I'm Hooked on the Feeling of Love and Healing

I've been pondering for the past couple of weeks what I want to do with this journal, since I'm already not the best at going out of my way to make personal posts on Tumblr. I've tried in the past, but I've never really been able to get in the habit. Emerging out of the woodworks with a meta post like twice a year is more my thing. But then I came up with an idea that I want to try where I use this journal as a way to keep track of my current fannish projects, since I feel like it would be nice to have. Also, it can be proof to myself that I do actually make contributions to the fandoms that I enjoy.

XiaoVen Poetry Gala One-Shot (Working Title: N/A)

• I did in fact start this during that event itself and I'm just unbelievably late because College, but I really like what I've written and I want to see it through. The only thing I really have left to write is a sonnet that I want to have Venti perform in the context of the story. For some reason I decided to be the most extra person of all time and write the poetry for this fic myself instead of just finding one to use, but I feel like it'll feel very accomplishing to have written it myself even if it's a little bit amateurish.
• If I had to give this a percentage, with the mental labor of poetry it's probably about 90% done. But alas, I am busy so the finish line is so far away

Chapter 7 of Talk the Stars (We'll Talk the Stars Down From the Sky and I'll Not Forget the Chaos in Your Eyes)

• Talk the Stars is the multichapter XiaoVen fic that I started with my good friend Miki back in 2022, that we've been slowly working on for the past few years until the full force of college punched us (but mostly punched me) in the face. This fic is my baby but also God I always get out of hand when writing it.
• Chapter 7 features Thoma as the POV character (there are a bunch of POVs aside from Xiao and Venti) and I've already made a lot of progress on it, I just have a problem where I write in a lot more detail than I need to and ended up burning myself out only about halfway through the chapter. These things are so damn long and maybe one day I'll concede to making cuts for pacing reasons, but also... it's a fanfiction and I can do whatever I want forever.
• Talk the Stars will probably be my main summer priority, since we've sadly passed the one year mark since Miki uploaded chapter 6, and even though I know that it's okay for it to take a long time, I still feel guilty about it. Once the Poetry Gala fic is done, it's this fic or bust.
• To give a generous percentage, I want it to be 50% done so badly, but realistically it's probably less.

Edits to Chapters 1 and 3 of Talk the Stars

• After Sumeru trailers started dropping, Miki and I fell into the wretched trap of wanting to go back to edit the earlier chapters of the fic to make Nahida more of a character. However, I do stand by that choice, since Nahida's role heavily overlaps with the premise of the fic, which involves Venti talking to people in their dreams. That's the entire thing that Nahida does, Nahida just didn't exist when this fic was first conceptualized.
• We haven't really discussed doing the same thing for Furina, but we might want to come up with a plan for later on for how Furina should exist in the story on account of her lore, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
• The edits were also an excuse to write Venti and Nahida being friends, because you cannot convince me that Venti would not be excellent friends with both Nahida and Furina. He'd be like a supportive older brother or something.
• I'd also place these edits at being around 50% done, but I haven't looked at them in a while and honestly just don't have a good sense of the scale any more.

TGCF Meta Analysis Essay (Working Title: Hualian, The Human Monolith, and The Mortifying Need to be Known)

• So finishing TGCF absolutely exploded my brain and I wrote over 4,000 words by hand in a journal about how many of the character's arcs tied into this overarching theme of how human beings crave acknowledgement and understanding from others. It's one of those very human themes that a story can have that just makes me absolutely insane, so after writing so much... too much... I decided that I wanted to expand the parts I wrote about Hua Cheng and Xie Lian and expand them into a full essay.
• The way that XL and HC work with the theme is fascinating because of the way that they both demonstrate so clearly what can become of a person when they experience that lack, while also fulfilling that need for each other once they come together. They are so romance, they are everything to me.
• Surprisingly, XL's section has given me a lot more difficulty than HC's did. Like yes, I do have significantly more to say about him but he's also my preferred half of the pairing. I do feel like this is a bit of a trend for me though, as with xiaoven for example I can find it easier at times to analyze Xiao than Venti, but I think Venti has just been simmering in my brain for too long and it's made me lose the ability to have coherent thoughts about him lol. Maybe XL is becoming the same. Still, I'm excited to get more of my thoughts about him on the page, because his entire arc is so so fascinating (in all of its tragedy).
• With only HC's section being complete, I'd say this is about 33% done, but it's the most accessible for me to write, so it's the one I feel that I'm making the most tangible progress on at the moment.

Neocities Website

• Since I allowed my friend Hua (huafeihua) to cajole me into eventually joining their webring, they've been slowly but surely teaching me how to make a Neocities website, which I can use to host any fannish essays or fics that I write. It's also kind of a back up (like this) in case Tumblr goes kaput for good (which it probably will).
• It's been fun to see progress get made so far but also I'm a total dunce when it comes to coding so said progress is a bit slow and agonizing. Still, once I'm a bit better at web design, I think things will start coming together really nicely. I have a few webpages so far, but nothing to really write home about yet.
• Percentages are a lie, this project is likely eternal.

...I really do have too much on my plate. Sadly, schoolwork currently prevents me from working on most of these because I'm experiencing the torment of burnout, as is the price of being a student. I probably won't make these posts that often, since if I come back once a month with the same 5 projects, it'll defeat the purpose of the exercise, which is to make me feel better about my progress. So we'll just have to see how it goes.

Extra Ideas for the Future:

• E-rated VenXiao one-shot
• Multi-chapter fic about Scaramouche/Wanderer being raised as Inazuma's prince instead of being abandoned by Ei
• Multi-chapter fic exploring the relationships between Diluc, Jean, and Eula and their upbringings in Mond's noble families