#sorry for the only tangentially related tag ramble. i have a lot to say haha

[micamicster]

While you were sleeping au! You mentioned the subway and I think? The F line, a while ago. I’m curious which subway stops are the most important to the story. Also which NYC neighborhooods do you think matches the vibes of the various mdzs characters in this au/in general. Also if there’s anything you want to share I’d love to read it!

Hi honey thank you for asking! Yes we did decide on the F line, good memory haha

I've put a lot of thought into the route and setting of this story. I needed the setting to do a lot in terms of character (wealth, community, cultural background) and in terms of plot (need both my main characters to regularly take the same train a long distance), but luckily I think that neighborhoods and subways are equipped to do all of that!

I settled on both Wen Qing and Jiang Cheng regularly commuting in from Queens, but for different reasons. JC is coming from queens because his family has owned a large townhouse there for multiple generations, while Wen Qing, a more recent and more broke arrival to the city, lives out there because the rent is cheaper. Queens has its own massive chinatown, but it's more recent (comprised of a a newer wave of mandarin-speaking immigrants entering an older hokken-speaking population) compared to the historic Manhattan Chinatown (hundreds of years old, overwhelmingly cantonese-speaking). I have placed a lot of my action in the Manhattan chinatown, partly because it's historic and partly because it's most familiar to me. Both JC and WQ commute to the East Broadway stop on the F line, WQ to go to work at a nearby hospital and JC to go to his job (the Jiang family own a restaurant).

Here is an excerpt of a scene from the subway! thank you for being interested <3 <3 <3

The train shudders to a stop and they part to let people stand and push past them. He nods at the seat that’s appeared between them. “You should take it.”

“It’s fine.”

“Please. I know you’re about to be on your feet all day. Just take it, before some ass with no appreciation for essential workers steals it from you.”

“I can’t. I’m afraid if I sit I won’t get up again.” It’s the truth, but she didn’t mean to say it. There’s no reason to worry him about her. She’s stood on the train a thousand times, she can stand one more.

“I’ll get you up if you need it. Promise.” He nudges her forward gently. It’s just the drag of his knuckles against the small of her back, but she sways into the touch before she can stop herself. Hastily Wen Qing overcorrects the other way, and drops into the seat as quickly as she can.

At the next stop even more people crowd on, pushing him forward. He scowls and braces himself with one hand on the bar above them, back stiff and unyielding. She recognizes the stance from years of navigating the subway at rush hour—don’t take up more space than is your due, but don’t give an inch or the crowd will take a mile.

The train takes off with the familiar rocking of the crowd, as people lurch forward and back, renegotiating space and balancing against each other. It sends him stumbling right up against the seats, his leg knocking into hers for a moment before he catches himself.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

He looks at her carefully, like he’s searching for any sign she didn’t mean it. He steps closer, letting the people behind him expand into the extra space in the way that crowds are always so liquid. She shifts to let him even closer, his leg settling between hers, his knee braced against the hard plastic edge of the seat. Whenever either of them shift it sends the expensive wool of his suit dragging across the machine-starched stiffness of her fresh scrubs.

She’s in a strange sort of sleep daze, like maybe she hasn’t really woken up at all yet. Soon she’ll open her eyes to her cold bed, her dark room, her relentless alarms. But for now she’s warm. She’s still too tired and the train is too crowded, but sitting down she exists in a little bubble, with Jiang Cheng’s broad back curved over her and his arm above them.