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younglegends) wrote2023-01-12 10:45 pm
younglegends) wrote2023-01-12 10:45 pm
[fic notes] lightning turns sawdust gold
after all, why not? why shouldn't i reflect a little on everything i write. anyway first fic of 2023 let's go!!
the song
been listening to nothing but sleigh bells all year (lol) Ok but seriously last.fm is telling me i already have 400 scrobbles for sleigh bells in 2023. IT'S BEEN 12 DAYS? i've specifically been listening to hummingbird bomb + it's just us now + lightning turns sawdust gold (obviously) + the entire bitter rivals album, and sleigh bells really is SUCH good writing music so thank u for my life since 10th grade or whatever.
the concept
just wanted to write sabo lmao, and always knew i would eventually. that being said i kind of surprised my own self by not going full-on canon character study and instead veering into canon divergent Here's how ace and sabo could have met again etc. it isn't a fix-it exactly because i never show the fixing it in question and it's all up to interpretation but it's true that if sabo got his memories back earlier there's no way he would have stayed out of marineford. THAT SAID, there is also no guarantee it would have made a difference. Lol! i'm not gonna lie i kinda subscribe to that interpretation, like, what, that's what it would have taken to save him? i don't think so. but anyway
writing about forgetting is always my favourite thing on this earth. also very fun to consider sabo growing up as a little wild gremlin on baltigo but also, like, removed from wild gremlins 1 and 3, so he veers off branch a bit, y'know, being studious and peeling potatoes and all that mundanity of committing urself to a cause bigger than urself etc. and then years later being confronted with the OG wild gremlin and being distasteful like um ew. and then being dragged down to the same level and remembering O shit that's where i came from, lol. also ugh now i'm thinking of ace also sailing out to sea determined to become the pirate king or whatever and then also ending up committing himself to something/someone greater than himself. LIKE... ARGH? THE PARALLELS ARE ENDLESS?
but the fact that i didn't go canon-route in terms of, u know, ace having died and sabo inheriting him, is again still surprising to me. Because um i'm kinda obsessed with it. so i'm surprised i didn't take the opportunity to explore that. MAYBE... SOME OTHER FIC IN THE FUTURE?! no wayyy
fave parts
also, btw, sorry for making up koala's entire personality except i'm not. My personality now.
- the fight scene
not that this is a part i particularly like but that i really tried hard with it and it nearly left me for dead LOL... i originally wrote something much more simple and... back-and-forth? like literally he did this and he did that and he did that etc. but then i rewrote it and... it's still very much like that... but i think i did mangage to make it a little more interesting lol. but also mfw i took a look over it after finishing and realized it was only, like, two paragraphs....... bro i killed myself over those two paragraphs.
anyway i learned i only like writing fight scenes where magic powers are being used in some way, which is why my genshin wip is so fun to write. i do feel though that it was Important to the Themes or w/e for sabo and ace to be going at each other with their fists, unfortunately. also ngl i totally forgot about sabo's OP dragon claw move or whatever but also i don't think he would be using it in a 1v1 when he's trying not to attract attention anyway... like overkill much?
btw, also, if there's one thing i love op for (there isn't just one thing.) it's the CRYING of it all, that everyone cries their freaking faces off... i was actually quite restrained with the crying in this fic in comparison lol
the process
ok writing this made me realize that my writing process is actually very perfectionist when it's a word i've never identified with in all my life... but i realize now that objectively that kind of defines what i do?! what i do is write, and then i rewrite, and then i rewrite, and then i rewrite, all the while just replacing words in sentences or whatever, and what is that if not trying to be "perfect". but it's not that, exactly? and it still isn't a concept i identify with, i think because i personally think of perfectionism as something negative, and i don't find anything about my process to be negative. in fact i find it really fun!! like for me so much of the work and so much of the joy consists of taking an idea i'm trying to express and grappling with it to see if i can say it in a different way, in a better way, in a way i didn't even know i was capable of before i started writing it. at any rate there's no perfectible way of writing, only different words, and at some point you have to be satisfied with the ones you chose. i finished this in exactly 1 week and didn't hold onto it any longer than that... though i could've lol
the words i didn't use
longest word list in my life. i ended up worming some of them in (starburst, mercy, blithe, deluge etc) but the rest are:
there was also one word i really wanted to avoid using, and went out of my way to do so, specifically in the final section of the flashback/remembering: wonder. (god, i bet this word is in every single fic i've ever written, INCLUDING THIS ONE!! UNFORTUNATELY!!!)
the words i started out with
always so interesting to me to go back and see what a story started out as. whole sentences just beamed into my head. here was the original "outline"/slew of brainstorming. as u can see the shape of it all pretty much came to me right away... we love it when writing writes itself <3
btw - working gdoc was titled "if". because that's the feeling i get for op, so much of it is: "if". all that possibility or whatever <3
anyway i wanted to have fun ✓ i wanted to write something shorter ✓ i wanted to write for op ✓ and i wanna do more of it!! REIJU i am coming for u next!!!
the song
been listening to nothing but sleigh bells all year (lol) Ok but seriously last.fm is telling me i already have 400 scrobbles for sleigh bells in 2023. IT'S BEEN 12 DAYS? i've specifically been listening to hummingbird bomb + it's just us now + lightning turns sawdust gold (obviously) + the entire bitter rivals album, and sleigh bells really is SUCH good writing music so thank u for my life since 10th grade or whatever.
the concept
just wanted to write sabo lmao, and always knew i would eventually. that being said i kind of surprised my own self by not going full-on canon character study and instead veering into canon divergent Here's how ace and sabo could have met again etc. it isn't a fix-it exactly because i never show the fixing it in question and it's all up to interpretation but it's true that if sabo got his memories back earlier there's no way he would have stayed out of marineford. THAT SAID, there is also no guarantee it would have made a difference. Lol! i'm not gonna lie i kinda subscribe to that interpretation, like, what, that's what it would have taken to save him? i don't think so. but anyway
writing about forgetting is always my favourite thing on this earth. also very fun to consider sabo growing up as a little wild gremlin on baltigo but also, like, removed from wild gremlins 1 and 3, so he veers off branch a bit, y'know, being studious and peeling potatoes and all that mundanity of committing urself to a cause bigger than urself etc. and then years later being confronted with the OG wild gremlin and being distasteful like um ew. and then being dragged down to the same level and remembering O shit that's where i came from, lol. also ugh now i'm thinking of ace also sailing out to sea determined to become the pirate king or whatever and then also ending up committing himself to something/someone greater than himself. LIKE... ARGH? THE PARALLELS ARE ENDLESS?
but the fact that i didn't go canon-route in terms of, u know, ace having died and sabo inheriting him, is again still surprising to me. Because um i'm kinda obsessed with it. so i'm surprised i didn't take the opportunity to explore that. MAYBE... SOME OTHER FIC IN THE FUTURE?! no wayyy
fave parts
Koala is always so upfront about her own nightmares that Sabo wishes there was something he could scrape up to give her in return. It isn’t sincerity with which she recounts a striking hand or the rattle of a chain or a ship leaking rusted blood in the fishbowl of her palms so much as unflinchingness. He opens his eyes to the darkness and wills himself to look it in its face.i really like this because, like, it killed me to not explain. to not overdo it with follow-up lines about how he felt about it or whatever. and just leave these lines as they are. which, i think, is new to me--leaving things are they are. and i just really like the result!!
“Don’t you ever feel,” he tries, “that there’s not enough space in the world. That you’ve got to get out.”
The darkness, as ever, does not look back.
“But you are out,” Koala says.
also, btw, sorry for making up koala's entire personality except i'm not. My personality now.
By the time they’ve settled into a table at the bar Sabo has sweated clean through his undershirt and Koala has finished her book. “Did you know that Verdel is a port not because of its proximity to other islands but its unique climate,” she says to him now, because she likes to know the underlying architecture of the world, how things ended up where they are. Him, he’s just good with knowing they’re there.starting from "because", those lines came to me fully formed when i first started brainstorming for this fic, and it's just always nice when that happens lol. also i quite enjoy sabo & koala's partnership dynamic (that i completely made up in my head) <3 just think it's neat, the difference b/w koala very clearly having a driving force (imo) that would have stemmed from her childhood trauma + being saved against all historical and political precedent, and her saviour very much being punished for it + wanting to understand Why things had to happen the way they did + wanting to change that, vs sabo whose head is literally empty.
- the fight scene
not that this is a part i particularly like but that i really tried hard with it and it nearly left me for dead LOL... i originally wrote something much more simple and... back-and-forth? like literally he did this and he did that and he did that etc. but then i rewrote it and... it's still very much like that... but i think i did mangage to make it a little more interesting lol. but also mfw i took a look over it after finishing and realized it was only, like, two paragraphs....... bro i killed myself over those two paragraphs.
anyway i learned i only like writing fight scenes where magic powers are being used in some way, which is why my genshin wip is so fun to write. i do feel though that it was Important to the Themes or w/e for sabo and ace to be going at each other with their fists, unfortunately. also ngl i totally forgot about sabo's OP dragon claw move or whatever but also i don't think he would be using it in a 1v1 when he's trying not to attract attention anyway... like overkill much?
There’s rain in his mouth. His eyes. Something burning down the tender ruined skin of his face.+ the rest of the ace & koala dialogue (if u can call it that). idk, just like how when sabo's slowly coming back to reality after the flashback it's just ace and koala being equally protective of him in different ways LOL and a back-and-forth that breaks it up a lot in tone from the outpouring that's been going on from the fight and the flashback. ace seems very much to be a What're u gonna do with that gun, shoot me? kinda guy but i probably went a bit ooc with koala using a gun? idk? as a whole i feel like i made the revolutionary army more intense than it actually appears to be in canon lol. but hello u guys are literally a revolutionary movement??
“Fuck, Sabo. What’d they do to you?”
The neat metal click of a gun being cocked.
“Let go of him.”
btw, also, if there's one thing i love op for (there isn't just one thing.) it's the CRYING of it all, that everyone cries their freaking faces off... i was actually quite restrained with the crying in this fic in comparison lol
the process
ok writing this made me realize that my writing process is actually very perfectionist when it's a word i've never identified with in all my life... but i realize now that objectively that kind of defines what i do?! what i do is write, and then i rewrite, and then i rewrite, and then i rewrite, all the while just replacing words in sentences or whatever, and what is that if not trying to be "perfect". but it's not that, exactly? and it still isn't a concept i identify with, i think because i personally think of perfectionism as something negative, and i don't find anything about my process to be negative. in fact i find it really fun!! like for me so much of the work and so much of the joy consists of taking an idea i'm trying to express and grappling with it to see if i can say it in a different way, in a better way, in a way i didn't even know i was capable of before i started writing it. at any rate there's no perfectible way of writing, only different words, and at some point you have to be satisfied with the ones you chose. i finished this in exactly 1 week and didn't hold onto it any longer than that... though i could've lol
the words i didn't use
longest word list in my life. i ended up worming some of them in (starburst, mercy, blithe, deluge etc) but the rest are:
indispensable, grunt, vital, pursue, patience, shunt, ramshackle, close shave
there was also one word i really wanted to avoid using, and went out of my way to do so, specifically in the final section of the flashback/remembering: wonder. (god, i bet this word is in every single fic i've ever written, INCLUDING THIS ONE!! UNFORTUNATELY!!!)
the words i started out with
always so interesting to me to go back and see what a story started out as. whole sentences just beamed into my head. here was the original "outline"/slew of brainstorming. as u can see the shape of it all pretty much came to me right away... we love it when writing writes itself <3
btw - working gdoc was titled "if". because that's the feeling i get for op, so much of it is: "if". all that possibility or whatever <3
anyway i wanted to have fun ✓ i wanted to write something shorter ✓ i wanted to write for op ✓ and i wanna do more of it!! REIJU i am coming for u next!!!