#if youve read/are reading true gold pls shoot me an ask!!!

[nulfaga]

a for the gemfic? and f!

from this ask meme

A: How did you come up with the title of (True Gold)?

this is embarrassing but it came from a mountain goats song LMAO.

“what will I do with you, pink and blue? true gold / nine days old”

i was listening to that album when i had finished like the first chapter of what would eventually become the gemfic, and i connected it to this huge storm of confusion and fear that gem would be feeling, having just been saddled with this baby. what will i do with you????

it was definitely meant as a working title, but the longer i kept it, the more it became like an inevitability that i was gonna use it. i also saw more and more connections as the gemfic expanded, like “true gold” -> “gold leaf moor”, and also like.....the phrase “true gold” implies “false gold” which, to me, ties in with the theme of identity/personhood/what’s-in-a-name...i cant really verbalize that in a way that doesnt make me sound insane sorry <3

F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

all my favorite dialogue comes from the very last chapters but here’s one from ch. 50:

**

"I want to know what happened to make you so quiet." Gemile holds her breath. "Was it Lexennia?"

"Sometimes I think we fight because we don't understand one another." J'hani sighs a very long sigh. "Nothing has happened. The only trouble is that weeping and shrieking is much more endearing on a wealthy, well-born young girl from the Nibenay than it is on any scruffy Khajiiti incomer."

**

i think on a technical level this isnt my best writing, but imo its one of the most important bits of dialogue in the fic, and one of the bits i’m always thinking about, bc...this is more or less the reason why gem and j’hani’s relationship was always on a timer.

growing up in a khajiiti community in leyawiin, j’hani was part of an extremely stigmatized out-group, but there are 2 mitigating factors: 1) being an ohmes-raht, he’s closer to passing for a man or an elf than anyone in his surroundings, and 2) he gets scooped up by lexennia, who’s intrigued by him bc he kind of defies her expectations by being a smart, polite child. “one of the good ones”, to be super unsubtle abt it.

so the discovery he makes from that is: people in cyrodiil will generally treat him with decency as long as he continues to be “one of the good ones”: ie on the condition that he is always polite, deferential, honest, nonthreatening. ofc this turns him into kind of a pathological people-pleaser for whom strong emotional displays, in himself or from others, provoke terror and disgust.

this frustrates gemile to no end; after a certain point, they know each other and she understands his history, but fundamentally she can’t bring herself to understand how someone can be so repressed. bc for her it’s like, she grew up in a big, loving, secure (both emotionally and financially) family, where she and her siblings are always picking big loud fights with each other and with their parents, but always with the knowledge that like, “we’re fighting now but it’ll always be okay in the end.”

so from her end, she feels like whenever she gets a little heated, he shrinks away from her as if she’s a bomb, or he dismisses her out of hand, because he thinks that any display of emotion is inherently melodramatic and uncalled for.

and from his end, he’s like, this woman just has no fucking clue what an enormous privilege it is to express yourself however you damn well want to and not be afraid that everyone will immediately turn on you (and everyone they assume is “like you”). and she never will.

(the dynamic between gemile and j’hani is probably the biggest indicator that true gold is a Fic Of Color. j’hani’s perspective definitely takes from my own experiences of being told “you’re not like the others” and feeling pressured to act accordingly.....and all the fun damage that does lmao!)

thank you sm for the ask sorry i went nuts <3