fic commentary: to kill a god

[sesameseed]

 woooooo first fic commentary !! this will likely be extremely rambly and not make much sense because when i write it’s almost as though i go into a trance skdjfh but !! i hope whatever insight i do give is interesting !!

if you haven’t read it yet, i do recommend checking it out here because there are some things here that won’t make much sense because if there is one thing i am it is incoherent skdjfh

i think ‘to kill a god’ (or TKAG as i will abbreviate it from now on) is one of the most self-indulgent things i’ve ever written. i LOVE stories like this so much—two unhinged lovers taking justice into their own hands and holding so much gentleness in their hearts but only for each other—but for some reason never felt able to write them well.  i had an older idea that leaned into that theme but that i abandoned and i think the brainworms it gave me at the time sat simmering in the back of my mind until the TKAG series was born. it was more of a ‘traditional’ angel x demon au and i think two or three years ago, i would have written it and had tons of fun with it. but now… it’s not that i necessarily need more “depth” or whatever in my fics (they’re all just silly little stories that make me happy), it’s more just a difference in what i write now if that makes sense. in short: though the initial idea made me excited, i didn’t have as much fun planning it out in depth so i just put it on the backburner and it stayed there

BUT THEN !! this scene popped into my head: ‘Just for fun, Jihoon decides to let the door open slowly this time, to make every eerie creak of the hinges ring out in the silent office.’ and i went brrrrrr. the mental picture of jihoon staring down literally anyone was making me go a little crazy

the way i get fic ideas is a little chaotic skjdfh. usually it’s just dialogue, in which case it’s easy to plan out, but sometimes it’s snapshots of different scenes that hit me one after another and i just end up staring at a wall plagued by the product of my own imagination hehe. so after that initial mental picture, BAM the image of jeonghan kissing jihoon super sweetly before walking towards their target like a wolf towards its prey hit me like a brick and i do think i went a little insane and needed to take several moments skjdfh

the religious theme actually came way later in the planning process, which is strange when i think about it considering the idea that morphed into TKAG was an angel x demon au. at first it was just going to be something like an unhinged assassin au or something like that but THEN for some reason the sentence “be gay do crimes kill god” popped into my head and then i thought of the part where jeonghan says “I’m coming for your god soon, don’t you worry. And when I do, my lover will feast on his soul for weeks” and i lost it entirely. i just ADORE writing devotion and there’s something about writing two people only being devoted to each other and not their god made me a little insane. the angels and revenge parts came pretty quickly after that actually. i can’t remember how they came about or why i decided to make jihoon an angel turned demon or whatever you’d call him (he’s called a demon by the priest but honestly i’d just say he’s a fallen angel with a twist), but i guess you can say the fic idea took a life of it’s own and i was scrambling to note it all down skdjfh

the junhanhoon ;; oh the junhanhoon scene ;; i was brainstorming dialogue between jeonghan and jihoon and the priest and trying to figure out why they were after this priest specifically. yes, i could’ve just said well jihoon needs to eat but he doesn’t want to take any more innocent souls (even if neither he nor jeonghan are the ones directly killing them) and they’re ridding their world of another abusive priest, but i wanted more. it didn’t feel “complete” yet. and yes, i have a perfectionism problem, but this time it really felt like if i just thought about it a little more, i’d find an angle that would absolutely devastate me. AND BOY DID I FIND IT. i don’t want to talk too much about jun yet and how he came into their lives (that’s going to be in another prequel hehe. also, dear night if you’re reading this, you noticed one small teaser that was in ‘salvation’ and i think you’re very cool for that !!) but i just loved writing their domestic scene so much. i mean, it’s a very bittersweet scene because you already know what happens to jun, but i think it’s a delightful peek into their relationship and how much they loved and trusted each other (again, there’s more of that coming soon i hope !!)

now… my favourite scene… the part that made me go i have to write this… the ending scene after jeonghan kills the priest. AH… the mental picture of jeonghan with blood dripping from his wings turning to jihoon and losing all the sharpness he’d had and just being soft and tender and sweet GUYS i lost my mind planning this scene. and though he’s all bloody and looks terrifying, jihoon looks at him and sees the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on and is just so terribly fond in the most unhinged way. and of course i had to write a part where jeonghan wraps his wings around jihoon because that’s always a detail that makes me go brrrr (i grew up watching howl’s moving castle okay)

i do like the ending sentences a lot actually, which is unusual because im normally terrible at concluding fics. i almost leaned a bit too much into jihoon feeling self-disgust and self-loathing, but then i decided that they’ve probably been together in their situation too long for that. SO instead i kind of chose to imply that he used to feel that way, but now doesn’t because he’s still loved by jeonghan despite having to eat souls, and as long as jeonghan still loves him, he can’t be all that bad. AH they’re delightful im actually very happy with the ending i think it took me an entire morning to write literally two sentences but it turned out really nicely i think !!

i think that’s all i have to say about this fic actually !! interestingly enough, i planned a lot of the prologue while brainstorming this fic, but i’ll write another commentary piece on that at some point because i think if i merged them together this would be too confusing to read through (im not a very coherent person but that has it’s own charm i think!!) since this was my very first commentary, please do let me know what insight you’d like to see in these, or if they should be more structured, or any feedback really !! im open to it all !!

im probably going to do a commentary on ‘eternities’ next, and then ‘timelines’ because those two fics kickstarted my writing being what it is today and i think ill have a lot to say about them !! but let me know what other fics i should do commentaries on after that !! 

thank you for enjoying my rambles, dear friends !! <33