Poetic Fic Meme
29 Mar 2025 22:53![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
extrapenguinETA: All ficlets now on AO3.
A meme, viashipperslist.
1: Pick five fandoms and list them in alphabetical order.
2: Click to receive a Random Famous Poem. Write down the 5th line (yes, even if it's an e.e. cummings poem and you wind up with an apostrophe). Repeat five times and list them in alphabetical order.
3: Write a very quick 50-word half-drabble for each fandom (try to do it all in one sitting), using the line from the poem as a prompt. (You don't have to include it in the half-drabble - it's just inspiration.) – okay, I just went for "short ficlet", because I cba to count words. Never been one for drabbles.
Fandoms chosen: Couple of Mirrors, Legend of Yunze, Sect Leader and Little Shimei's Story, two very short films starring Sheng Wei
Couple of Mirrors (subtitled; 12 × ~45:00)
And taste thou them as saltless there, (Robert Herrick: To Find God)
Xu Youyi closed her eyes and breathed in the smell of the house. She thought she might, by smell and sound alone, find her way around here. The pattering of the servants' feet, no matter how they tried to remain silent, giving her the geography of the corridors. The scent of the leather furniture, growing and fading. The different sounds of the floorboards as she stepped on them.
"Youyi, what are you doing?" Zhou Heng said. She hadn't noticed he was there. "Open your eyes at once!"
Xu Youyi put a smile on her face and turned to him. "Oh, I was just-"
Zhou Heng drew her into an embrace. "Youyi, it's dangerous to walk around with your eyes closed. What if you walked into the stairs and fell?"
She had known where the stairs were and had been at no risk of falling down them. Still, she let out a sound of agreement. Her husband just had her best interests at heart.
I admit I had a bit of difficulty with this combination. Then I considered "saltless" as "not worth their salt" and thought about Zhou Heng, lol, and went for pre-canon.
Legend of Yunze (subtitles download; total 25 × ~3:00)
In all her airs, in all her antic graces, (Anne Kingsmill Finch: Adam Posed)
A-Ze watched Jiang Zhaoyun at her sword practice and sighed. The sweeping arcs, the sharp thrusts, the cutting jabs, all executed with perfect precision and incomparable elegance. A small wind played with the leaves on the ground, sweeping them up and swirling then around in Zhaoyun's wake, adding to the incomparable air.
The cultivators from large sects truly were something else! A-Ze propped her chin on her hands and kicked her feet in the air, grateful that for once, life had gone her way and let her meet Jiang Zhaoyun.
This one was slightly easier to get a concept for, but not super easy to write. Set early on in their relationship.
Miss Shen and the Woman Warlord (subtitled; 6:25)
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest, (Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Frost at Midnight)
In these troubled times, Shen Wanqing couldn't help but be restless. Due to her illness, her father tried to keep her ignorant and worry-free, but she was not stupid. She saw the tightened faces and stiff shoulders of all the men who walked the halls of this house. The war was going, and it wasn't going well.
Thus she once more found herself quietly pacing the halls at night, unable to sleep. Even the servants had settled down,
Except for Song Yuan. Shen Wanqing saw a little candle flicker in his room – again – for just a moment, brighten into brilliant flame and then die down to almost nothing, before being put out.
This young officer was an odd one. A regular man would've made advances on her already. He had not.
Shen Wanqing had come to the conclusion he must be a spy of some sort, but for whom? And was that the explanation for Song Yuan, or was there truth to her feeling that something was missing from her picture?
With these thoughts again on her mind, she turned and silently walked back to her bedroom. She would have to manufacture a meeting between them tomorrow.
I had to do a bit of canon review to find their names – well, Song Yuan is the person our cross-dressing heroine is impersonating – but this was significantly easier to write than the above two and also fun.
Sect Leader and Little Shimei's Story subtitle download; ~14:00)
'Tis secrets still, shouted instead of whisper'd. (Lascelles Abercrombie: Ryton Firs)
Of course little Ye Xiaoqi was still a righteous cultivator, loyal to only her sect and its disciples. Of course.
And of course Xiao Rufeng was a leader of a demonic sect and thus was a terrifying personage no righteous cultivator would voluntarily associate with. Of course.
Of course Ye Xiaoqi and Xiao Rufeng would have nothing to do with each other. Surely the two of them would have no reason at all to share a journey, share an inn, share a bed. If anyone were to claim so, surely they must be mistaken. There was no other explanation for it.
Of course.
This combo also had a very obvious answer and writing it was very easy.
She Brought Color into My World (subtitled; 2:24)
Why all this toil and trouble? (William Wordsworth: The Tables Turned)
Today, she was leaving. The neighbors' miss was returning to the wide world that had so shaped her, broadened her horizons and given her insights on things I had never so much as heard of. This had merely been the briefest of visits home, all our time together just a chance for her to see how much she had learned in comparison to someone who had stayed home. And my heart had sung as well to hear her tell of her journeys and learnings, and all that which she wished to share with me.
She'd invited me to come with her, and oh, how I longed to, but I was not a creature of the wide world, but of the courtyard, with its four tall walls and quiet monotony. I could never leave like she did.
And yet, there was a yearning in my heart: I had now been exposed to all manner of exotic things, from the spyglass she gave me to the untranslated books she had synopsized for me. I had found a momentary distraction from the unthinkable malaise that I realized had set in my heart. I longed for this continued escape from my tedium while knowing that tedium was all I was destined for. There was no point in denial.
Or perhaps-
Had she, too, not once been like me, living within a courtyard of boredom and confinement? Was it possible for me to become like her, free of all that troubled me?
I closed the box with the spyglass and rose. I should at the very least be there to send her off. As for thence ... I had to speak with her of how she had begun her journey.
For this combo, I immediately knew what I wanted to write – the Traditional Girl choosing away her agony and going off with the Modern Girl – but was stumped by the fact neither of them is named... I was thus forced into first person POV, even when I wouldn't have chosen otherwise.
Considering putting the ficlets up on AO3. At least the Miss Shen and the Woman Warlord one. Thoughts?
A meme, via
shipperslist.1: Pick five fandoms and list them in alphabetical order.
2: Click to receive a Random Famous Poem. Write down the 5th line (yes, even if it's an e.e. cummings poem and you wind up with an apostrophe). Repeat five times and list them in alphabetical order.
3: Write a very quick 50-word half-drabble for each fandom (try to do it all in one sitting), using the line from the poem as a prompt. (You don't have to include it in the half-drabble - it's just inspiration.) – okay, I just went for "short ficlet", because I cba to count words. Never been one for drabbles.
Fandoms chosen: Couple of Mirrors, Legend of Yunze, Sect Leader and Little Shimei's Story, two very short films starring Sheng Wei
Couple of Mirrors (subtitled; 12 × ~45:00)
And taste thou them as saltless there, (Robert Herrick: To Find God)
Xu Youyi closed her eyes and breathed in the smell of the house. She thought she might, by smell and sound alone, find her way around here. The pattering of the servants' feet, no matter how they tried to remain silent, giving her the geography of the corridors. The scent of the leather furniture, growing and fading. The different sounds of the floorboards as she stepped on them.
"Youyi, what are you doing?" Zhou Heng said. She hadn't noticed he was there. "Open your eyes at once!"
Xu Youyi put a smile on her face and turned to him. "Oh, I was just-"
Zhou Heng drew her into an embrace. "Youyi, it's dangerous to walk around with your eyes closed. What if you walked into the stairs and fell?"
She had known where the stairs were and had been at no risk of falling down them. Still, she let out a sound of agreement. Her husband just had her best interests at heart.
I admit I had a bit of difficulty with this combination. Then I considered "saltless" as "not worth their salt" and thought about Zhou Heng, lol, and went for pre-canon.
Legend of Yunze (subtitles download; total 25 × ~3:00)
In all her airs, in all her antic graces, (Anne Kingsmill Finch: Adam Posed)
A-Ze watched Jiang Zhaoyun at her sword practice and sighed. The sweeping arcs, the sharp thrusts, the cutting jabs, all executed with perfect precision and incomparable elegance. A small wind played with the leaves on the ground, sweeping them up and swirling then around in Zhaoyun's wake, adding to the incomparable air.
The cultivators from large sects truly were something else! A-Ze propped her chin on her hands and kicked her feet in the air, grateful that for once, life had gone her way and let her meet Jiang Zhaoyun.
This one was slightly easier to get a concept for, but not super easy to write. Set early on in their relationship.
Miss Shen and the Woman Warlord (subtitled; 6:25)
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest, (Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Frost at Midnight)
In these troubled times, Shen Wanqing couldn't help but be restless. Due to her illness, her father tried to keep her ignorant and worry-free, but she was not stupid. She saw the tightened faces and stiff shoulders of all the men who walked the halls of this house. The war was going, and it wasn't going well.
Thus she once more found herself quietly pacing the halls at night, unable to sleep. Even the servants had settled down,
Except for Song Yuan. Shen Wanqing saw a little candle flicker in his room – again – for just a moment, brighten into brilliant flame and then die down to almost nothing, before being put out.
This young officer was an odd one. A regular man would've made advances on her already. He had not.
Shen Wanqing had come to the conclusion he must be a spy of some sort, but for whom? And was that the explanation for Song Yuan, or was there truth to her feeling that something was missing from her picture?
With these thoughts again on her mind, she turned and silently walked back to her bedroom. She would have to manufacture a meeting between them tomorrow.
I had to do a bit of canon review to find their names – well, Song Yuan is the person our cross-dressing heroine is impersonating – but this was significantly easier to write than the above two and also fun.
Sect Leader and Little Shimei's Story subtitle download; ~14:00)
'Tis secrets still, shouted instead of whisper'd. (Lascelles Abercrombie: Ryton Firs)
Of course little Ye Xiaoqi was still a righteous cultivator, loyal to only her sect and its disciples. Of course.
And of course Xiao Rufeng was a leader of a demonic sect and thus was a terrifying personage no righteous cultivator would voluntarily associate with. Of course.
Of course Ye Xiaoqi and Xiao Rufeng would have nothing to do with each other. Surely the two of them would have no reason at all to share a journey, share an inn, share a bed. If anyone were to claim so, surely they must be mistaken. There was no other explanation for it.
Of course.
This combo also had a very obvious answer and writing it was very easy.
She Brought Color into My World (subtitled; 2:24)
Why all this toil and trouble? (William Wordsworth: The Tables Turned)
Today, she was leaving. The neighbors' miss was returning to the wide world that had so shaped her, broadened her horizons and given her insights on things I had never so much as heard of. This had merely been the briefest of visits home, all our time together just a chance for her to see how much she had learned in comparison to someone who had stayed home. And my heart had sung as well to hear her tell of her journeys and learnings, and all that which she wished to share with me.
She'd invited me to come with her, and oh, how I longed to, but I was not a creature of the wide world, but of the courtyard, with its four tall walls and quiet monotony. I could never leave like she did.
And yet, there was a yearning in my heart: I had now been exposed to all manner of exotic things, from the spyglass she gave me to the untranslated books she had synopsized for me. I had found a momentary distraction from the unthinkable malaise that I realized had set in my heart. I longed for this continued escape from my tedium while knowing that tedium was all I was destined for. There was no point in denial.
Or perhaps-
Had she, too, not once been like me, living within a courtyard of boredom and confinement? Was it possible for me to become like her, free of all that troubled me?
I closed the box with the spyglass and rose. I should at the very least be there to send her off. As for thence ... I had to speak with her of how she had begun her journey.
For this combo, I immediately knew what I wanted to write – the Traditional Girl choosing away her agony and going off with the Modern Girl – but was stumped by the fact neither of them is named... I was thus forced into first person POV, even when I wouldn't have chosen otherwise.
Considering putting the ficlets up on AO3. At least the Miss Shen and the Woman Warlord one. Thoughts?
no subject
Date: 2025-03-30 20:48 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-30 21:23 (UTC)...oh no I need to title them to put them on AO3. My nemesis!
no subject
Date: 2025-03-31 20:52 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-31 13:02 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-04-01 18:14 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-31 14:44 (UTC)I just wanted to say that you inspired me to do this meme, too. Especially since I decided to follow your example and write short ficlets instead of just half-drabbles. :) And I do plan to put them on AO3, too.
no subject
Date: 2025-04-01 18:19 (UTC)