Hi! If you've made it this far, thank you for reading no, surely your blood is redder. And thanks also for considering my extended author notes, because I have a lot to say. This might be a stupid thing to say, but you probably shouldn't read this until you've finished the fic, obviously. Less because of spoilers, and more because I'd like you to form your own thoughts before you hear mine. (I'm someone who always skips reading the introduction/preface of a novel, and I either come back and read it last, or skip it altogether. Sorry.)

Structurally, this post is kind of a mess. But the first section is going to be about where I am as a writer, what I've been doing since I last published A3 fic, my process, and what I wanted to achieve with nsybir. The second section's about the influences I picked up from my work as a doctoral student, which consists largely of reading papers and bashing ideas together; the third section's about the particular works of fiction that contributed to nsybir's DNA. After that, I wrap up. Feel free to just read the parts that interest you. I won't be offended, promise.

i.

After the last A3 fic I published - to you, on the horizon, which I'd suggest at least skimming if you haven't, for reasons that'll become clear in a moment - I went off and wrote a novel. Two and a half drafts of it, actually. First, I wrote the whole thing on paper, and typed it up (something like 115,000 words?); then I let it sit for a couple of weeks, while jotting down possible tweaks as they occurred to me; then I did a full rewrite in Scrivener; then I let it sit again, and again made a list of what I needed to fix; and I'm in the middle of my third draft, also a full rewrite. So when I started being in the mood to return to A3 fic... I really wanted to produce something that'd show off my growth as a writer. Because, having fucked off for a year to produce a bunch of origfic, I wanted to have something to show for it, even if I'd be the only one to fully comprehend what that meant.

One of the main things that came out in my novel work was an interest in... hm. In using the written word, one of the least visual and less visceral mediums, to convey an intense viscerality? Because of my thesis work, I became interested in the felt and lived experience of feeling estranged from your own body. And body horror, to me, is maybe the thematic and aesthetic mode which brings this out most -- because it literalises a fraught relationship with the body, and a body rebelling against itself. I think this is also particularly a trans thing; but it can have LGBT (complex feelings on the q-word, sorry!) resonance more broadly as well, especially when you consider being gay in light of the way normative gender roles are embodied. Or, as I tweeted during the writing process: "awarding an anime boy the highest honour i can bestow (body-horror shit as metaphor for unresolved psychological issues)".

(For the record, I actually can't and don't read Tasuku as trans. I think it would take him until his mid-twenties to realise he's gay, so he definitely lacks the self-awareness to have interrogated whether he's cis, in my opinion. Which makes this an extremely trans story about a character I think is extremely cis. But, that said, I did leave Azuma's assigned gender intentionally ambiguous. As a transmasc, I didn't like the idea of producing something that seemed to say "being mlm centres around sucking dick"; but making Azuma trans would also allow bad-faith reads about how fortunate it is that the man Tasuku's dating is AFAB? Also, I have a really complex relationship with trans headcanons, especially in fic, because I prefer to read my faves as cis, so there's that too. So tldr it's up to you; but I myself am incredibly trans, and I'd hope that shows.)

The other thing I learned from novel stuff was about my ideal process. As I said, I was gently-insane enough to handwrite 115,000 words of gay science fiction, and create hours and hours and hours of extra work for myself typing it up. But I also managed to get back in touch with the fact that working on paper is sooooo much better for my brain? It lets me hit a hyperfocus state that's much more difficult with screens, it forces me to work in order and minimise my self-editing, and it's also just really satisfying to have physical proof of making progress. So: I handwrote this whole entire fic, mostly while sitting on my house's balcony. It fucking ruled. Then I typed it all up, and stepped away for a day or two for each half... and rewrote it all. And I think it worked! At the very least, I feel like it's more polished, and there are very few words out of place. I have a kind of difficult relationship with my own work, because I'm always writing and always reading and always improving? So when I look back, a few weeks or months or years later, it's hard to be satisfied. I'm sure I'll evolve past nsybir sometime, too; but for the meantime? Fucking proud of what I've produced, to be honest.

(Also: I've conventionally been someone who edits up, but in the last year or so, I've become someone who mostly edits down? So that also seems like a sign of growth. Tightening the screws, and all.)

Now, about the fic itself. I'd been thinking about publishing a thematic "answer" fic to to you, on the horizon, a year later, basically as soon as I'd published it. (The first half of nsybir was meant to go up on the exact same date, but I got impatient.) Probably about the (physical) escalation of their relationship, like my paired fics to the fair unknown/the art of currying favour, but more loosely connected. But I also kind of felt like... the longfics I published last year all had kind of similar energy. And I sort of felt like maybe, that was as far as I could go in that mode? But I didn't know what new mode I might have... and I didn't want to retread old ground in the meantime, either.

So I begrudgingly shelved that idea. For a while, anyway. Then I wrote a ton of original fiction, and felt ready to try fic again, and go hard on it. I was going to say all-out, but. I know I still have a lot of potential as a writer, and I'm going to keep aiming higher, and produce better and better work.

Anyway.

ii.

- academia (taisho, dickens and gay dopp - fiction (oyeyemi, dogramagra/hashihime, death scene artist). why monte cristo? because i like it there is also other stuff (higurashi brain, two VNs id probably get canceled for liking, poppy, etc) but. this is the main shit

You called again an hour later. Your voice was hoarse, and you were huffing into the receiver as if you’d just come in from a run. I couldn’t tell at that point who you were even trying to be.

D____

(Exhausted)

I'm safe. For now, anyway.

“Look,” I said while pacing my apartment, staring for a moment at the mirror on the dresser in front of me – at the two softball-sized purple blotches on my chest that had not even started to fade. “I … I don’t think I can do this anymore. I think … I’m tired, D____. Of this. Of us.”