Heyo! Director's commentary on the start of The Last Cold Week in November? Especially the way it starts in medias res. Also this section specifically:
because a) I love the past/future line, you nail Venti's sort of learned helplessness when it comes to time, and b) I love the way he then goes through multiple senses to ground himself in the present without you spelling out what he's doing.
I still need to leave comments on your fics and read Believe in Love's Harbour- huge apologies for procrastinating that- but I've revisited the first two KVCU fics more than once. They're good shit.
Before the ramble- thank you so much, I love hearing that. Honestly just interacting with my socials and talking to me about kvcu is kind enough, though I'd be delighted to read your comments. BILH is kinda my baby at the moment, so I hope you enjoy it when you do read! I worry it has a bit of a slow start, but I think what it builds to is ultimately worth it. Thinking about kvcu part 1 over a year later is so weird. I think it holds up just fine, I reread it myself recently (I reread my works from time to time to refresh myself on stuff I established before when writing newer stuff), but this fic is probably the laziest with the actual writing since it was my return to writing after years of not writing anything. I think before this fic the last thing I had written was a ghost chapter of my partner's taz balance x ndrv3 rewrite. There are echoes of things in this fic I had intended to spell out in future installments that I ended up not going through with (my opinion/perspective on Kaeya ended up changing) and now those things are just In There, but they're probably things only I would notice.
I tend to start a lot of fics in media res because I like to begin stories with a scene that will be setting up the themes. The intro of November was written later (the sequence where Albedo shows up to the party I believe was the first scene I wrote for this fic) but I knew with Venti as my POV character I needed to check in with him first. A quiet, introspective moment of what could possibly be going through his mind would ask the reader the question of why is the chipper Anemo Archon so downcast? Well keep reading and he'll tell you! That said the themes in part 1 were less established than later stories I wrote, but I did manage to bring it back around for the conclusion!
As for the focus on his senses, I'm 90% I wrote that because I've been in CBT and practiced mindfulness for my own mental health. I get the impression that Venti detaches from reality easily since he doesn't experience time the way a normal person does, but doing tactile things like touching surfaces + focusing on smells and sounds keep him checked in with everyone else.
