fic, fic ideas, etc

[ehyde]

I keep forgetting that this site exists, so here's a bit of an update of what's been going on the past month or so.

I posted the zombie!Jin Zixuan fic! I tagged it "not quite a fix-it" because it's not exactly a happy ending, but still, a few more people are alive than in canon (Jiang Yanli and Wen Qing, specifically). It's interesting what people latch onto, though--I gave Mo Xuanyu a very minor appearance in the coda, and he does not get a happier ending, and so many of the comments were people feeling sad for him, specifically.

And I told myself that after finishing that fic, it was time to set writing aside until my cosplay was finished, but it's hard to turn off one's writer-brain. Last year in akayona fandom, clockworkspider introduced me to the concept of Hanahaki disease with this Suwon&Hak fic. I didn't really get into the trope at the time because while I find the aesthetics and body horror aspect super appealing, the sort of angsty romance that it usually inspires is less my thing. However, it was brought to the forefront of my imagination again, and I played around with it a bit with some mdzs ideas (I altered the rules a bit, but it's not like it's a real illness, after all).

1. Supposing that a) falling out of love does not cure the disease and b) the surgery to remove the flowers takes away not only your memories of the person, but also your ability to feel any strong emotions toward them -- Nie Huaisang fell for Jin Guangyao before Nie Mingjue died, and is left coughing flowers for him even after learning that Jin Guangyao murdered his brother. He dare not have them removed before his revenge is complete, but cutting them out after it's over will mean that everthing that gave his life meaning for the last ten years is gone. 
2. Besides hope the other person loves you back and cutting the flowers out, there's a third option--cut them out without killing them and transplant them to a new host. As long as the plant doesn't die, your feelings won't either--and they'll be duplicated in the new host. Wen Ruohan uses this as a form of torture--enemies have died in agony all the while desperately in love with him. He also, as in the case of Meng Yao, has been known to use it as a test of loyalty.

In the midst of these somewhat darker ideas the only thing I was able to actually write was fluff, so here's a little short of toddler A-Yuan playing with a funny paper doll he found (aka WWX testing out the paperman spell).

As far as cosplay goes, it's progressing slowly. I'm making Wen Qing's outfit in a slightly-more-historically-accurate design simply because that means more straight seams, but baby has been waking up a lot at night and I'm lucky to be able to sew more than one or two seams a day. Still, I'm not giving up on it yet!

Comments

[floating_hell]

YES. That's the kind of 'love story' that's inherently twisted because the straight path to happiness is blocked by everything that happened up to the point of the first meeting. There's so much potential there for some really interesting (and probably upsetting) writing to happen.

I'll absolutely keep an eye out for it!