Entry tags:
[commentary] a wish your heart makes
​​a wish your heart makes (seokhao, 11k, 2/2 chapters) - playlist
first off, inspired heavily by risa (
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hyojungss ) & kit (bluerthanbluets ) for their fic commentary. i love hopping into the brain behind the masterpiece and seeing from the other side, what inspired your works. it's so cool seeing what you were thinking when you chose to write things a certain way, i feel like it makes me more excited to work on my craft + critical of my own writing process (which, by the end of this, you'll find that it really lacks any sort of structure & purpose at all).INSPIRATION
although this was jukebox fic, i briefly remember around january this year, i had seen some quotes flying around those svt lyric bots and was immediately struck by this one:
and when i was shipwrecked i thought of you, in the cracks of light i dreamed of you, it was real enough to get me through, i swear you were there.
— evermore, taylor swift
and then i was reading em’s (
latespring ) media roundup and was struck by this poem in particular, because the image of the words and the feeling of it was so pretty and full of pain, raw edges:​​we are in a dream, you said. undo the pain before you speak
against the gods with mouths full of rain. a tongue cut in half
becomes sharper, you said. date your wound.
—mountain language, Öykü Tektn
and then of course, the song that solidified it:
that beautiful light in a dream on a longer night
coincidentally while following it, walking
recognizing
you searching for me
it was so warm that it had me in tears
…
you that’s soaked
in my heart right now
i can’t count it like the stars in the night sky
i try drawing you
i try embracing you
— drawing our moments, taeyeon
and so it began. earlier year i had set out some goals for me to achieve in my writing, and around this time i was watching more sci-fi movies like tenet (2020) and inception (2010). i definitely pulled aspects from those to build this universe. i've always been entranced by the idea of dreams, especially that weird dreamlike state, where you can’t quite tell if you’re dreaming or not because you’ve wanted it for so long it’s so much easier to fall into it instead of resist it. in a sense, dreams reveal your unconscious desires. what do you want the most? what comes to you when you close your eyes, in the dead of night? when no one is watching?, that kind of feeling. to me, dreams are the thing that you’re searching for. they’re a little out of reach at the moment, and so you have to settle for this version you’ve conjured up in your mind. it’s tangible, but it’s also not. i liked the juxtaposition of it so much, playing around with this idea of having but not quite.
taylor swift’s ivy, it’s time to go & frank ocean’s godspeed was also a large inspiration for this, if that helps or makes it worse
(JUXTA)POSE + PACING
throughout this fic, actually, i spent a lot of time trying to hint at the push/pull of things, pitting minghao’s darker feel against seokmin’s effortlessly brighter one, creating contrasts in how much minghao wants seokmin and the strength of the duty that seokmin feels bound to as a king, how this obligation is something that looms heavily over the both of them. minghao would never ask seokmin to give up something like that for him, and seokmin would never stop minghao from traveling through time (because it’s all minghao can do to feel useful; all seokmin can do is catch minghao if he does stumble, and in that way it’s also an act of kindness...something very essentially Seokhao to me). i kind of wanted this fic to give the sense that despite all these opposites, in the end, it was still inevitable: seokmin and minghao were meant to be. maybe it started in their dreams or maybe it started the moment minghao made the conscious decision that seokmin was important enough to find. maybe it started when they finally met, when minghao left his home to help someone he had never met but inexplicably knew:
Minghao’s eyes widen, but he’s not startled. Perhaps some part of him knew that this was twenty some years in the making. That every piece of them, past present and future, was working up to this. Destiny is too soft a word. Fate seems constrictive — too serious, too soon. Minghao tries to untangle the semantics but stops when he realizes that it hardly matters.
He has wanted this, too. Maybe ever since he started to dream of a boy hidden by shadow and an autumn breeze.
seokmin and minghao are incredibly devoted to each other, with a loyalty that is hard to shake and simple to present to the world. whether that’s due to the familiarity of seeing each other in dreams or what happens after, they are drawn to one another, they are there for one another, familiar with each other’s habits (insert: pac rim drift compatibility, we are two halves of the same whole, etc.). i wanted this to be very prominent in this version of them but didn’t want to explicitly say it. instead i tried to show it through their actions & their words & how they treat one another. seokhao are also just really tactile in real life. i go through it sometimes.
“I haven’t dreamed of anyone else.” Seokmin’s smile is lopsided as he presses a tangerine into Minghao’s hands. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”
Minghao ponders it for a moment. “For what it’s worth, you’re the only one I dream of, too.”
“A leap of faith, then. On both our parts.” Seokmin leans in close to hug him, dashing away before Minghao can really comprehend it. The faint scent of citrus hangs in the air. “Come back to me, Minghao, when you can.”
It startles a laugh out of Minghao as he jumps, clutching the fruit tight to his chest.
Seokmin’s hand is warm on his. “Let them,” he says firmly.
“Like you’re going to bundle me up and forbid me to leave this room,” Seokmin laughs, shifting and leaning up to press their foreheads together. “If I was a weaker man, I’d have let you do that to me ages ago.”
Minghao twists his lips into mock scowl, only half meaning it. “But you aren’t.”
Seokmin sighs. Presses a kiss to Minghao’s forehead in apology, and acquiesces quietly, “But I’m not.”
choosing to write this particular story like this — with the pacing (which scenes to cut short, which to elongate and develop) and interspersing narrative with the dream sequences — also suited this contrast that i wanted to pull off, between dream and reality. all the good and bad. all of it was beautiful & dreamy.
FAVORITE LINES
“What,” Minghao says sharply, purposely prickly to hide any remnants of self-consciousness. “Say it.”
“I always knew you’d make the first move.” Seokmin shrugs. On anyone else it would seem cold and cruel, but Seokmin’s hands are already reaching outwards and back again. Searching. Beseeching. Like he hadn’t been the one to lay down all the pieces and coax Minghao home. All Minghao had done was open the door.
seokmin is a little shit sometimes... a little cocky, likes to hear that he is good/liked/doing well. minghao is less inclined to give it to him, but terribly endeared + already given up the upper hand, in this case. i think this also speaks to the seokhao dynamic (even gyuhao, in my opinion) you have seokmin who gives everything away too easily (too easy to be read, easy with his smiles and his touch and his love) and minghao who is more careful but still entranced + pulled into orbit.
Minghao closes his eyes. He’d heard the sobbing long after Jaehyun’s last breath, when everyone had long emptied the room. The clatter of a sword dropped, heavier than ever, electric in the silence. The gasping breaths, the retching of someone who tried to force up something, anything , to come to terms with what they’d just taken away.
It sounded horrid. It sounded human.
…
Only Minghao could see that Seokmin’s fingers were rubbed red and raw, as if he’d been scouring the feel of it from his skin for hours.
more juxtaposition!!! seokmin’s endless good vs. the cruelty of his decisions + the ruthlessness that it takes to be a king and a leader
He decides to extend the olive branch. “It’s Xu Minghao,” he says carefully. Repeats it once, thrice, five times, slowly, and teaches Hansol how to cradle the shape of it on his own tongue. Until it becomes a friend.
vernon posting on wv + taking the time to learn & write minghao’s name in chinese vs seo myungho. i can’t believe this is real but it is and i had it written before he did. also, consider: there is so much meaning in someone taking the time to learn your language/how to speak your name in your own tongue, so that it can be familiar to you (especially if you are in a strange new place).
“What’s wrong?” Seokmin asks, amused, as Minghao barrels into him, arms automatically coming around to wrap around Minghao.
Minghao doesn’t trust himself to speak, just shakes his head as he burrows himself deeper and deeper into Seokmin’s robes.
The scent of citrus stings. How hadn’t he noticed it before?
okay i loved this because citrus = home for minghao and it’s usually a smell of comfort but now it’s being threatened by someone with no face and no name, to convey the anguish of minghao’s realization that this is yet another shadow minghao has to run from (when he thought he was done!). he’s familiar with how this ends: smoke will follow
In all the variations of the stories that they will tell about the boy king and his magician, one thing holds true: they loved each other.
Does anything else matter?
this ending line came along much later - originally i was going to have something that mirrored the first few lines of this fic in terms of rhythm and playing with the idea of inevitability again (was it worth it? it was, it is, it would always be). once i wrote this though, i knew this was the note i wanted this fic to end on: in all the stories that they will tell about us, we were in love. isn’t that a magnificent thing to get right, every time? (it’s the feeling of it all! the intensity of their devotion to one another!)
FINAL NOTE
if you made it all this way, thank you so much for reading! there were some times that i struggled with this (was the tone alright? it was so strange and definitely different from what i’m comfy writing) but my lovely friends [pb, ki, pea, xia, kit, buck] sent me the right words at the right time and i managed to get this one out. T___T the reception on this has been amazing as well. i wanted to tell a story that stayed with people, that made people feel things, and i think i was able to accomplish that with this one. some of the comments i’ve gotten, either thru ao3 or dms have made me tear up :’0 i’m pretty proud of this one though that may change haha
special shoutout to seungkwan who covered drawing our moments and gave me that last push i needed to grab my confidence + Just Do It. #bsscomebackwhen
no subject