Meta Archive + CC Conversations
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salutantContents
Longer CCs
Conversations with anons
- About society in Weight of Heaven, tattoos, makeup, personal worth, patriarchy
- Jeonghan as Mal, Inception, dream lore, Raven Cycle, Bleak Boyband Bingo, tautology of loving an idol
- SVT as a microcosme of RL relationshps
- Writing RPF
Longer CCs
tips for titling
cut from of this CC and this one
there is no rule for titling and both!!! Your choices are valid (sad idea vs ending allusion)!!!! The hardest part is just figuring out what your heart wants (even if it seemingly seems irrational) because that way there can be no regret. But it sounds like you really want to go with the first choice, I support it!!
If you're really stuck between two equal choices, my tip is to ask a friend to choose. If they choose something and you're like, 'ah but...' or 'why did you choose that?" then it's not the right title and you actually want the other one. If they choose and you're like (resigned) 'okay', that's the right one. The more something means to you, the harder it is to take action, but it's important to keep moving forward. Once you have a title, the fic also works itself to fit that title.
~
hehe actually I pray to a random number generator and —
I have a list!! It's a list of phrases that I want to use as fic titles and I've been compiling it since 2016. Whenever a brain-dump evolves into a WIP I have a look and the list is so long that I can often find something to match!!
The phrases themselves are from anywhere and everywhere: book titles, song lyrics, poetry, tweets [the fault in our starbucks], stray thoughts, a really good turn of phrase in a magazine, or even just a word [recessional]-- It's a mix of, 'wow this sounds nice' [darkness be my friend] and things that just /hit/. Like the words themselves have inspired a story.
[see you space cowboy] > space bounty hunters, restaurant at the end of the universe.
[shelf life of angels] > how long can a good thing last? (or just the market cycle of a kpop idol damzmasazqjeonghansamqz)
[hit me baby one more time] > crack bdsm
Also the lyrics to worship songs are /so hardcore/ and perfect for fic. Coming to a masterlist near you: [for I am yours (and you are mine)], [trust without borders], [wind and mercy], [as you find me], [defender of this heart], [even when it hurts], [break my heart for what breaks yours] ....
RE: how titling works:
I really like quotes or idioms with a second-half! Like pyrophane's [Objects in the Mirror] (are closer than they appear) or figure8's [promises to keep] (and miles to go before I sleep). I think it's cool for the connotation to be there and linger around while you read the rest of the fic.
For example, [All Our Yesterdays], from Macbeth's soliloquy. I always know that when I write a reincarnation AU, this will be the title. But the second half of the quote is 'have lighted fools the way to dusty death' -- so the story will focus on bad decisions, their consequences, and eventual tragedy. :'D I had it planned for a Voltron Sheith fic, but I've read another reincarnation story that has gotten the gears turning for JeongCheol.
Recently I like thematic titles because my fics have been quite reflective, exploring an idea rather than a plot. [weight of heaven] is from a worship song, [once, again love] is from Sappho, [ours for the moment] is from TE Lawrence (coming soon!). Perhaps because I had a title early, that all three fics end up being shaped around it.
My WIPS [you can be king again] and [the nearest thing to life] are both about a plot point in the story, no spoilers, but I really love playing with multiple meanings. How it can have a meaning in the first half of the story, but take on another later. :D :D :D
some of my early haikyuu fics were from a title-challenge with a friend when we would literally GIVE each other a title and ~24 hours to write. (hehe, I'll be happy to do something like that again)
Jun + Minghao’s Mandarin Speech
From this CC (20 Sept 2020)
not a strange question!! It's fascinating to me as well =3=. @pleasejuntime is better equipped to answer because they actually live in china and I love deferring to competent people.
Junhui's accent + speaking habits >> https://curiouscat.qa/pleasejuntime/post/651191628
difference between Minghao's northeastern accent + Junhui's southern accent >> https://curiouscat.qa/pleasejuntime/post/926744731
My personal thoughts are just (big fond) because neither of them grew up speaking the default beijing standard putonghua which is used for television and official stuff. I'm assuming you'll forgive me if I indulge?
Jun's from Shenzhen/spent his childhood in Hong Kong so he spoke Cantonese which is /officially/ a dialect of Chinese but /technically/ different enough to be considered another language (kind of like the reverse of how all ex-USSR countries can understand each other but are determined to classify themselves as different languages for national identity reasons; because of the unified-china strategy, China has (1) language and everything is a dialect. Politics). So him speaking mandarin is difficult because some sounds exist, some don't, some are similar enough that as a Cantonese person, you think you can make up the translation on the spot but when it comes out of your mouth you Know YOu are Wrong).
His mandarin is very good you can definitely tell he's a native speaker just that other natives can tell he's not from beijing. And he gotten a lot better recently too!! He’s much better than say... Jackson Wang hehe
He's similar to Mingyu/Jungkook in that in whatever language, he doesn't open his mouth enough so everything can come out a bit slurred-lispy especially when he talks fast + his tones can be a bit flat. it's cute!! Also experiencing byelingual problems where he starts to forget cantonese pronounciation asqmzq (big diaspora feel) >> https://youtu.be/Gf-zSJYOdyg?t=28
Recently his chinese has gotten super memey I think he watches too much douyin which is why sometime he uses chongqing/dongbei accents. this video is my absolute favourite because Jun slipped into dongbei (which is Minghao's accent!!) and Minghao got mad that Jun was talking to other dongbei people behind his back (but tbh I think Jun picked it up from douyin it's such a meme accent and known for being aggressive ... there are entire douyins that's just a dongbei uncle arguing) >> https://twitter.com/pleasejuntime/status/1149982693595045888?s=20
I’m out of characters bahaha part II for Minghao
~
Because he’s from Anshan/Dongbei (North East China), it’s quite easy for him to speak standard mandarin (Beijing is relatively close, but fun fact, North Korea is closer). It's good, but it's not something my mum would listen to as ASMR (like Luhan's, beijing boy).
There's not much to say about Minghao's mandarin because most Chinese people learn to emulate standard putonghua, either through school or at work. So they're self-conscious of regional habits and idiosyncrasies and Eliminate it.
An analogy would kind of be like how international students (esp in Hong Kong/Singapore) pick up the Posh British English Accent even though they probably speak local english at home. I also have thoughts about Empire but that's is sooo not relevant.
(Maybe it is, in post-colonial studies there are theories about the center + the periphery (England vs ex-colonies) and I think the analogy can be drawn to china like Tier One cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen) vs all others amzaq) Anshan is Tier III which is not /bad/ (pop. 3.5 million) but ShenZhen is Tier I and I've been thinking about the paradox of it, how now Minghao gives off a more polished feel while Jun feels more down-to-earth (high fashion vs hoodies and large shirts, sitting up with back straight vs slumping all the time wen junhui pls sit up). How you would Think Minghao came from a big city and Jun came from the preferectures but no, its the reverse. Cities and how it forges people. Hm
BACK TO MINGHAO sorry
All my feelings originate from the video in the last tweet re: dongbei accent and I already talked about it on twt >>
"I'm so, muddled with the idea that even when the8 talks in chinese (even with Jun), he uses standard chinese and the dongbeihua only comes out with his mum // its the same feeling as when mingyu slurs when he's excited about something or how jungkook lisps/goes to satoori when he's comfortable"
"a commenter told me fans call the8 东北男人 (a north-east china man) and it's blowing my head in because while I knew MH was from Anshan, I never associated him with DongBei and its host of stereotypes and now I can't get it out of my head that deep down he's a 东北男人// To me Dongbei is like
- the russians of china
- a land of giants
- super noisy big swag uncles
- loud arguments. the more in love the louder
- people who like to fight (idk why but southerners think all triads come from the north, and the north probably thinks vice versa)
- also (because of the cold weather?) high alcohol tolerance high pain tolerance high blood pressure low patience for bullshit"
>> you can tell minghao is dongbei at heart when you look at all his childhood photos he poses like a lil gangster EVEN IN FRONT OF THE PICTURE OF CHAIRMAN MAO AT TIAN AN MEN
In another CC I talked about how 8Jun's personality shifts when they do chinese promotions but I'm out of characters and time so ANOTHER DAY ANON.
~
ONE MORE THING RE: JUN’S CANTONESE
In this 8Jun Weibo Live >> https://youtu.be/zy8ToPubPrg?t=1580 Jun said his Cantonese peaked at 13 when he was doing a lot of acting work in Hong Kong. After he came to Korea, he didn’t speak it for 8-9 years (Men Junfei a case study in language attrition). So I suspect his L1 is probably mandarin and he speaks that with his family now - also because even though Shenzhen is in Guangdong province, most people there would speak mandarin as the majority are domestic migrants (the population went from 30k in the 1970s, to ~20 million today, Chinese economic planning is super interesting btw but that’s another story).
SVT as parents
oh anon I can't answer this one :( I wish I could confidently say that they will all be amazing parents, and maybe that's what you're hoping to hear from me too.
But this is because you can know someone your whole life, but still have no idea what they will be like privately: as a housemate, a lover, a parent. Even without the added complexity of idolverse, people have different personas for different contexts. So a great friend may be a terrible co-worker, and a long time lover could be different once you move in. And parenting is so dependent on the circumstances of life as well -- the amount of time working or travelling away from home, financial stability, emotional stability... even how many children they have (the pressure towards an only child is different to the youngest of four). I think of the quote from [Parasite] ("They are rich but still nice" // "They are nice because they are rich") -- it's easier to be a good parent if you have a good life. So I think successful parents, in any field, are more likely to raise a successful child. Happy? I have no idea, we've all heard of tiger mums and violin lessons.
Within the Asian community, although there are common themes, every household is different. People are complex but family dynamics? Ethnic family dynamics? Even more so. I don't know where to start in the space of a CC. Filial piety? Hierarchical placements? Learned helplessness? All these can manifest differently depending on who is in the family and where they are in life. Normally I'm willing to tinhat for writing purposes, but when it comes to family, I hesitate even to assume because of how strongly this public/private divide is held up, especially in a culture where public face is important. If something was going on at home, how could we tell?
(the exception is Hoshi livetweeting his parents' fight on weverse haha)
Vernon's parents (artists), and Chan's parents (dancers) are very supportive, and I guess we can extrapolate on from that. But even within the parents of idols we have such a large variety, from Heechul/Nichkhun whose mum forced them to audition so that they wouldn't have a lazy life, to, famously, Yoongi, whose parents did not support him at the beginning. But when Yoongi succeeded, he dropped to a traditional bow in the middle of a concert, crying so hard his shoulders shook, and thanked his parents > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epAJmyv5H-I
(And then you have all the parent debt scandals of 2018, most notably Tiffany from SNSD -- it's just so hard to know what people's relationships to their parents are like, just as its hard to know how they will be as parents.)
(It's also hard to generalise across the entire creative field, and I'm not quite at the age where I'm hanging around with a lot of parents to notice trends 😂)
But I totally get the mood that it's fun to imagine SVT + parents, so here's some content to make up for the dreary answer
~
The only SVT I can >50% confidently say will be a great father, is Chan. And that's because /he/ had a great father. There's a 2007 documentary of them that's super sweet.tl;dr Chan's father had the dream of becoming a dancer, but gave it up when he got married to work in a chinese restraurant. But his passion never ended so we get hilarious scenes of him dancing on the street as he delivered meals, teaching a 8 y.o. Chan how to dance first thing in the morning, getting yelled at by his wife for coming home late from dance classes hahaha, it's v heartwarming > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ael49InG9Q0&
He showed up on 17TV once and danced with Chan > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdGZidDlqMk
The fic series [Kids These Days] by , Better_Times_Are_Coming (my favourite parents story because the conflict is so real but the children's emotions are validated) > https://archiveofourown.org/series/1130369
Hoshi's dad double-wielding caratbongs and dancing to Call Call Call above the crowd > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zog-MG58-t4
When SVT did video letters to their parents (19~29min, mingyu cries, hoshi cries, minghao is about to cry. Wonwoo says "mum, dad, I love you' and puts down his mic') > https://www.vlive.tv/video/8071
Jeonghan+Mingyu w/ Sua+Suji > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJwYEFI0mqE
Seungkwan + Jeonghan at a Daycare > https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rhLAdOO1aLzQODMBQCnvDkPyS5d--Uzd/view
Conversations with anons
About society in Weight of Heaven, tattoos, makeup, personal worth, patriarchy
CC: 1. okay OKAY hear me out. TATTOOS AND MAKEUP. in the weight of heaven au, do you think people would get nice words tattooed? scandals debating whether a celebrity's words are actually fake? do the words ever fade, for eg if coups doesn't think jeonghan is cruel anymore will the word disappear? it will be interesting to see how makeup companies market makeup to cover up/write more words and it wouldn't remain a gendered thing either?
MY DUDE!!!!
(I'm going to close off weight of heaven because I want it to be self-contained so this is... fanon speculation space for a fanfic?? haha)
absolutely!!! I love your brain I didn't think about the fake-words part at all aszqmqq I'm too honest. Idols would get words tattooed or maybe even cover-ups? (kind of like how they get cosmetic touch-ups, you don't really think about it but its there and part of the whole image. No one says anything so you assume it's natural // its only a scandal when they lie about it). Because its rude to ask about words, perhaps its also might be rude to ask an idol if a word is a tattoo or if its real (maybe there's no limits). I wonder if tattoos in Korea would still be taboo in a words AU > imagine an idol covered in flowers to cover their words.
I love tattoos and the reason why people get them (shout out to mariya's pacrim AU), as a form of remembrance or self-validation ("you are loved") or celebration, or gratitude. In Weight of Heaven it was mainly words as a metaphor for the culture of possession.
Kpop idols already do something similar for concerts, like Shinee's Jonghyun who had 30 fansites tattooed/written >> https://www.dkpopnews.net/2012/07/news-jonghyun-transforms-fansite-names.html
+ This HHU Lotto Stage when Seungcheol had a neck full of tattoos > https://youtu.be/l5nf6fl1U0A?t=132
+ The8 having of all the member's names for Ideal Cut >> https://www.kstarlive.com/news/2018/08/18/SEVENTEEN-s-The8-was-Seen-Having-a-Tattoo-at-Their-Recent-Concert-and-the-Tattoo-Made-Fans--Smile-599421
++ on the BBB CC, they had a wonderful reply about the Jungkook's tattoos and 'escape maneuvers which draw the noose of the boyband psyche tighter' >> https://curiouscat.qa/bbb_fest/post/1026851657 <<< I'm personally so amused at the lengths they go to hide tattoos... Chaeyong's medical tape for her sleeve, Jungkook awkward draping half a jacket when he's in a t-shirt
Your last point is interesting because I don't see makeup as a gendered thing in S. Korea like it is in the rest of the world, especially with the direction of kpop (Felix's eye glitter in Back Door, that One Article on SVT's lip tint >> https://www.allure.com/story/k-pop-lip-tint-technique). It hit me when I was on youtube and some korean high school boys were recommending the products they use daily.
++ regardless, you got me thinking about how gender dynamics/misogyny/toxic masculinity would visualise in a words AU, females having more possessive words? Boys having a 'holy trinity' of manly/handsome/strong??? Your turn anon.
2. wow now I'm thinking about that too. in patriarchal societies where arranged marriages are a thing; it would be seen a good thing for a girl to have words like "gentle". "hardworking", "motherly", "quiet", etc and boys to have words like "strong", "handsome", "wealthy", etc? in such societies people turn down marriage offers for stupid things like skin color and dowry, i can see families refusing to let someone marry someone else because they don't have desirable words //// i was also thinking about the font of the words? ik they don't but if they appeared in the thinker's handwriting, would idols try to hide their handwriting has much as possible in case delusional fans got words like "we are meant to be" tattooed in the idols' handwriting? askdfkjsd I keep thinking of various scenarios and then factor in the words and how it might change how some scene is playing out. idols like amber liu proudly showing off their "masculine" words to break stereotypes?
(random tangent imagine helicopter parents always nagging at their kid and trying to keep track of every singe word that appears on their body(ik words are supposed to be private but!! knowing someone else's words would be seen as a form of intimacy right? keeping track of someone else's words feels very controlling and there are some pretty extreme helicopter parents out there)) women/men who get words associated with the opposite gender being encouraged to hide them and whoever doesn't hide them being seen as weirdos or lowkey ostracized //////// okay im done vomiting random unconnected thoughts for now hehe
(I love this!!)
BTS Jungkook already has issues with fans copying his tattoos, I know that's the reason some idols don't share it, because it means something personal to /them/. I think it's hard to hide handwriting so it'll just have to be something that idols would have to accept (kind of like how they accept there will be fanfiction written about them hooking up with their co-workers hadsamzq) > stereotype breaking is cool!!
Oh wow that's so true. I know some cultures actually check the girl's virginity before marriage, so it wouldn't be far off if they do a full body examination, record the words, then pass it around potential parents like an advertisement. Man, helicopter parents and even abusive partners ;____; Imagine the silence in illicit affairs and star-crossed lovers. Arranged marriages are based off wealth/connection/looks, but also the compatibility of their words? reducing people to their words? mmhm (in the original Attack on Titan fics that inspired weight of heaven, there was a scene where they were identifying the dead based off the words on their corpses, that stayed with me.
I'm going to tangent as well because I've always been thinking about the nature of honesty. Keeping a balance between sincerity to self, and co-existence with the world. I come from a culture focused on 'keeping face' and 'public reputation', where at the most extreme, its okay to beat your wife as long as you're great at work. Or to be blind to your kid's emotional needs as long as they are excelling at school. When value is placed on the public image, how great a gap can there be? How much more will we care about being perceived?
I have a WIP that's partly based off the poem [The Quiet World] >> https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49238/the-quiet-world and Ma Boyang's short story [A City of Silence]. The first one is a world where you can only speak 167 words a day. The second is a dystopia based on China's current censorship system where even the speech is policed, so people choose to stay quiet. In life there's can be so much left unsaid and I feel like the more I grow up, the more I understand silence. Like how Seungcheol chooses to step back in interviews. When I was younger I wouldn't notice, but now I understand that even absence can be a statement. It's also fun to think about how people communicate without words.
(This comes from a personal place because I actually lie quite easily in real life and its something I'm consciously working on. But I understand why I do it. When people say they value honesty as a virtue, I think (ah, you've never been punished for your honesty) -- so I want to write a story where the reader can emphasise with a liar. But that's much, much later)
Last tangent!! After manifesto/king again I want to do a project where I make myself explore different AUs under 3k. I miss writing short stories)
Jeonghan as Mal, Inception, dream lore, Raven Cycle, Bleak Boyband Bingo, tautology of loving an idol.
(note, this is after the SVT as antagonists post)
CC: 1. jeonghan mal...i will never think about anything else again i have actually not stopped thinking about the scene where ariadne first discovers mal and the final limbo scene with mal, ariadne and cobb. but with this extra knowledge that you've given me WTF
Inception is such a Cultural Giant one day I will write it but that day is very far away.
Hehe anon who would you cast for the rest of the inception gang if a Jeonghan is Mal?
2. i will wait in silent anticipation for whenever that far off day maybe.
oh gosh that's a Question and honestly jeonghan mal struck me but i havent inceptioned in a fair bit but ummm cobb can't possibly be anybody but seungcheol. i would try to think out of that box but if its mal jeonghan then there is no other answer. the rest i think i would have to think about a little (and im looking forward to hearing your thoughts because im sure that's where the question came from). early thoughts: ariadne minghao perhaps. eames and arthur as soonwoo. yusuf, this is me being self indulgent, but junhui. mingyu as robert. now saito im a little stuck on. chan?
My personal holy grail of AUs is Inception/Raven Cycle/Blade Runner/Narnia/Never Let Me Go/1Q84. It’s always on my mind but there’s so much Fear I think if I ever write it the idea has to literally possess me like a demon and I need to write to exorcise myself.
I love the idea of SoonWoo Eames/Arthur. Like Wonwoo the perfect logical gentlemen until Hoshi shows up. And I would have to write JeongCheol for this, they’re just too perfect in angsts stories. Your casting is so fun to imagine, now I really want Mingyu looking rich but crying over daddy issues 😂😂
Hehe anon you got me 🤭 the stories I’m thinking off are all based of the dream technology. I have notes for a heist where they fake an important political meeting. Make everyone fall asleep and skip a day, and then one by one, infiltrate and live out the day for them, forcing them to make a certain decision.
But!! I’ve always been captivated by dream sequences, subconscious desires, and the line between reality and fantasy. I want to write something based off Yusuf’s lounge, that scene when the crew walks in to a room full of dreamers. Seungcheol wanting to love Jeonghan but not realising he only loves /his/ version of him, and not the real person. If you EXOTeen there’s the KaiLu fic [turnout] by windowright which is an excellent example of this plot >> https://windowright.livejournal.com/4281.html
You can see why I’m a sucker for Raven Cycle as well now 😂😂😂
3. I’m screaming at your answer and trying to formulate one coherent response but holy shit that sounds amazing. i've only ever played around with raven cycle for an actual au from among those but even there the Big ideas i just do not have the courage to touch precisely because of what you said. i'm so thrilled you brought up the scene in the lounge as well as well the kailu fic- i think its one where jongin is ballet dancer by day, dreamer by night? i do not remember the details because i read it a while ago but i might revisit it (i didn't know it was on ao3, thank you for attaching a link!)- and trc. god, for me the yusuf- kavinsky parallels are so fascinating, especially where they do not align- one cannot stop dreaming and the other is the least experienced in (shared) dreaming; also the How to dream- the pill versus the sedative. besides pynch, kavinsky is probably the character that's captured my imagination the most, stiefvater has given him some of the most thought provoking dialogues on what he perceives his reality to be. since you brought up seungcheol being in love with /his/ version of jeonghan; another i really like about what we've been talking about- the reality vs fantasy- is how it plays out in idolverse. there is the more obvious struggle with reality, which the bare bones of bleakboybandism i suppose. but also the dreamer pills/ sedatives as coping mechanisms; drugs/lsd but not drugs, and what losing your grip on reality would entail then.
Screams back at you!! Thank you for raising these ideas and letting me talk!!
That's the fic!! Its been a while since I read it as well but the final reveal stays in my head - - I was absolutely thinking BBB idolsona thoughts when I mentioned ideal/reality. It's linked with how we like to see our idols, more perfect than any real person could really be, more beautiful, more tragic, more thoughtful. And how the less we know about them, the more we can read in parts of ourselves to fill in the gap so that we like them even more, because they are like ourselves. A tautology.
I didn't even think of the yusuf-kavinsky parallel, only about my obsession with dreamers and their dreams. But YES. YES!! Thank you so much for these thoughts (and this is why I love it when anons yell back at me)
You draw a beautiful parallel. Because I felt inception was lacking on the emotional side as amazing the plot was. But TRC is stunningly comprehensive in weaving the dreamer and the dream. How every dreamer in the TRC verse (including Hennessey Jordan) manifests their dreams in different ways. And the dreams enable them back (the cars, the chaos with Kavinsky, and his ending). I also love how they are no physical rules with dreams, like magical realism but so much more /real/
(btw my favourite dreamer ronan/adam fic is [maybe I dreamt you] by ao3 user renaissance >> https://archiveofourown.org/works/6467419
I love reading fics where they lose their grip on reality! But I think I'm too kind to write that for seungcheol :'D his big protag energy gives him plot armour. I'll think about it though, about endings and the story I want to tell.
4. ooh i love that you call it a tautology. im wondering if you mean it just in the way a fan perceives the idol and how you'd write it for bbb or also in the writing of it. like the tug and pull between going with who is easier to project on vs who is actually more like us while writing idol rpf, especially while writing bbb idolsona (sorry i took the meta route but this is something im very interested in)
im personally very proud of that parallel and will always engage in any kind of screaming about kavinsky because like i said, he truly highlights the extreme of the disconnect between reality and fantasy so so well.
another tangent- mostly cause i agrew with whatever you said about trc. i've also felt like inception was lacking on the emotional side and i've felt it particularly strongly after watching interstellar. while one has brilliant worldbuilding the other attached meaning to the relationships that make that world which for me makes certain parts of it a very emotional watch every time. in inception i could never quite get invested in cobbs kids and family an his need to get back because the most arresting character was mal who was already dead who was the Thing He Had To Overcome while in interstellar besides a personal love for space stories there wasn't too much in the plot that knocked me out but murphy as the heart of the story (and im not sure if it was intentional now that i think about it in retrospect- the insistence on talking about the unquantifiable element of love etc scattered through the story) i apologize the tangent sort of ran away from me!
(i love maybe I dreamt you! it sustained me in the long months waiting for trk!)
(thank you for your patience anon! please continue spoiling me with your tangents)
I meant the way in how fans perceive their idols, and why we love them. the kickback to lucas' smoking is a good example, (+ all the old ones too, Sehun, Tao, Kai, Taehyung, Taemin, Onew, especially Onew because he had a innocent+responsible image back then). How it's easy to love their personas, but that persona is crafted to be loved, and all the edges have been softened or cut off.
Also about the less we know about the person, the more cohesive the persona is. This is very kpop and I'm thinking about what Leeteuk said a long time ago 'there are two rules as an idol. When they ask if you have a girlfriend, say no. When they ask if you're wearing insoles, say no' hahaha. It's like, the careful balance between the idol maintaining image, and the willful blindness of fans to how manufactured that image is (there's a link here to the BBB square of wearing school uniform in your 30s but I can't seem to make the leap).
RE: writing!!! yes!! writing!!! Even I didn't mean it in that sense, I love that you raised it!! Please tell me more about this tug and pull.
I suppose the tautology there would be loving the idol /you/ created for yourself, in your story. Or loving the fanon rather than real life (all valid!!!). I'll be interested in knowing /why/ people write RPF but this is such a personal and pointed question I'll feel rude asking ;___;
lj user grisclair did a great meta post on writing KPOP RPF >> https://grisclair.livejournal.com/77953.html what stayed with me is the three points: We are casting for a story, or fulfilling a personal fantasy, or exploring the persona (as an expression of love).
I LOVE INTERSTELLAR. When he saw Murphey as an old lady I started bawling and didn't stop. I adore science fiction and how it shows us a new aspect of human relationships.
Oh my god tbh when I heard Cobb had a dead wife I just thought, 'oh dear flashback montages incoming'. Sick of the dead wives to emo white men cinematic universe (I love the plot of Cameron's Solaris, but George Clooney had a dead wife and I think I skipped half of the movie because it was all angsty memories of their lovemaking). When I was doing TV tropes for another cc, the article on literary fiction threw dirt on the canon of 'tales of middle aged English Professors committing adultery' and the phrase hyperlinked to the article [Most Writers are Writers]. That's what the Inception emotional plotline felt to me. Like it was written by one middle-aged white man who had the most white bread experience of romance and probably lives in the suburbs parenting 2.5 children through a custody arrangement. But Mal being so gdamn sexy saved it.
(ty anon!! I really enjoy this conversation)
Oh wrt leeteuk's comment my first thought was baekhyun/taeyeon but it really came through with jungkook last year (there is a /lot/ there) and jongdae/chen. both of them have(had?) that textbook idol-image, chen even more so within the fandom and the amount of active vitriol against him even ten months later really makes one think about how much fans cling to what they want to believe about their idols.
-school uniform square, ties into selling the whole fan/idol romance idea; kokobop era, exo appeared on jyp's partypeople, he asked them about their love life and the fans were so vocally against it. i don't remember the question, just kyungsoo's-and jyp's-openly flabbergasted face as fans refused to let them date in the future- 30s, 50s etc- ultimately they changed the question from an s/o to a pet?!( (jyp btw talks about this a lot- regretting revealing he was dating and advising his idols against it)
RE: writing! i don't have organised thoughts with added sources (like you do for just about everything!) i was thinking of that conversation on twitter, about whose pov one writes in and the writing of bbb/ any canonverse fic because that is also invariably about fan perception. do you write the idol you like, or the one who's angst you relate to (unless they're the same). especially with bbb, when we're fleshing out insecurities that come from the ‘source text’+our understanding of the industry, are we writing the insecurities we want to see- projecting our own issues to be able to relate- for catharis or otherwise? (this is despite the conscious effort to separate real person/fictional persona. i truly don't think we have much control over the manner in which this parasocial relationship works)
-this is replicated in non idolverse as that article acknowledges, categories are fluid.
(these are just ideas not fleshed out thoughts)
(i predictably started crying when they return from miller's planet and coop watches those clips from home)
Yes to your inception thoughts, thank god for mal, marion cotillard (i’ll look for the cc to get a clearer idea- thank you for adding that; just yesterday my mom was watching a 'white kid has dead mom, dead mom-related unresolved issues' movie. dead women are really pulling the weight behind so many insipid storylines)
-about Cobb, since you don't mind tangents- the conversation about how heterosexuality ruined endgame came to mind. specifically, the decision to kill natasha, despite more emotional investment in her character because clint had to go back to complete the perfect het-nuclear family, a family viewers didn’t even know. cobb's need to return to his kids (kids, seen through the eyes of two very unreliable narrators) feels reminiscent to that. he had no emotional connection to them so we didn't either.
(for endgame critique, this article i suspect you will have already read: https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/avengers-endgame-heteronormative-steve-bucky/?noamp=available)
(thank you! so do i!)
yes jongdae ;____; and suju sungmin too. I remember that jyp interview!! I remember hearing about it and thinking 'they're probably just teasing' and then watching the video and going, ah ohshit. I remember RM dissing hitman in an old old mixtape 'how are we supposed to write love songs if you don't let us date'.
> I'm relieved you don't give me your opinion on it anon!! I feel like you're the type of person whose careful about what they think about others and I'm grateful for that cautiousness. Because I think a fan's dedication is a double-edged sword and companies are happy to sharpen that sword if it gives them more money. That's the marketing-model of (k) pop and this kind of fan-backlash is a symptom. Rather than judging how they feel, I like to think about /why/ they feel that way. Which is why I respect idols who maintain a distance (Minghao: you WILL get married + I don't mind if my fans move on)
Re: writing. nooonoo, please don't assume I've read everything, the world is big and there are Much (I haven't read that avengers article!! ty!!) I use sources because I learn from others and I feel like they express it much better than I do. I'm just a hoarder of other people's ideas haha
I made sure to answer the gyuhao cc first because I actually ended up talking about what you said!! I'm not sure if your questions were hypothetical but I'm going to answer some to keep the conversation going :D
> I think I could do a little of everything depending on my mood. [weight of heaven] and [once again, love] were definitely a form of catharsis on top of the thought experiment. BBB fic to me is like a treatise (I really want to write Yoongi + his attitude to success), to show a side of kpop that people that don't understand. It will always be a reaction /against/ something.Vs cancel culture (to show that situations are complex), VS the glorification of success (it's lonely at the top), Vs. the people who have told me that kpop is superficial (this is effort behind a second of screen time). I would also love to write about all the Unmentionables as well, members smoking, going to get laser treatment, annual nose fillers, turning up to work hungover, and dating.
> your views anon?
Ahhh, the other CC was just about svt as antagonists (its on my DW!) and that page was a research tangent. Here's the page if you want to read >> https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MostWritersAreWriters
ahhH AHHH!!! YES!! I read the article and I'm nodding furiously. I agree with it so much and it puts so articulately what I feel about a lot of superhero/action movies that have the most standard romance plot for the sake of heteronormativity. (erases development, derails character arcs, 'can't handle a happy ending for a woman without romance') YES. Heteronormativity destroys plots u___u In Inception I think I felt more for Saito+Cobb's reunion haha, because they Understand each other in a way no one else can and that felt more intimate then any romance plot.
Ah i don't know if i'm that kind of a person at all maybe its the anon garb that makes me seem this way. my feelings are complicated but yes agreed, fan's expectations from idols are very much attached to the marketing of these idols by companies.
Re: idols who maintain a distance. yeah that's me too, over the years! Seokjin is great in that regard, he doesn't keep a distance per se but he is very clear about his boundaries (unknowable as he seems about almost everything). Minghao is a good example, so is Junhui actually. Taehyung's also very vocal (maybe it's weverse that has made these distinctions clearer). I also think the exos, by and large, are very goo at this, despite having personal social media and more avenues for interaction. Even the most interactive (Chanyeol, Baekhyun) interact very much on their own terms. (Of course all of this depends on seniority + comany control and other such factors as well)
Re: writing. well i'm a hoarder of your ideas and the articles that you've shared from your hoard then.
-they were kind of hypothetical- i was wondering if i should clarify that my use of 'you' was equivalent to using 'one' but i'm glad you want to keep talking to me!
> are you asking me to answer my own question from the previous ask or about the bbb fic(s) that you want to write? i'll answer the latter for now: very interesting and resonant bbb thoughts- yoongi really does have the such an expansive written body of work on idolverse and himself in it so it would be an undoubtedly rich piece of work. The Unmentionables- yes to you writing them, i would love to read. i do think these things are of course being/have been written about outside of the framework of bbb for years. but i don't think the term treatise would entirely work for a non bbb work heh.
>the gyuhao cc: oh that a was a personal take, though the question did seem to read as such so your answer does seem to fit. i have to admit parts of it make me feel very seen! the longing for some companionship along those lines not the parallels with mingyu. i will have to go check the dw post later.
>thank you for the link. I have of course seen the svt as antagonists cc. that's how this conversation started!
> glad the article resonated with you! i've sent it to just about anyone who's had the endgame conversation with me because it articulates so much about that movie and about the problems in general that you've mentioned so well! Saito/Cobb oh my god i do get where you're coming from! I will have to think about this as well now !
thank you for your patience anon!
yes yoongi is so, ;___; there are times with bts where I feel like something has been lost from their younger days, but then yoongi creates something like SUGA's Interlude, or Respect (+ RM!) that gives me glimpses of who they were. His works answers some of the questions I've been holding and it makes me think about that theme of being lonely at the top, when you have both everything and nothing you want. Ahh, to be a fly on the wall in their meetings with Bang PD. They are definitely a group that has a plan for the next decade and I'm excited to see where they end up after enlistment!
> you asked the gyuhao cc too?? haha I was trying to add something from the old cc. If I have to keep adding... often it's mingyu at the mercy of minghao but recently saw this gif (I think it's an interview from fearless promos) where mingyu runs his hands down minghao's neck and minghao!! kind of loses himself and stretches his neck like a cat.
> my inbox is always open for more thoughts!! thank you for operating on snail mail time with me!!
svt complex relationships
CC: Ahhhhhhh have you seen the tinie haoseokjunshua moment from studio choom set ahhh they’re so cute 🥺
I did!! ☺️☺️☺️ I loved the photoset and I'm so glad they showed the behind. A litter of spaced out kittens tbh u__u
(also really loved the slow motion 8 center haha)
I think SVT is... like a microcosme of society/friendship/relationships as a whole. Which is maybe why i love them?? Like depending on which member you look at, they all have spiralling webs of relationships in which I think everyone can find at least one that corresponds to one of their own. Of course, this is potentially true for any large group, but it's lovely to see? To see say, personally, if I look at just Jeonghan, say, I can equate his relationships with Jihoon, Minghao, Vernon, Seungkwan, Joshua and Jun to ones I have with friends, and that's just off the top of my head lol. ... This is not where I meant to go with this....
Oh yeah. Jeonghan and Seungcheol i find act not totally different but Radically different when they're on tour. Maybe its that sense of international waters (like a boat...lol)—certain things are ok purely by virtue of it being on stage and 'acting'.
Jeonghan and Joshua have a different relationship when they're in the USA. Not remarkably different, just ... Different.
But its sort of cute that certain relationships don't seem to be circumstantially dependant: Minghao and Jun are like a steady train. There are probably more. That is the clearest for me.
Okay, I have probably said nothing in all those words, thanks for letting me ramble, the more I think of this the less I think it correspondes to that ask, oooooops!
R
R!!! thanks for coming by and sharing your thoughts, I always love to hear what you have to say.
Mhmm, how spaces shape people. That fic where Jeonghan says to Joshua: "You're hotter in America", any foreign line homecoming fic where they find home to have shifted, smaller than in memory. I am filing those JeongCheol thoughts for the next time they tour.
Have a good one!
Writing RPF
CC:hey! i have been sitting on this q for a while now and i've discussed this w a friend some time ago but ive been lurking in other writers cc and i kinda wanna hear ur take on like the predetermined thoughts that go into portraying real people in fiction in their "assigned tropes"...? like say how a certain member is often portrayed to have had a neglected childhood which leads to his aloofness/doesnt believe in love aura in the present, or like when one kind of writes a character that has trauma or mental instability... this is p heavy and shit and feel free to skip hahaha dont even know if this is making sense ! but im just wondering about how you meditate/negotiate these things coming from a writer portraying a story that u want to tell vs like the predetermined biases we have towards these real people and the real issues that come with them when u approach a concept/character in a fic”
Anon, thank you for your immense patience and for your trust in me. This was fascinating to think about.
When you sent this, I was already thinking about similar issues, so I wanted to write it up and figure out my own thoughts before I gave you an answer >> [Sliding Scale of Tinhat Comfort] >> https://hwarium.dreamwidth.org/5286.html
It sounds like you’re asking about fanon characterisations and more generally, the ethics of RPF characterisation. Quick answer - I don’t let fandom meta restrict my writing. I am in control, and I write for myself.
My base line for fanfiction is complete freedom. I will defend this line with all my heart because fanfiction is fiction, and one of my core values is freedom of thought. Additionally, it is a hobby that people enjoy for free, outside their (difficult, busy, troubled) RL lives. We write for free as well, not for publication or education - so fanfiction does not, and should not have a moral obligation to readers.
You shouldn’t have to worry about “assigned tropes” or predetermined thoughts or what is “most accurate” - none of us has the authority to make that call, and your take is just as valid as anyone who came before and will came after. As long as I’m doing right by me, then that’s okay.
I would love to hear more about what you mean about ‘predetermined biases’ and the ‘real issues that come with real people’, There’s a lot of things your CC reminded me of, and I can give you a clearer answer, but I would rather have a conversation than throw it all at you haha. But as a teaser, when I was thinking about this (for a month!) it reminded me of the gatekeeping of the Global South from the English Canon, the moral criticism of danmei (Chinese BL, esp when MSZS became mainstream) from western fans, and the discourse around the ownership of ‘magical realism’. To me, there similar themes of accessibility, bias, and subjectivity.
Hope to speak to you again!