Sunday Six - angsty romcom, The Sequel

[galaxysoup]

So, I've been mostly fine during this whole lockdown - I'm safe, my family seems to be safe, all of us have been able to socially distance and stay pretty isolated, and my job, at least thus far, is secure. The one area I've noticed that I've been definitely affected is when it comes to communicating with people. I'm okay with the level of interaction required on tumblr, and I've been texting memes to my friends and that sort of thing, but I've been very bad at Dreamwidth-levels of communication. I'm sorry!!! The times that I have come on and posted something people have been really lovely about responding to it, and I have not been very good about responding in turn. I'm going to try a few different strategies, because I want to keep checking in and interacting with people!

I have, at least, been getting a reasonably decent amount of writing done. I have three chapters and about 12k of this so far! So I can share bits of that at least.

He wants to believe that Zhao Yunlan has surrounded himself with people who will protect him and look after him. He wants to be able to think, in the long stretches of night, that Zhao Yunlan is safe and happy and will continue to be loved and never betrayed. That Zhao Yunlan will never have to look back on the choices he’s made and be able to pinpoint the ones that made everything collapse into smoking ruins.

Zhao Xinci looks around this station, at the things his son has built, and sees: Criminal. Mobster. Delinquent.

The foundations of his son’s life are so terribly fragile.

That's right, ladles and jellyspoons, I am attempting DAD ZHAO POV! o.0

Comments

[xparrot]

*hugs* and I hear you on the communication being hard thing; I've been managing some places but not others. But glad to know you're overall okay -- and yay for writing! \o/

Also ow, aww, Zhao Xinci -- you care but how are you so bad at doing so?! Trust your son ;_;

[galaxysoup]

*hugs back* It's been interesting to see which methods of communication (and on which days) are Too Much and which aren't, that's for sure! It's not always been what I expect.

Zhao Xinci wants to trust Zhao Yunlan so much, but to do it he has to ignore all his learned cynicism and overprotectiveness, which is... a big ask. It's actually been pretty fun to dig into his annoying head. :D

[trobadora]

OMG! Zhao Xinci POV! That looks fascinating. :D

(Also, good to see you around here! Even if you don't do much, it's always good to hear people are okay.)

[galaxysoup]

He's been fun to play around with! I'm doing a lot of POV-hopping in this story, which has been both challenging and interesting. :D

(Thank you, that's very nice to hear!!)

[nnozomi]

wait, so far your snippets have included Lin Jing and Shen Wei POV, and now you have Zhao Xinci...? I mean, I know you're not actually tailoring this precisely to my interests, but you could've fooled me. ;) Looking forward to it and also glad things are basically going well with you!

[galaxysoup]

Thank you so much! :D Yeeeeaaaaah, at the moment, going by my rough outline, this story will have... nine POVs, at least? Probably more, if I want to add outsider POVs to one of the subplots or antagonist POVs to the main plot to make things interesting. It's still a very SW/ZYL-focused story, because that's the fun part, but, uh... I'm definitely messing around with it a bit. ;D

[rheasilvia]

I know exactly what you mean... in many ways, communication on DW has seemed overwhelming to me too recently. And I have been even worse than usual at answering (much appreciated and loved!!) comments on my stories.

Yay for your writing going so well, though - that's awesome. And I love your Zhao Xinci POV. He is just so blind to the world Zhao Yunlan sees... and can never stop trying to meddle and fix things (and indeed his son himself) according to his one-dimensional view. So frustrating!

[galaxysoup]

Right?? And I feel bad, because this is a key time for good communication and connection, but also... tired. :(

Zhao Xinci's inflexibility was really the key to getting his character, for me - he can see, to an extent, what Zhao Yunlan sees of the world, but his thinking is so rigid that it's very hard for him to believe it or to trust that even if he doesn't believe in it himself it will turn out okay anyway. His heart's in the right place, but he's disaster at making anything come out right!