a ball of yarn that does not a sock make

[extrapenguin]

So, recentishly I read some meta, almost 15 years old, about (in essence) how much written-out emotion people like in their fic. Now, I don't think I'm a cold prickly who wants everything to be in code one has to decipher, or a warm fuzzy who's all about explicitly describing every emotion – but then again, if this is a scale from 0 to 100, I'm pretty sure everyone between 10 and 90 is convinced they're roughly at the middle. *g*

(More notes: there was a lot of talk about what slash is for, which to be is a bit nonsensical as a question – slash is a category of fanfic, and fic isn't for one single thing. This was an interesting generational divide!)

Then I thought some more about it, and I think I lost the intermediate stepping stones, but what I came at was: expressions of love. IDK how it is in America, but here, no-one says "I love you". Affection and care is turning up, cooking, talking about tractors. We are an emotionally constipated people.

Ah yes, now I remember the bridge for the donkey-cart of thought! It was related to the actions of characters versus the internal monologue. So: I guess that the line in the sand I draw is that the characters' actions remain as in canon, but the act of fic-writing for a visual medium is already decoding some of that everything. As long as the characters' actions are as in canon, the internal monologue can be filled in at will. (It's a bit different for text-based things that are from the canon narrator's POV. But there we have a clearer target to emulate.)

And because this is a post composed of thread-ends I can't quite weave into a blanket, let me bring in Guardian as well! Some of this is probably my personal cultural baggage, as I'm not Chinese, but I honestly never could believe the the whole "they didn't get together during the series" thing, because from my POV, by the end, they live together and have spent half the show saying "I love you" to each other. It might be fraught, but all new and newish and intense things are. They're also not stupid or incapable of listening to the other's words. (As for the timing, well, before the bomb scene, though something that comes before that might push it beyond even that.) The meta I linked above talked about coding; to me, there is no coding: the love is explicitly text.

(I am also part foreign. This means I have a huge, constant desire to verbalize my love and caring, but the words never make it to my mouth. I am reasonably certain this – conflict? is also present in my writing. But some things are never meant to be said.)

Comments

[extrapenguin]

I figured you might recall it, as some of your prior fandoms were brought up in the comments. I also spotted both solo and ranalore there!

I'm on the Cold Prickly side of things, I think, as Julad defines it -- generally trying to make my characterisations as close to (my reading of) canon as possible. (Of course, everyone reads canon differently, so...)
I ... guess? (Hmm, I think I have some extra thoughts about how professional literature is more Cold Prickly while fanfic generally leans more into the romance novel tradition of Warm Fuzzy. I might be completely off-base, though.) Given that everyone reads canon differently, I don't think that's quite something we can use as a dividing line – I think everyone wants to make characterizations close to canon, so by that metric, everyone's a Cold Prickly!

But I don't think that equals emotional constipation! It's just a different, equally-valid-in-its-context way of expressing emotion -- like Shen Wei's cooking.
Aw, thank you. Though people have remarked that I have a ludicrously stiff upper lip. (And online, it seems everyone has to at least try to mold themselves to the US emotional expression norm, lest they be seen as unfeeling or Wrongity Wrong or whatever. Though idk how much of that feeling is just general autism stuff.) (It's also way past my bedtime, so I'm probably being even less coherent than usual. *g*)

To me, changing how they speak to each other in drama-canon fanworks feels like it's trying to "fix" something that isn't broken, and actually undercuts how absolutely together they are in canon, where they mostly call each other by name (plus Hei Lao Ge).
Me too, actually! I'm also 100% convinced that Shen Wei has a minor kink for Zhao Yunlan saying his name, and Zhao Yunlan absolutely loves saying it. So switching from "Shen Wei" to "beautiful" would be a downgrade for both of them. Now, I can imagine Zhao Yunlan being facetious and using a variety of descriptors/nicknames for Shen Wei, but if it's romantic or actually serious? Shen Wei. (Exceptions can be made for xiao-Wei, solely based on Shen Wei's reaction to that.)

[china_shop]

Given that everyone reads canon differently, I don't think that's quite something we can use as a dividing line – I think everyone wants to make characterizations close to canon, so by that metric, everyone's a Cold Prickly!

Oh yes, good point. It's how much you allow the emotions to be subtextual vs textual, isn't it? I probably do the spelling-out-in-narration a fair bit (and probably the characters-actually-saying-stuff more than I think I do, for that matter).

One of the things I was thinking, when I said I leaned Cold Prickly, is that I enjoy the low-PDA subtextual-declarations-of-feelings culture of Haixing, and having the characters constrained by that and working within it. I get more of a kick out of them stealing subtle meaningful touches in public than I would from them casually kissing. But that might have nothing to do with Julad's framework at all... (And of course, ZYL doesn't so much steal touches as wholesale appropriate them. *g*)

And online, it seems everyone has to at least try to mold themselves to the US emotional expression norm

I know what you mean. It can feel kinda performative at times, I find. And particularly when leaving feedback on fanworks, I sometimes feel like if I'm not enthusiastic enough, it's going to read as insincere or insufficient or something. (Not that the enthusiasm isn't genuine, but I don't think I'd express it like that outside of a fannish context... I have to dial up the saturation. /has been making icons all morning)

but if it's romantic or actually serious? Shen Wei.

Yes! And yes to xiao-Wei, too, though that generally works best for me if it's used sparingly.

[extrapenguin]

It's how much you allow the emotions to be subtextual vs textual, isn't it? I probably do the spelling-out-in-narration a fair bit (and probably the characters-actually-saying-stuff more than I think I do, for that matter).
Yep! (My general preference is "foreshadowed with subtext, brought up as text when necessary, but the emotion-text shouldn't take over the story"; it's probably noticeable that I generally prefer genres that don't depend on emotion-text but rather have something else going on.)

low-PDA
Ah, and here we get the cultural baggage! By my standards, everyone is super cuddly, and Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan's PDA is on occasion blatant. (All those shoulder grabs! They sort of hug at one point!)
But yeah, there's sort of a ... quietness? to Haixing's culture around this, as opposed to the loudness of what Hollywood pushes. Stolen handclasps, kissing in private, a meaningful smile, all meant only for the person receiving it, rather than what seems like a performance to an audience.

It can feel kinda performative at times, I find. And particularly when leaving feedback on fanworks, I sometimes feel like if I'm not enthusiastic enough, it's going to read as insincere or insufficient or something. (Not that the enthusiasm isn't genuine, but I don't think I'd express it like that outside of a fannish context... I have to dial up the saturation. /has been making icons all morning)
This. Instead of "Not bad. Aspect X was very apt." it feels like half of everyone is expecting a keyboard smash of "ASDFKDHAADLJFKA;; THIS IS SO GOOD I HAVE NO WORDS" (oh gods I feel so fake just typing that out), like their emotional intensity dial goes up to 11 and all the numbers from 0-10 are invalid for feedback, while my dial's been capped at 6.

And yes to xiao-Wei, too, though that generally works best for me if it's used sparingly.
Yes! (Counting, I think I used it twice in 70k in For No Cradle Lasts Forever. I do think someone could stand to use it more often than once in 35k, but it's definitely something to be used for emphasis, not all the time.)