hello matcha! i hope you are doing well, and that life is treating you greatly.
first of all, thank you for your work! i truly appreciate it and i have to say; it is very inspiring. many times throughout my reading of ito have i found myself thinking about just how much your writing resembles what i’ve often hoped to achieve as a fellow writer. it truly is beautiful. i'm glad i kept looking and stumbled across this fanfic; i think it's exactly what i was looking for.
i have just finished reading ito after a long pause. to be honest, i hesitated reading the last fifteen chapters as i simply hate the thought of having to come to an end with the things i love. but my need to know what happens to sensei overrode this hesitation. and, after all, i very much enjoyed reading the end. in my opinion, nothing would've beaten its actual state. after all, fate is fate.
my favourite part of your work is when gojo and sensei are in ryugu, mainly thanks to its amazing scenery. my favourite passage would be where gojo talks about love to tsukuyomi, answering "to love is to belong" to the "what is love?" question. never have words resonated so deeply in my heart as these. it is very rare for me to read works that put into words exactly what i feel, and you managed to do it breathtakingly, so thank you.
even though i’ve obviously and repeatedly (lol) left kudos, i’m not really the sort of reader who comments, mainly because i think i’m too late to the party, and that my comment won’t make any difference (it’s untrue and silly, but that’s just how i am). however, with this message, i really wanted to show you just how much your work has touched me, and even given a bit of motivation back to an author who hasn’t felt motivated for quite some time.
if you don't mind it, i'd love to ask just three questions about your writing and its process, and i apologise if you're ever answered to similar ones in the past.
your work is one of the most unique and detailed i have ever read in terms of world-building. i cannot help but wonder how long your research into japanese mythology must have taken. is it something that always caught your attention?
what i write is often a reflection of how i write. the environment surrounding me (from sounds to position to weather to room...) conditions my writing. how about you? do you have a preferred writing process?
what was your approach when creating sensei's character? did you have a clear image in mind or did you just go with the flow?
thank you taking time to read this, and answering my questions (that i hope are not a bother!). have a lovely day (or night), take care!
ps: chapter 91 made me laugh out loud, so this is truly how french people are perceived throughout the world hahaha. to be honest, not far from the truth, from a french person (with an english degree!!).
hello @krisdepanique!!!! I apologise for being so late in answering this and thank you for your patience!!
oh gosh, you're making me blush from the start! it makes me feel so honoured to read something like this! I am so happy that I was able to offer you something you enjoyed and felt inspired by! I feel so lucky to be on the receiving end of such a high praise, thank you, truly!
yeah, I agree with you on the fact that fate is fate. There really is nothing else sometimes.
nononon, thank YOU for reading it. I was kind of scared that the 'to love is to belong' would sound too sentimental and the delivery would leave a lot to be desired for such strong words but reading your message consoles me. thank you!
comments are always welcome no matter the time but if you feel better directly writing to me through here, I am glad you do that! I appreciate people taking time out of their lives to pay attention to the story, let alone write to me. So it is very precious to me that you even considered writing a comment and ended up writing to me directly on here.
Happy to answer your questions:
your work is one of the most unique and detailed i have ever read in terms of world-building. i cannot help but wonder how long your research into japanese mythology must have taken. is it something that always caught your attention?
first of all, omg please stop im turning red. I never paid that much attention to world building while writing to be honest. I have always been interested in mythology so it was rather a pastime activity to learn more about it. I had some knowledge about the 'creation' of Japan and I built upon that by reading more about the spirits I didn't know. The part which required the research was the practices because I am not shinto and have never encountered anybody who practiced shinto culturally or religiously so I wanted to come as close as possible. I looked through online encyclopaedias (since I had no accessible physical resources regarding the matter around me) for the tools and watched youtube videos of the rituals to understand better. I don't know how long it took tbh because I knew about majority of the rituals but not about their protocols so there wasn't a lot to do some rigorous discovery there. but I spent some evenings solely learning about materials and rituals.
what i write is often a reflection of how i write. the environment surrounding me (from sounds to position to weather to room...) conditions my writing. how about you? do you have a preferred writing process?
I think I do but I have only recently become aware of this. I wrote ito in a moment of spurt of inspiration but the inspo came in a very layered manner. so the moment I decided to write ito, I had already known how certain plot points would work out. I thought this was the main reason for my being able to write consistently. but I think my productiveness relied less on the plot points but more on the 'mood'.
For instance, I still dont know what exactly I aim for with my other story Lacking (which, as I mentioned before, is a way for me to keep myself writing rather than having a big big story out) despite having a couple of ideas about how I think the plot will develop. But I think the reason why I am not as prolific with that one as I had been with ito is because I never had that one specific moment inspiration for Lacking. So the last weeks kinda made me realise that I am not somebody who relies on plans and structure unlike I had thought. I think I am very much driven by emotional outbursts lmao and they usually come when I feel moved by music or a specific line I read.
I do write with music sometimes but generally the music which gives inspiration to a scene tends to be 10 chapters away. So I put the music on and draft whatever I can and when it's time to work on that draft I go back to the same track to get myself in the mood. But I do not rely on music solely, I won't have tracks for every single chapter.
I realised that if I want a chapter to be particularly suffocating, I write better under white lights. Hopsital type of white lights. because I hate them.
and if I want a scene to be tender, I will be in a dimmed environment.
what was your approach when creating sensei's character? did you have a clear image in mind or did you just go with the flow?
OOOOOOH this is a great question! I don't know if you ever came across how I started off with ito but chapter 50 was the entire starting point for all this. that 'Satoru' at the end of the chapter is the breaking point for the MC so I thought if I was going to put out something with multiple chapter, I needed to build up to there. So, sensei needed to be very stubborn in certain areas to make us crave that breaking point, right? but I also didn't want her to be a bitch because whenever I read fanfics or stories, I get put off immensely when the MCs are bitter for no reason so I tried my best to balance her obstinacy with logic. But she was bitter and that was her flaw so I definitely wanted her to be flawed. She makes decisions for others so many times because unpredictability unsettles her deeply and she just becomes this overcontrolling and overbearing personality. Satoru's actions disturb her because she cannot predict what he'll do. and since Satoru is the only person who has the most expansive knowledge about her past, she feels as though she loses control over her own narrative.
And I wanted her to have a complex relationship with Satoru and I can pnly hope that I could relay that. I think a love-hate relationship with your first love was a bit more predictible so I thought what it would be like to be second place to someone who is objectively stronger than you and is a much closer associate to your romantic interest. Jealousy could work but I wanted to focus on sensei's helplessness.
nonon thank YOU for asking the question! I would be happy to answer more if you have any!
also, it makes me feel as light as a feather to read your note because I was afraid of offending french people!!thank youu 💕💕💕💕
