⚓️ fic commentary: floating in a fallen sky

[moonrusts]

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never has a fic given me equal amounts of grief and satisfaction while writing but i guess that's what you get when you step outside your comfort zone

inception timeline

there's a few reasons this fic came into existence.

march '21

watched pacrim bc gossamerss swore to how amazing it is, and i was not disappointed in the slightest (thank you sarah, this fic wouldn't exist without you).

i was very into the whole mecha vs human connection plotline going on, and a little more introspection on drift compatibility lead me to write down two words in my bullet journal — "retrofit drifting". if memories are the way two people connect in the drift, what if those memories were altered so you could be retrofitted to be partners? anyways, i left it at that with no actual plans on writing it.

i made this post on twitter, which was followed up by mint saying she'd always wanted to read/write pacrim nomin drift partners (a thought subconsciously shoved somewhere in the back of my brain for later).

april '21

plans for the mutual homies fic exchange start stewing in my mind (which is basically to say my mind was blank lol). mint mentioned she would like to see sci fi and i was like. pacrim. that's where my brain sort of stopped. also sarah made this post and i was like . . . okay ykw we're doing it.

which is something to say bc i didn't know what "it" was, but thankfully those two words in my bullet journal saved me. cue excessively obsessing over how i cannot plot.

may '21

plots. writes. cries. writes. edits. cries. posts. cries. i'm done.

ideation / planning / first draft

this was, i think, one of the hardest parts.

i changed the plan almost 7-8 times, working with different ideas and different dynamics. i'm going to put some biggest changed chunks here.

1. revision 1.0 | projected 7k, explores jaemin undergoing memory exchange for jeno. i dropped this one SO FAST. blame the romantic in me but i also think of drift partners as soulmates (quick insert: i do not think of soulmates as only romantic, platonic soulmates are very much a thing). and in that case, i didn't want my main pairing (nomin) to be drift partners because they were retrofitted together.


2. revision 2.0 | projected wc: 12k decides to make them have SEPARATE drift partners who die (sorry mark & hyuck), and then they discover they're compatible by ghost drifting. jaemin's past — unknown, have not figured out at this point.


3. revision 2.1 | projected wc: 12k has some very basic idea of jaem's past, adds in ghost drifting plotline. this is the part where i started writing.


4. revision 2.2 | projected wc: 16k decides not to kill off mark so he can give jaemin advice later (plotpoints moved around quite a bit)


5. revision 2.3 | projected wc: 15k removes ghost drifting from the plotline to make it a little simpler to handle.


6. revision 2.4 | projected wc: 23k ???? makes nightmares worse, adds so much grief (what was i on), freaks out about the sudden jump in projected wc. this is the point where i was at about 16k into the first draft. also made the moodboard atp.


7. revision 3.0 | projected wc: ? (decides to f it and just write, whatever it ends up at) finally figures out all of jaemin's backstory, removes unnecessary angst, figures out a way to end the story, finishes writing at 20k.


revision 1.0 happened in the first week of may, and then revisions 2.0 — 3.0 happened in succession from second week of may to 26th may, when i finished writing the first draft.

second & third draft / posting

took a (half forced, half decisive) break from this fic for two days as i dove headfirst into uni and work stuff, letting this stew in my mind.

atp i was. NOT HAPPY in the slightest with the first draft, mainly bc it was written in the form of hate sprints over three weeks (1-2k words daily in 20 minute sprints). i'm pretty sure i'd messed up the timeline of a whole plotpoint in the second chapter (i had — mark and jaemin had a convo about an event that hadn't yet happened LOL).

anyways, in this time, marji beta-ed chapter one (i love her).

i printed out all the pages of the fic physically, and started editing by hand. bc i'm lazy, i did line edits and fixed potential plot holes and such that i spotted for chapter one in the same go. transferred those changes to type up the second draft of c1, and then sent it to my friend pj to beta.

then while she looked over c1, i did the edits for chapter 2. she gave me back her thoughts on c1, i sent her the second draft of c2 and went to sleep.

woke up on may 29 with her having sent me her thoughts on c2 as well, edited and finished up the third and final draft, formatted on ao3, did another spelling/grammar check and then posted late in the evening.

misc. thoughts

when i say i went through hell and back i mean it.

this fic turned over everything i am as a writer. first — i write plotless fluff, i have never learned to plot, i just pray and write. i knew for a project like this, that would just not be feasible. cue the several revisions to plotting i went through. i came out deciding i actually really like plotting ???? i liked that i knew where i was headed writing this fic, so now you can officially call ao3 user chenjism a plotter, not a pantser.

also i had fun characterizing jaemin and jeno, because this one was a much serious work, and i really wanted to find their motivations to do what they did. jaemin's was particularly interesting because i wanted the kind of person he was to shine, but also he was struggling with not knowing that himself given his wiped memories.

working with grief was also something that i took some time to think about, because i wanted it to be real. there was stuff drawn from real life, ngl.

renjun's characterization was just — painful, i guess? it hurt me a lot to write him going through everything that he went through. i also tried my best to really figure out how jaemin, jeno and renjun worked with grief in their own ways, bc it was different for all of them.

also, me being me, i enjoyed thoroughly the chance to insert chenji agendas <3 i'm just going to say — talented researcher chenle and smart tech nerd jisung were a DELIGHT to write and explore.

i also struggled a bit with the whole nomin relationship dynamics. at first this was going to be much more romantic, but then it just DID NOT make sense given what they were dealing with (particularly jeno). i considered having no romance at all, but then. i'm me. hence the onset of flirty jaemin, trust-worthy golden boy jeno, and subtle romantic hints drawing from mutual trust and understanding, and a barely there, softly whisperer confession. i think i like where i ended up with the balance <3

next — i'm usually a fast writer. i take one/two all nighters, and finish a fic in that time and just post. may was a VERY busy month and i had no intention of pulling an all nighter. i was, admittedly, very worried. since i never wrote over long periods of time before this, i wondered if i'd lose interest. surprisingly, neither did i lose interest (all thanks to the planning and the infinite repeats of mokita's colorblind when i was not writing to keep me in the mood. also the nutmeg brethren who constantly hyped me up on discord) and i actually developed a much healthier, consistent writing routine where i'd write for 1/2 20 minute discord sprints every evening at about 7pm. i've grown to love this consistency a lot, and i feel like i'm actually going to stick to this in the future <3 also — the AMOUNT OF RESEARCH i had to do pre and while writing is. uh. i think i spent my ENTIRE time with the pacrim wiki open LOL.

betas — before this fic, i usually just posted the SECOND i finished writing, and never asked for betas. with this fic, i'd stared at it for THREE weeks and i'd lost complete objectivity to tell if i was doing a decent job, and NEEDED a beta (ended up asking both marji and pj and they were literal life savers). both my betas offered perspectives i'd completely glossed over and now i'm hitting myself on the head for not always having betas.

editing — as mentioned before, i usually never edited, save for the spellcheck/grammar check i did pre-posting. however, i truly realized how much better i made my writing when i edited, esp since i had a more holistic view of what i'd written and could now go back and add in some foreshadowing and just consistency that wasn't there before. again something that i'm going to inculcate for the future <3

in general, even if i complained a lot while writing this fic, i think i've really developed as a writer (writing style and just behaviourally) because of this one. it was definitely one of the hardest projects i undertook, and currently the longest rpf i've written, so i'm happy. finally, i can shove the pacrim nomin brainrot away, and go back to my usual tooth rotting fluff, LOL.

outtakes

i think i posted most of these so i'm just going to link them here —

1. me being dumb, almost revealing my identity, and pj being the most simp-y beta i've met
2. cc answer about inspiration and parts that were removed
3. names of jaegers (trust me, a lot of thought was put in)
4. kaiju names

i'll add to this if i think of stuff later! if you read this far, you're an mvp and i love you. hope you like(d) the fic!

aeri out.