slides in several days later to say i'm still in disbelief that you wrote me a comment longer than the gift itself, you're really wonderful <3 here are some screams that are tangential, if not completely related, to your own:
* i'm so glad compromiseship falls into a dynamic defined by 'shippy in how totally unshippy it seems' because i find myself more & more unable to write conventional shipfic with every day that passes lmao * I WAS SO FOCUSED ABOUT TRYING TO CAPTURE AS MANY THOUGHTS AS I HAD (FRAMED AS SUCCINCTLY & COHERENTLY AS POSSIBLE) THAT I FORGOT ABOUT REIJI'S VOICE ENTIRELY only to discover that systematical-but-not-entirely-unfeeling narration is reiji's voice, actually #NailedIt * wrt serena's headtilt: i wanted her to show some acknowledgment of reiji's presence, but hackles raising felt too extreme, shoulders loosening felt off because when has she ever felt unsafe with shun?, so. i played it straight and she really just looked at reiji, because he was there * SERENA CARES ABOUT REIJI BUT NOT AS MUCH AS REIJI CARES ABOUT WHAT SERENA THINKS!! (of him? sure. about other things too, but...how novel, akaba reiji caring what somebody thinks of him, the person, rather than him, and his accomplishments, plans & motives) * compromiseship is really incredibly intimate & confessional in weirdly painful ways. i dig it * 'you assume everyone as honourable as yourself' i vored this from a prodigyship snippet from forever ago because it rings true and thus must be used in something more fully formed LOL * this taught me how i'd write serena's POV as much as it showed me how i (apparently) write reiji's * i wanted to bookend with shun narration--actually, the entire serena/reiji conversation was initially slated as a flashback--but alas it didn't gel the way i visualised? the opening i originally removed was this:
Shun opens his eyes after Reiji leaves, and neither comments on nor acknowledges the two extra blankets at the foot of his bed: one a replica of what he's currently using; the other similar but softer looking, even from a distance. It sparks Shun's careful curiosity, both at the first blanket's lack of grandeur and the second's near-overwhelming presence in its simplicity, the voices of both owners singing I am, I am, nothing more and nothing less.
^ but as you can see, this got cut off and replaced with wrist touch instead because i'm a shameless fucker for handkink #noragrets
Re: <3
* i'm so glad compromiseship falls into a dynamic defined by 'shippy in how totally unshippy it seems' because i find myself more & more unable to write conventional shipfic with every day that passes lmao
* I WAS SO FOCUSED ABOUT TRYING TO CAPTURE AS MANY THOUGHTS AS I HAD (FRAMED AS SUCCINCTLY & COHERENTLY AS POSSIBLE) THAT I FORGOT ABOUT REIJI'S VOICE ENTIRELY only to discover that systematical-but-not-entirely-unfeeling narration is reiji's voice, actually #NailedIt
* wrt serena's headtilt: i wanted her to show some acknowledgment of reiji's presence, but hackles raising felt too extreme, shoulders loosening felt off because when has she ever felt unsafe with shun?, so. i played it straight and she really just looked at reiji, because he was there
* SERENA CARES ABOUT REIJI BUT NOT AS MUCH AS REIJI CARES ABOUT WHAT SERENA THINKS!! (of him? sure. about other things too, but...how novel, akaba reiji caring what somebody thinks of him, the person, rather than him, and his accomplishments, plans & motives)
* compromiseship is really incredibly intimate & confessional in weirdly painful ways. i dig it
* 'you assume everyone as honourable as yourself' i vored this from a prodigyship snippet from forever ago because it rings true and thus must be used in something more fully formed LOL
* this taught me how i'd write serena's POV as much as it showed me how i (apparently) write reiji's
* i wanted to bookend with shun narration--actually, the entire serena/reiji conversation was initially slated as a flashback--but alas it didn't gel the way i visualised? the opening i originally removed was this: