shakti (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
markohmark) wrote2020-11-07 09:04 pm
markohmark) wrote2020-11-07 09:04 pm
Entry tags:
your empty gift-box eyes commentary
i have a strange amount of thoughts/feelings about this fic for something that is SO SHORT and i also have can't shut up disease and need to stay off of twitter so.... instead i'll ramble into the dw void <3
origin story:
- this started out as a prompt fill for the comment ficathon shida posted -- one of my txt mutuals prompted "one-sided rivals to lovers yeonmark" and i responded with this rudimentary 800w drabble called "the hardwork vs talent narrative"
- ok, in retrospect that title is dumb because i don't think the fic itself comments on hardwork vs talent that much (?) although it plays into yeonjun's rivalry with mark huh. regardless i ended up changing the title to "your empty gift-box eyes" because all of my wip titles come from blue hour -- it's a slight mangling of "너의 비워진 그 선물상자 같은 눈빛" which i found translated as "That look in your eyes like a gift box that’s been emptied" and "Your emptied look like a gift box" and then shortened to suit my purposes :p
- i'm obsessed with yeonjun's tradition of introducing himself to new trainees by telling them that he's #1 at everything & i'm honestly just very intrigued by txt's predebut dynamics in general -- it's a lot different from nct w/ sm rookies, where it's a lot easier to draw some basic conclusions at the very least [quote me in my dms w/ hui: "even if they weren't in rookies, you can just write about how they were sad that they weren't in rookies" HSJKDA]. i didn't do much research abt bighit trainee era though bcs i knew i threw any chance of being realistic out the window when i said mark lee left sm to join bighit...
- i also think the whole sunk-cost-ness of being a trainee @ sm is f*cking insane. like there are idols such as suho, johnny, etc. who missed multiple group debuts but then finally ended up debuting? after 7+ years? i remember reading an AMA froma "former sm trainee testimonial" on reddit that basically implied that there was a rumor among trainees that as long as you train for long enough/wait long enough you'll debut. i think this tends to apply more for male trainees tho lool [stares at nct's 23 members] as opposed to like... 4 member sm girl groups... but still! it's crazy to me! the sunk costs of it all is so compelling haha.
some things i like:
i think part of the reason why i like this fic so much is that it's an attempt at a style i haven't tried in a long time aka the style i had always wanted to emulate as a young writer... that angsty ambiguous vague idolverse fic that's light on the details and heavy on the emotion. normally my fics are way more wordy and light-hearted, and it was nice to not go into detail on some things for once lol...
i'm not going to lie, one of rose's beta comments stuck out to me. she said something like "you're doing well at capturing the toxicity... is everything going okay at school?" and i think that was the moment where i realized Why I Care So Much. because ultimately, although yeonjun is really toxic and competitive in this fic, it does end on this hopeful note where, instead of isolating himself as #1, he begins to open himself up to others and befriend them. i think i've made it pretty clear on cc/on the tl, but my high school is also really competitive and that experience has been really isolating at times? that definitely influenced me a lot while writing, just the experience of having to deal w/ others resenting you & also hating other people irrationally.. i just think teenagers have the capacity to be absolutely ugly/horrible to each other /and/ forget and forgive easily?
also i kind of love it when there's that love/hate dynamic... reminds me of my favorite fic title ever "wear your love like it is made of hate" which is taken from some song i've never listened to. it reminds me of my experiences of having a crush on someone i competed with yet also being unable to distinguish that crush from competitive obsession & then those things become twisted together...
i also seeded my fav agendas into this fic, mainly that
A) soobin is the nation's [txt's] first love
B) everyone has a Mark Lee complex
i also included taehyun cameo [he gets one line of dialogue] for my rights only.
one last thing: i honestly like how short it is. i was becoming really annoyed with myself while writing the taegyu fic for nanowrimo because my scenes literally got so long... like i’d write 2.7k of taegyu doing one (1) thing and think to myself about how my little wonder fic was literally the same length... i think rereading my old writing, which used to consist solely of 500w drabbles and like 2k “fics” if i was feeling ambitious, really helped me remember that i dont Have to go into details about everything... lemme let the reader connect the dots a little! or something.
some things i'm insecure about:
- whether the progression even makes sense. i think rose was able to help me spot a lot of the self-contradictory things i inserted in my first draft due to... rearranging the orders of scenes like 100x...
- yeonjun's characterization. i don't pay attention to him that much, partly because he's so popular that other people make observations about him for me and partly because i have my 2pick tyunbam goggles on 80% of the time... like i know parts of this fic are based off of what i've actually noticed/learned about him as i got into txt but it's not like i was looking him up on namuwiki or searching his vlives for speaking habits the way i usually do when i'm obsessed with someone haha. i'm kind of scared that someone will tell me he's ooc but then i remember the words of one of my fav bts writers who basically said that the concept of being ooc doesn't make as much sense w/ rpf in the first place and as long as the character itself is consistent it should be fine... T___T i can only hope.
- actually implementing this new style haha... i usually take comfort in the fact that my writing is extremely simple and not flowery/pretty at all but i think Trying to make the words nicer just makes me more sad when it doesn't come across that way to the reader or wtvr...
random other things:
- skeletons by keshi is the perfect song for this fic and i'm obsessed with the verse that goes "feel bad, go to bed / wake up even worse, yeah / so sad, in my head / feelin' like a curse" & in my entire playlist i was just channeling my younger motivational songs [angry early-era bts rap about trainee life] & study songs [keshi]
- mark is short compared to yeonjun and soobin and i just think thats so cute
- i didn't think i shipped yeonmark and i still am not so sure about it considering my capability to write fics about things i don't care about [n*hyuck]
im pretty sure like maybe 5 people total will read this fic & idk if it's even that good JKHSADJLK BUT it scratched that itch for me and it's my first txt fic so i'm just going to count it as a success!
origin story:
- this started out as a prompt fill for the comment ficathon shida posted -- one of my txt mutuals prompted "one-sided rivals to lovers yeonmark" and i responded with this rudimentary 800w drabble called "the hardwork vs talent narrative"
- ok, in retrospect that title is dumb because i don't think the fic itself comments on hardwork vs talent that much (?) although it plays into yeonjun's rivalry with mark huh. regardless i ended up changing the title to "your empty gift-box eyes" because all of my wip titles come from blue hour -- it's a slight mangling of "너의 비워진 그 선물상자 같은 눈빛" which i found translated as "That look in your eyes like a gift box that’s been emptied" and "Your emptied look like a gift box" and then shortened to suit my purposes :p
- i'm obsessed with yeonjun's tradition of introducing himself to new trainees by telling them that he's #1 at everything & i'm honestly just very intrigued by txt's predebut dynamics in general -- it's a lot different from nct w/ sm rookies, where it's a lot easier to draw some basic conclusions at the very least [quote me in my dms w/ hui: "even if they weren't in rookies, you can just write about how they were sad that they weren't in rookies" HSJKDA]. i didn't do much research abt bighit trainee era though bcs i knew i threw any chance of being realistic out the window when i said mark lee left sm to join bighit...
- i also think the whole sunk-cost-ness of being a trainee @ sm is f*cking insane. like there are idols such as suho, johnny, etc. who missed multiple group debuts but then finally ended up debuting? after 7+ years? i remember reading an AMA froma "former sm trainee testimonial" on reddit that basically implied that there was a rumor among trainees that as long as you train for long enough/wait long enough you'll debut. i think this tends to apply more for male trainees tho lool [stares at nct's 23 members] as opposed to like... 4 member sm girl groups... but still! it's crazy to me! the sunk costs of it all is so compelling haha.
some things i like:
i think part of the reason why i like this fic so much is that it's an attempt at a style i haven't tried in a long time aka the style i had always wanted to emulate as a young writer... that angsty ambiguous vague idolverse fic that's light on the details and heavy on the emotion. normally my fics are way more wordy and light-hearted, and it was nice to not go into detail on some things for once lol...
i'm not going to lie, one of rose's beta comments stuck out to me. she said something like "you're doing well at capturing the toxicity... is everything going okay at school?" and i think that was the moment where i realized Why I Care So Much. because ultimately, although yeonjun is really toxic and competitive in this fic, it does end on this hopeful note where, instead of isolating himself as #1, he begins to open himself up to others and befriend them. i think i've made it pretty clear on cc/on the tl, but my high school is also really competitive and that experience has been really isolating at times? that definitely influenced me a lot while writing, just the experience of having to deal w/ others resenting you & also hating other people irrationally.. i just think teenagers have the capacity to be absolutely ugly/horrible to each other /and/ forget and forgive easily?
also i kind of love it when there's that love/hate dynamic... reminds me of my favorite fic title ever "wear your love like it is made of hate" which is taken from some song i've never listened to. it reminds me of my experiences of having a crush on someone i competed with yet also being unable to distinguish that crush from competitive obsession & then those things become twisted together...
i also seeded my fav agendas into this fic, mainly that
A) soobin is the nation's [txt's] first love
B) everyone has a Mark Lee complex
i also included taehyun cameo [he gets one line of dialogue] for my rights only.
one last thing: i honestly like how short it is. i was becoming really annoyed with myself while writing the taegyu fic for nanowrimo because my scenes literally got so long... like i’d write 2.7k of taegyu doing one (1) thing and think to myself about how my little wonder fic was literally the same length... i think rereading my old writing, which used to consist solely of 500w drabbles and like 2k “fics” if i was feeling ambitious, really helped me remember that i dont Have to go into details about everything... lemme let the reader connect the dots a little! or something.
some things i'm insecure about:
- whether the progression even makes sense. i think rose was able to help me spot a lot of the self-contradictory things i inserted in my first draft due to... rearranging the orders of scenes like 100x...
- yeonjun's characterization. i don't pay attention to him that much, partly because he's so popular that other people make observations about him for me and partly because i have my 2pick tyunbam goggles on 80% of the time... like i know parts of this fic are based off of what i've actually noticed/learned about him as i got into txt but it's not like i was looking him up on namuwiki or searching his vlives for speaking habits the way i usually do when i'm obsessed with someone haha. i'm kind of scared that someone will tell me he's ooc but then i remember the words of one of my fav bts writers who basically said that the concept of being ooc doesn't make as much sense w/ rpf in the first place and as long as the character itself is consistent it should be fine... T___T i can only hope.
- actually implementing this new style haha... i usually take comfort in the fact that my writing is extremely simple and not flowery/pretty at all but i think Trying to make the words nicer just makes me more sad when it doesn't come across that way to the reader or wtvr...
random other things:
- skeletons by keshi is the perfect song for this fic and i'm obsessed with the verse that goes "feel bad, go to bed / wake up even worse, yeah / so sad, in my head / feelin' like a curse" & in my entire playlist i was just channeling my younger motivational songs [angry early-era bts rap about trainee life] & study songs [keshi]
- mark is short compared to yeonjun and soobin and i just think thats so cute
- i didn't think i shipped yeonmark and i still am not so sure about it considering my capability to write fics about things i don't care about [n*hyuck]
im pretty sure like maybe 5 people total will read this fic & idk if it's even that good JKHSADJLK BUT it scratched that itch for me and it's my first txt fic so i'm just going to count it as a success!