save the day!
• the ensemble cast is charming and the way the author weaves video game mechanics into the narration is seamless and soooo pleasing
• one thing about persona 4 i guess is you get to fight the shadow part of you/your friends, and as such we get SUCH rich character moments
• ugh it's so good this fic is criminally underrated
• from the summary:
• "In which reluctant video game protagonist Lee Minho moves to the countryside, solves a murder mystery, saves the day, and gains the power to face himself somewhere along the way."

Prism Light Portraits by Mntsnflrs - mature, 4k, au where jisung tries to crash his friends' wedding and crashes minho's grandmother's funeral instead

• this is a masterclass in using a tight space to deliver rich backstory
• in character, hilarious, touching, heartfelt, and not nearly as bleak as you might expect from the content matter while still giving it gravity
• ugh i loved this fic the moment i read it and then i read it again a few days later and it was still just as excellent
• the dialogue here deserves its own shoutout as well, extremely realistic and flowed super well (which is so hard to do! especially with a premise like this where you've gotta get characters /moving/ if you wanna do this in 4k)
• from the summary:
• “The worst day of your life?” Minho asked icily. “My grandmother’s funeral was just disrupted by a man wielding a party popper like a weapon.”

Hey friends, now that I know how to use dreamwidth I'm about to become insufferable about every fic I've ever posted, starting with this one. I'm not going to finish this post tonight but know that I just posted it a couple hours ago when starting to write this.

Did you know this is the first fic I've posted as a WIP and then finished in over a year? And only the second since uhhh 2014? WACK. Let's talk about it.

( aggressive 2minning below )

I'm going to level with you before I start this post: I'm not a great person to answer this question because my mind is like a tiny unhinged tornado at all times and I only sometimes try to corral it. Usually I just kind of let it do its thing.

( Read more... )

 My friend and yours Honey asked me some freeform questions and the thought of trying to constrain my answers to tweets was laughable so here I am talking more about writing!!

1. what does your revision process look like + is there anything u typically look at/for in revision? like diction or continuity?

Revision looks really different for different fics. For anything over 10k, I think I tend to take it more seriously and think more deeply about the choices I've made across the story. Under 10k is more about diction, flow, redundancy (I can fall back on the same words/phrases/actions), etc. For longer works, I think more about theme & what I want the reader to get out of it. Are they getting that thing? A lot of is about instinct. I trust that if something feels off to me, even if I can't explain why to myself yet, that that part of the story needs more attention. Having another pair of eyes or two on a story is also invaluable and has taught me a lot about the story I was trying to tell and the ways I could get there. Also just about myself as a writer!

In terms of continuity also yes lmao I am SO bad with timelines. So bad. Beta readers save me all the time. What's a reasonable amount of things to happen in a week? How long did this conversation take? Oh god, the seasons are changing and holidays are coming SOS. Nightmare.

2. what kinds of images/metaphors do u find urself returning to in ur writing, if any? 

Lots! I grew up near the ocean and will often use bodies of water as a metaphor. I think and write a lot about light, it's one of my favorite ways to set the tone of a scene. Is a lamp flickering? Someone's phone lighting their face cool blue? Hot, stark sun? If a fic can be set in LA (which is obv less common in this fandom for me lol), I love writing about the city. I love writing about cities in general. I came of age in Los Angeles and it was hard and painful and I wouldn't give it up for anything. Otherwise, the set of someone's shoulders or jaw. Little lines of tension that you have to really be paying attention for to be able to notice in other people. I think details are an opportunity to highlight what a character cares about and I'm often drawn to bodily ones, including tone of voice, gaze, etc.

3. how do you feel about capslock? are there any ~formatting quirks~ that would make u close a fic?

I will read an all-lowercase fic, but only if I'm really committed and trust the author. I struggle to get through them because they slow me down a lot. Same for text in screenshots people will post... if it's hard to read, I almost always bail unless I really trust the author and have the patience for it that day. I think readability is important and I encourage people to consider it carefully when posting things. As far as works on AO3, though, if sentences are capitalized then I can't think of other instances formatting has made me click out unless it's like, all one paragraph or something. If I can follow the storyline I'm generally happy.

4. b/w titles and summaries, does one come more easily to u?

Titles, but it's a slim margin. I find both generally easy unless I get to the end of the fic and haven't made a decision, in which case they both become extremely difficult. If my heart knows my heart knows! I often will title things just based off of what I think sounds good or works for the story rather than always pulling a song lyric or reference, and summaries sometimes come to me as I've typed them. I summarize with lines from the fic maybe 90% of the time, and the other 10% I just straight up summarize the fic. That only happens when I don't have a good bite-sized handful of lines to copy or alter for the summary. I really like those parts of fic, though! I find tagging harder lol, I so rarely write a pure trope that's easy to categorize so I have to do weird gymnastics to get the point across with tags.