#{ also. fixing my promo

[andhumanslovedstories]

chapter eleven of what feels like the most soap opera ass fic I've ever written and then just a bunch of thoughts about writing it, which contains vague spoilers for my plans:

The inception of the fic basically went like this:

haha lol i'd be fun if sqq got real mad at the state of education

what would need to happen in this fic that doesn't happen in canon to motivate him to do something about it

oh shit he didn't unlock OOC so he has to figure out how to be his coddling indulgent self (which he's in denial about) while also being shen jiu

But the thing that really made the story get so much bigger in scope was when I was reading a fic with yqy coming clean to sj, and sj being like, "GASP. I forgive you." And I was "I simply do not believe that this is how it would happen." And I would have moved on with my life, but then I thought, "but like how would it happen." And more importantly, how could this conversation happen within the canon timeline but still involve Shen Jiu, the person this information affects.

The OOC idea and the need for Shen Jiu to be present in this fight scene came together to be like "what if sqq got sj's memories so he could rules-lawyer his characterization more accurately, and ends up being furious on sj's behalf?"

(This, btw, is why I knew I had to get much fonder of YQY and get a much better understanding of his character. When a pillar of your fic idea is a character getting ripped into for his choices, it is sooooooo easy to for it to come off as the author yelling their personal opinions or for it to be completely flat character bashing. Neither are interesting to read or write! Hence the crash-course in YQY appreciation, so now he gets his own emotional arc too. Everyone gets a goddamn plotline.)

Meanwhile I was also thinking about the implications of downloading another person's life into your head. If you have their memories and their body, are you them? What makes you not them? I didn't know! I sort of just kept writing and posting with the assumption that I'd figure something out, which I've finally nailed down btw. That's a relief! Also kinda the fun of WIPs where you're building the railroad track as you're on the train. I end up fanficing my own fanfic. Once stuff is posted, that's the canon, and I look at it and think, "if this was a book I was reading, what is the way I would extrapolate what's there to make a new but coherent story?"

That's why my outline becomes pretty useless after a while. The big picture doesn't change too much--I know roughly where all the major characters are going to be emotionally by the end of the story--but I discover the path I'm going to take there. Which usually means adding stuff. Liu Qingge wasn't going to get a POV, and now every chapter I'm like "fuck am I building a throuple". Ming Fan will have waaaay more a story line than I originally conceived. Early on, I was like "eh I'm not going to go too far into the brothel stuff," and can you guess what is going to be coming up prominently in the next few chapters? God help me.

Actually, there's only one major part of the outline that I cut: Shang Qinghua. He was originally very prominent early on, but turns out having the literal Word of God in a story about slowly discovering backstory is difficult to reconcile. So sadly, he doesn't get a real role. If you're curious, the original plan for him was that SQQ would realize he's a transmigrator much earlier in the canon, but the System would be like [shen jiu would not tell shang qinghua he is a transmigrator. ooc] which would lead to this series of SQQ trying to figure out how he can communicate around this. SQQ at a peak meeting being like, "do you think these DEMONS are PROUD of having made their WAY to us IMMORTALS?" while SQH is like, "AM I HAVING A STROKE?"

What's some other stuff about this fic? I've got a lot of thoughts bottled up, in part because I'm kinda snobby tbh in how I post. I'm like "*pushes glasses up my nose* the author's takes on the story should not be unavoidably present when reading the text" so I don't like to use ao3's author's notes. It's ridiculous and not a standard I hold anyone else too, but whenever I find myself wanting to address something in the notes, I know I must feel insecure about that part of the story. So either fix it or don't draw attention to it. But this is fine, you have to come here for this. This is DVD commentary.

My favorite part of writing this fic has been balancing Shen Jiu's character. As I'm fleshing out his sad backstory, I've been wary of essentially woobifying him. Reducing him to just someone who greatly suffered is so boring and flat. He NEEDS to suck. Or more accurately, he needs to be a very imperfect victim. Exasperating at his mildest, despicable at his worst. (Truthfully, I do think I can and should make him worse. Luckily this story is nothing but flashbacks to him at his worst so there's plenty of opportunities.)

This whole mental breakdown section has been an interesting balancing act because it's explicitly about how bad Shen Jiu's life was and now how bad Shen Qingqiu's is. It's the point at which I had to decide how torturous his time at the Qiu manor had been (me and Shen Qingqiu really discovered that together). On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the absolute worst saddest brutalist ideas I had for this era in his life, I'd say I settled on about a 7. Most of it is backstage in my head, but once I locked that down, I could start figuring out how much was bleeding through.

Anyway, it's been fun writing the angstfest of the last few chapters, but oh my god am I ready for a tone shift. There's usually jokes in my works, even the saddest bits, but jokes relieve tension which is the opposite of what I was going for. I didn't want any humor in the YQY conversation, then you have to keep not joking for a while to get the point across. There's still a lot of planned emotional shit, but I'm happy to not be wallowing for a while.

AND GOD AS MY WITNESS THIS STORY WILL NOT BE LONGER THAN 20 CHAPTERS. MAYBE IT'LL EVEN BE LESS!! IT IS DEFINITELY NOT GOING TO BE A WHOLE CANON REWRITE. PROBABLY!! IF TIANLANG JUN HAS ANY SIGNIFICANT SCREEN TIME, PLEASE KNOW THAT I HAVE FAILED.

[the-dynamite-truck]

. I am JOULE, Electra's dynamite truck .

Independent RP/Ask Blog for Joule the Dynamite Truck (She/They) from the musical Starlight Express; portrayal based in both headcannons and information provided in cannon.

Written by Pip (25, they/them).

AU & OC friendly, down to write with any productions versions of StEx characters! Open to interacting with any folks!

Open for shipping but as Mun is an adult will only with other (18+) writers.

Asks, anons and replies open; feel free to stop by DMs for some plotting too!

-

Headcannon Tag: (X)

Backstory Headcannons: (X)

Divider Credit (X) || Template Credit (X)

Volta RP/Ask Blog: (X)

. And I don't give a damn 'bout my bad reputation .

[goldenpinof]

meanwhile, Dystopia Daily t-shirt is available on shop.danielhowell.com

[worthyheir]

Sunday sneaky promo time. Maybe I've promoted these ones before. Maybe they're all new additions to my promo roster. All worth following xoxo

[personinthepalace]

Janeford in their full glory! Basically an uncensored version of this promo video - enjoy ;)

[citrus-sours]

Yuck, the fuck is that thing? idk but i think you should promo it...

[mc-tummy-blur]

Didn't expect the year of our Lord 2025 to get into Alan Rickman, but I guess that's how it goes sometimes

The year of getting into an actor that so far I have only seen portray maladjusted men

[nerice]

did u know that my screenplay is like. good

[d3ltanu]

" i'll show you how valuable elle woods can be ! " / © 

[wingsdreamt]

zack fair of final fantasy vii by fair | she/they | 18+

low-activity. highly selective and private.

guidelines. art blog.

status:

active only by request. otherwise, you can find me here: @angelictyphoon

[hellogoodbyegirl]

the illustrious Glenn Tilbrook in the Hits Of The Year promo video for Squeeze

[the-kipsabian]

OKAY BUT when kip used to say 'this is art' or how hes creating art with his character work and wrestling etc

LISTEN. LISTEN. LISTEN

WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT THEN, ALL THE MORE EXPERIMENTAL STUFF AFTER THE RETURN

THAT WAS THE FIRST DRAFT

[saiibeo]

⟼ᴀɴᴅ ᴡʜᴇɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ꜰᴀɴᴛᴀꜱɪᴇꜱ ʙᴇᴄᴏᴍᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʟᴇɢᴀᴄʏ ᴘʀᴏᴍɪꜱᴇ ᴍᴇ ᴀ ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇ ɪɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʜᴏᴜꜱᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴍᴇᴍᴏʀɪᴇꜱ

©/©

[byanyan]

again i didn't write as much as i wanted to tonight and again i'm telling myself that writing something is still better than writing nothing

[violetsareblue-selfships]

good morning ^.^

[cack1e]

wip just for u guys :] if you care this piece please scream at me to complete it because he might rot with the other wips.