i read this again & was horribly gotten by my own niche content https://twitter.com/knightspur_ao3/status/1089003077594767360

actually, its sunday so maybe ill be a little self indulgent & share the bits that made me Personally Want To Eat Rocks ?

ok i forgot about this TWO TIMES but since i don't wanna write I'm gna share some bits that both Hurt My Feelings & ones i thought were good & would like to comment on as The Author

idk how many of these i have?? also i tried to keep them in order but like i don't promise and if i fuck it up no one wants to hear abt it. also, there will be spoilers for the whole story and maybe ill even talk abt The Ghosts

1. this fic has a rly slow beginning. i forget the actual numbers but its something like 8,000 words before xmh actually shows up at all. but first we have a peek at the soonhoongyu agenda I'm hawking this time around:

(why is this the case? i think it's sexy and i won't play by the rules.)

2. i HATE writing strangers to lovers. part of this is because writing introductions is an agony & conundrum for me. THIS ONE however is quite nice? it's good to introduce minghao in His Own Space nd it had more details than i rmbrd writing

3. around 80-85% of the Haunted Stuff in the fic is based on @spoongyu 's haunted chimney. this includes the brick-throwing and the drifting music!! i applied a gay context to it all for the enjoyment of both of us

4. minghao is very fun in this context. if i made another pass at this story i'd add in some more passing interactions like this, i think.

magical realism kinda hinges on this Acceptance of the mysterious and unexplained and the trope of a small town where those mysteries live in a cozy shadow is a dear favorite of mine lol

5. ok this is kinda more of the same but the throw-in that he actually works as a Graphic Designer and he went to college is fun, to me. i also decided at one point that he grows weed behind the cottage but that never made it in the draft. alas.

6. yeah ok see this is way out of order. but this is heart disease-y

7. while i'm here in the Wrong Part Of The Fic. it was hard to write abt a kpop boy being an author without being horrifically Stephen King abt it. but all this to say i posted abt 1/3rd of what i Actually Wrote in all of 2019

8. on re-reading, this scene was my favorite. i could say a LOT about the whole thing but i thought the end was so.. ! ! ! ! ! and the fact that the actual conversation comes to an end w/o minghao saying anything directly abt mingyus heartline....... I'll Die Here

tbh this fic is all Long Conversations and idk abt any of u but it's Hard to Pace Those for me

9. Romance is Good. nothing to add

10. i thought the Desk made a very funny thruline for emotional growth

i debated tagging the fic An Emotionally Significant Desk but I take myself too seriously

i'm not gonna post any of it but 11. Sub Top Dog Boy ! ! ! ! also imagine ur an adult and u have to go buy condoms from CHWE HANSOL

12. That Old Yearning

13. Ghost Appreciation Post!!!

14. i wrote 3 or 4 different drafts of a scene where minghao met soonhoon but it never quite worked out so i just didn't include it

in the end, introducing soonyoung and minghao to each other kinda forced soongyu into having a more defined relationship, or it was weird because it lacked tension. it would've been interesting i think if i coulda worked it out

15. Soonyoung First Love Theory

i love a first love / second love narrative. the idea that the first person u care for (esp when very young!!) will be the Only One is very disingenuous to my lived experience and i think one of the ways we learn how to be good partners is thru failure

but i also really like relationships that end but are in themselves complete, as well.

16. ok so this is where i, in theory, talk about The Ghosts but also 2nd img is my fave set of lines, i think ?

so The Ghosts in the story were never meant to be specific, concrete entities. this is magical realism, after all, not paranormal fiction. the point isn't Who They Were but What They Mean

this sounds pretentious and i'm so sorry this is literally what my degree is in. but the presence of the ghosts in the house ties not to the restless whims of an external spirit, but the expression of the things that mingyu is Not Dealing With while he's there

17. so the Solution that we come to isn't the book, or even specifically moving on from a past relationship! haunted house narratives are tied to our instincts to control and trust our environment - when our home turns against us, that's scary!

so when we zoom out and take the view of how mingyu's presence has influenced the house (and the control he's exerted both over the environment & his own problems) u can see the sum of those efforts. the house is a place of his own, and in making it that way, he addressed each

specific issue that was facing him & causing him anxiety; creative burnout, career pressure, a weird emotional Thing with his roommates, finding a new relationship he's unsure about in conjunction w/ recreating the internal environment of the home

idk if this makes sense. i haven't performed a textual analysis in years, I'm a Tech Boy now. but that's what the Ghosts in the house are and why they're never like.... confronted or explained

18. i suck SO MUCH at writing endings. finishing in minghao's bedroom (a kind of Inner Sanctum we haven't seen at all) is interesting because it's a reverse of the spaces we know in a fic that's all abt personal spaces but i DIDNT SAY ANYTHING ABBTTT ITTTTT

horrific. terrible. you've squandered the entire impact and i won't speak to u ever again.

ok that's ... too many tweets abt a fic posted well over a year ago lmao. if u wanna hear more abt this stuff i have a questions box https://curiouscat.qa/revolutionwangji