My Journey, My Process

I don't really know how most people write fic. I actually feel a little embarrassed talking about it and engaging with it so I usually enjoy it, and fan space things in general, on my own. I've tried a little bit of everything over the past couple years from structured fics, such as mimicking interview transcripts or letters, to more traditional dialogue-heavy or dialogue-void ones. I've written about platonic and romantic relationships and self expression and introspection. Some of these have been for them and some of them haven't. I am, by no means, a professional writer nor do I think I am particularly good, but I do enjoy it while I'm working on something so that's why I do it! I usually just start at an idea and write scenes or whatever comes to mind without planning things out so this fic in particular was unique for me because I had a plot arc in mind from the beginning! Even if that didn't happen because I decided to shift gears, I still think the experience of trying to plan out the characters and plot beforehand was a little interesting so I'm glad I could do it even if it was only a little. Often my ideas stay as ideas or snippets, so I think mechabirbo has actually been the ship that I've written the most complete works for... and it was all in less than a year. That's honestly insane to me.

I have been a tempus fan from pre-debut. I watched all of hq debut. I watched vg, but it was casual for me until I got sucked in really hard and really fast. I was never the most hardcore fan, but I have always been a hako oshi for them. Though it might be surprising to those who only know me from my mechabird fics, I have actually always considered myself Altare oshi before even Flayon or Hakka if I had to pick one. While Flay and Hakka got all of my time, to the point where I would legitimately listen to both of their streams at the same time in separate windows for the month or so I was the most invested in watching them, our leader has always been special to me. He and Axel did amazing in their 3D debuts!! I'm super happy for them! I always told myself if I wrote something else other than pilot x bird, it would have been for shiny spicy, but I never trusted myself to do them justice so it never happened.

I was a little extra embarrassed at first, creating ship content for mechabirb, because I couldn't really see anyone doing it and wasn't sure how to properly engage in it. I'm pretty boring. It's always easy for me to guess who I'll ship and it's usually the (semi)canon pairings, so they're always at least middling popular. Then came Flayon and Hakka and I was trying to figure out what I should even do. I was also not really sure if I shipped them or not or enjoyed playing with their characters, so I was mainly trying to tease the waters to see what I liked. It was back during February or March and I remember thinking that it's crazy to be the first person writing shipfic for a pairing on ao3. I'm not really in any fan spaces and hell, I didn't even consider it until after marchen's after cover zatsu made everything click for me, so I had no idea if I was doing things wrong or not. It was so mundane, but you could tell how much they just got each other and that was all it took for me. At first, I just wanted to write enough to get the tag added on ao3, but I really did enjoy it. I haven't gone back to read most of it because I think it's a little awkward, but I'm still glad that I did it all. Plus, I think it was around then that those 2 longer compilation clip videos came out? I thought "ah, I'm not crazy, right? there's definitely some material for compelling fic there with their instant connection relationship" so I decided to post it after all. Then, as I kept watching, I kept writing. Fic and fan activities can be for you and whatever you want to get out of them. I included some details from their lives they've mentioned over the months (favourite foods, interests, music-- I really wanted to reference yousei teikoku here but I didn't have space for it to come up naturally but that's flayon's supposed favourite band, etc) and even that felt a little too close to rpf for my comfort sometimes but I also liked the idea of including these little pieces to flesh out their characters, so in they went. I'm the type that enjoys using references to canon to build up fanon so that was my way of doing it here. Maybe you feel like that and maybe you don't, but what you enjoy is most important, isn't it?

You may have noticed by now that I have practically written everything from Flay's POV and it's not because I don't like Hakka, but more because I understand his character better so it's easier for me to write that way. It's hard too because he has such a dichotomy to him so I know that it comes off a bit ooc, but I still think I understand Flayon more than anyone else narratively so he's the perfect choice for me. I actually worry that Hakka comes off much more ooc than Flayon, but I do what I can. My favourite types of fics are those kinda angsty feelings realisation and pining fics, so that kinda coloured the types of things that I wrote in turn, but that's also why I wanted to challenge myself and rely more on dialogue and something more... fluffy? It's actually still not what I would consider traditional fluff, but I pivoted it to show more of the loving side of their relationship that exists before they ever actually acknowledge that there's something there. It's much less dramatic than it could have been, I promise, but that also means that the setting got a bit wasted. It's still a fun idea though. I like some of the exchanges they have a lot. o7 for DENTMAN, Flayon.

The Fic, The Post-Mortem

Original Plot (skip if you don't care)

Now, you may be wondering... what does a school-focused setting have to do with the final plot? Actually, originally I wanted to write a workplace/office AU, but I wasn't sure how to do that without being too comedic or unrealistic, so I placed Flayon into a research lab instead. Once I decided to do schools instead, I sorted the boys into two different institutions (Flayon, Bettel, Magni, Vesper, Shinri, Axel in sciences vs Hakka, Altare in arts) and you practically see none of that in the final cut because there was no longer any reason to include it. That's also why Hakka talked about Magni lying to him about being an art student (until he came over with Altare), because originally the fact that they're in different places was going to matter more.

The only scenes I had written out when I decided to scrap this plot (maybe two weeks ago?) was their first meeting, the scene after that that introduces Magni, the poster scene, maybe a third of the Bettel telepathy scene, and a couple bits and pieces about Flayon's feelings on their current situation. In fact, the biggest victim to the change in plot (aside from literally all the boys except maybe Bettel) was Doppio, who I was going to include as the person that Flayon is close to and talks to about his feelings and all these complicated things going on. All that remains of him in the end is a small reference to him in the telepathy scene :( Sorry Doppio.

I said I was going to drop the original plot conception and it's messy and incoherent but here it is, 100% verbatim from my document:

  • Sometimes home is you and the group of misfits with sleep schedules so bad it’s like they live on another continent.
  • meeting > daily shit > someone talks to flay about what he’s going to do after grad… where he’s going to go.. if he’s going to postdoc elsewhere and hakka hears and starts acting differently > flay realising that idk… something is different with hakka but different is bad and scary and why should you make anyone deal with you so he shouldn't bring it up > they go off doing other things. it doesn't work. > flay goes to hakka’s performance bc he promised. and bc can’t stay away > hakka catches him afterwards backstage well. more like he asked the others to trick him into staying so they can talk bc they've been avoiding each other > they go out and they talk… and it’s dark and they’re tired and he’s been up for a day and a half working on his thesis and he really doesn’t want to have this fucking conversation right now when all his words will come out wrong > cheesy shitty proposal even though they’re not even dating bc he just doesn’t want him to leave and he didn’t know what to say in response.. since he was working from plan a: get so sexy that your object of affections can’t help but love you but it’s hard since he’s hakka and they’re so close already that even his normal plans feel like they’re never gonna work since they had plenty of time to work already and they haven't.. and hakka is just like. were you planning on leaving without saying anything? marry me, say we'll have each other even if you leave, I can't let you go without doing anything and wtf > bro we’re not even dating.. you’re crazy.. also who said im leaving > we could though. date, i mean. if you wanted to. or you can pretend like nothing happened and everything can be normal until idk.. until you have to leave > stop trying to get rid of me? but also i would really like that.. not the wedding part yet tho > bam. they kiss.

I also said in my last post-mortem that there was a second, short explanation of the plot that I thought was funny and it still is, so here's that one too:

  • a 'meet cute bestieship miscommunication please marry me don't leave me confession on stage why are you proposing we're not even dating' kind of story

If it's not obvious from that, basically this entire fic was going to start from the meeting, touch on their yearning and friendship, and then throw them into a miscommunication plot where Hakka thinks that Flayon is going to leave without saying anything to him and starts avoiding him to process his feelings about that while Flayon thinks that Hakka is avoiding him for some unknown reason, realises his own (romantic) feelings, and decides to not do anything about it because obviously he's already fucked up their relationship somehow and he doesn't want to make it worse. It actually started because I also wanted to write about a marriage proposal that had no reason to be one, which is why I needed to come up with a plot that led into that. Hence the strange leap in logic that Hakka blurts out that they should get married so that the physical distance won't matter that much. Obviously a bad move irl, but I digress. To be honest, it's the kind of plot that can only work for them because Flayon is canonically terrible at communicating about his feelings. I mean, he's not, but for things that matter to him personally... things about his own feelings... things he can't just gloss over and change the subject on... things he can't just be contrary with to draw attention away... I thought it could work with the character he plays without feeling too unrealistic. I'm not trying to psychoanalyse him or anything, I just think it's the kind of ridiculous crazy plot that could make a bit of sense with them and no one else so that's how it was going to go!

I was also originally going to title this "there is nothing between us" to play at there being nothing between them (because they don't talk about their feelings so there's no relationship explicitly defined AND there's no distance between them bc they're. well. in love. even if they don't talk about it.) but also because there's literally nothing between them (because the only thing separating them is all one big misunderstanding). I still think that's a fun title, it just doesn't work for the revised plot.

I also mentioned a few times that I wanted to abandon this fic and that's true. It's because I wasn't sure how to smoothly get through it all when the first plot points, the parts that weren't even the real meat of the conflict, were already maybe 4-5k words. I figured it was better to stop trying since I was so busy and feeling rather uninspired. I figured it could just be one of those ideas I have that never exists outside of my own head, which is fine. It happens. However, I've referenced a few times that there was a scene that saved this fic from being abandoned and it's the conversation in the poster-making scene where Flayon decides he wants to be the only scientist that figures out how Banzoin Hakka can power the whole world just by smiling because he could never trust anyone else with it. It was just such a tender scene that I couldn't let it go to the fic graveyard and rot. That scene is the only reason why this fic exists as it does because I quickly grew to not like their meeting scene that much, even though I'm too stubborn to change it.

Tiny Details (about the actual fic)

I know there are so many tiny things that I include just because I like them that won't really matter to anyone or that'll be hard to parse without context so I thought I'd explain some of my favourite little choices I made as well. I've been trying in some of my fics to use third person with language that integrate the main focus character's way of speaking (Flayon) and I'm not sure how much I like it or how well it works but it's been fun. I don't LOVE the way this fic came out either, but I think there are pieces of it that are exactly what they should be and that's enough for me.

  • Hakka's shoes make countless appearances (and height) because of that stretch of time when Hakka's height got updated officially and they were talking about how short he is without the shoes. I also just thought it was a funny detail to deconstruct from a first meeting POV like wow, look at this crazy guy and his crazy shoes!
  • TMMT reference because of Hakka but also because Flayon mentioned once that he wanted to play Turtles in Time with him so obviously it could have come up but it's also because Flay has talked about how he just likes hearing Hakka talk
  • the "we're in public!" part happened in a stream. kinda. Flayon said he got stuck during the dokapon collab and asked for help and Hakka said "we're in public we can't do that" in response
  • HANA is a blatent reference to Flayon's status as hanami-gumi but I imagined the rest of the stars are there... somewhere. that's the acronym for their lab because they work with plants and they wanted something cute, as one does
  • Flayon's favourite tea is cinnamon but he'll drink chamomile too (gets brought up twice) and Hakka talked about the coffee-ashes thing during a WoW Wednesday
  • the tiny part about them bleaching Flayon's hair is a bit of a play on how his hair could end up like that in a more realistic universe but I also just think there's an intimacy and trust in letting your best friend do that with you and place their hands on the crown of your head in the middle of the night when you're surrounded by stars
  • now for something more obscure.. the lighthouse and the green light are both references to unattainable things (see: to the lighthouse and the great gastby) but I also picked them because I think there's a bit of a resonance between artificial unattainable lights and the stars, which are equally unattainable yet so incomprehensibly distant. also b/c stars. holostars. Regulus is the heart of the constellation Leo and one of the brightest stars! I wanted to include the tiny reference because there's that name motif of the brightest stars in the hq boys (and arguably flaytel) but I also used it because of the idea of being lion-hearted and brave. In that moment, Flayon sees Hakka and he thinks about the (to him) unattainable beauty he possesses but also a reflection of bravery and brightness.
  • I think I toned it down here but I always try to use stars a lot because I enjoy them and bird references for Hakka (his hair in a perch, the nest of pins, etc) to play at him being the bird even though AU-wise he has no connection to them
  • Hakka's song he sings is called "The Rose" because he calls Flayon a "little prince" during the part where he takes him home and in Le Petit Prince, the prince is in love with his rose. I thought about calling it "The Fox" instead because of the part where he talks about apprivoiser/friendship but the rose teaches him about love so. there it is. I see one little prince and I raise one rose.
  • I wanted to make a reference to idols so I put in ultra oranges/UOs... I know Hakka isn't really an idol in this (and they're banned anyway in some lives) but it's about the sentiment that I was imagining... the flood of lights... it's Flayon believing so sincerely and deeply that Hakka will be loved because he knows from firsthand experience

I've said it before and I'll probably say it again but even though I'm going into this planning for it to me my final fic, I'm really grateful of every moment of my time leading up to this. Part of that is just because I don't feel interested in the same way nor have enough time to participate anymore (even in streams/vods) and I enjoy writing the most when I'm drawing off of real character moments and I can't get that anymore. That's not to say I don't love them. Part of me will always love them!! Truly, truly, I am so happy I could be part of this wide fan sphere even though I'm awkward and don't really know how to be a real part of it. Participating in this way is and has been enough for me. Thank you everyone, thank you boys, I truly truly love you all.

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Pub: 12 Feb 2024 05:59 UTC

Edit: 14 Feb 2024 03:39 UTC

Views: 218