#afterword

Making one of these because I realized that I posted this fic before I had a Tumblr. And also because I decided that I should probably link the fic when I post about them in the future.

Ouroboros: Afterword

Lothario: Afterword

One night, while preparing for bed, I found inspiration. As someone who struggled with various health issues (both mentally and physically), I have several medications and steroids that I need to be able to function day to day. It’s become a ritual to sit on my bed and start some music while I count out all the pills that I need and grab some of the inhalers I need to use. As I was doing this, I realized that I was softly whispering which pill was for which illness – something I had never noticed – and I thought, wouldn’t this make an interesting poem?

So, I gathered all my medication down, and I wrote what each pill was for, along with short imagery-based words that reminded me of the feelings that these pills helped me overcome. From there, I went deep into how it felt to be subjected to the various illnesses. Along with writing the various ways they made me feel, I also made sure to add a tag line of the most common things I’ve heard from people about my illnesses, such as working out for depression or taking deep breaths for asthma (Yes, while having an asthma attack, someone just told me to take deeper breaths, when my lungs were collapsing.)

I Will Cherish This: Afterword

I have some meta comment abouy my own fic and the things surrounding it.

Firstly, the title: when I had the idea for the fic and to use Thule, I found out that other authors mentioned it and described it as the land where the sun never sets. My friend @fimproda told me as a joke, "If it wasn't a huge copyright infringement, I would tell you to use Midnight Sun as title". I loved the joke, but I reworked the idea of the neversetting sun as a land where there's always sunlight -> therefore, Endless Sunlight.

I had the first idea of what would become ES back in 2021, even before I posted How (not) to end a feud. This idea, that I will call ES 1.0, was very different and much more complex than what was actually published: in this one, Thule!Kit was still a villain and an asshole, but he was more cruel and the whole story should have been about Thule!Grace, pretty much alive but with an ugly scar on her face, going to the canon dimension to ask canon!Christopher's help to get his help to kill his evil counterpart.

In my mind, ES 1.0 was set after ChoT (in 2021 I didn't expect what we actually got) and one of the shocks of Thule!Grace would have been to see her canon counterpart engaged to Christopher, the same man she hated.

The story in my mind would have been super complex, with travels between the dimensions, the intervention of all other characters once canon!Grace was kidnapped by Thule!Kit, and the confrontation between canon Gracetopher and Thule!Gracetopher, with Christopher wondering if he could become "like him".

You can imagine that the events of Chain of Thorns actually destroyed this plan.

I was ready to discard the fic, but one evening at 2 a.m. I got this random idea: what if I invert the premise, and it's canon!Grace going to Thule instead of the opposite, and I make Thule!Christopher the new love interest?

In the morning, the idea still looked good and I decided to work on it. In less than one month, I had plotted the structure with all the chapters divided in blocks (later called arcs) of 4 chapters and the Interludes from Kit's chapters, but the epilogue would come later on.

Endless Sunlight as you know it is inspired by a bunch of other media: in front of the Manor there are people crucified upside down because I saw them in Elden Ring and somehow that image stuck with me, the first interlude exists because I was reading Fire and Blood and therefore I decided that Kit would pull a Maegor Targaryen stunt, the second interlude and the letter Grace finds are inspired by V for Vendetta and only after a good part of the fanfic was posted I realized how much Thule!Kit's story leans on Edmond Dantes from The count of Montecristo; other books, games, comics and shows inspired small parts and dialogues of the overall work.

I think the mix somehow worked well, and I am extremely proud of the 85k+ words of this fic.

It was a bet with myself, I decided it was time to see if I could write a relationship that started as extremely toxic without romanticizing it, and then... it becomes slightly less toxic? I wanted to show also how Grace became as possessive of Kit as he is of her, and I like the final result.

I felt a bit guilty to throw Grace's canon redemption arc in the bin and make her arrive on a morally lower point than she was before she redeemed herself, but it was very fun to write this negative evolution.

I wanted her to start like the classic good protagonist who hates Christopher's privilege, but then when she is on the other side and privilege suits her she doesn't want to challenge it any more and just enjoys it. I have very rarely seen this kind of involution, and I decided to write it.

(Side note: if you know about books/comics/shows/fanfics with this kind of negative evolution, please send me).

I think that in Endless Sunlight there are two recurring themes, besides the toxicity of the relationship: choices and pride.

Grace finds herself in Thule because she chooses to do so, but then regrets the choice. She chooses to help Kit, and chooses to stay. It's not always easy choices, but Grace, especially when she decides to stay in Thule, is ready to face the consequences. I think she has a kind of bittersweet ending, but the good things outweight the bad ones.

I noticed that ES can be read as a story about pride on my rewrite of the draft. Literally everyone is defeated because they become too arrogant and underestimate their opponents: Whisperford underestimated Kit and was killed with his followers; Kit underestimated Matthias and for this Grace was kidnapped and he was almost killed; Matthias underestimated Grace and barely considered her a menace, and was killed for it.

I love when the themes show up without me consciously writing them.

Last thing, but not less important: I think it's wild I have to specify this, but since many people hate Gabriel I want my stance to be 100% clear to everyone.

Kit calls his son Henry Gabriel Lightwood not because I think he doesn't love Gabriel as much as Henry, but for two metanarrative reasons:

I think it's too obvious when a male character calls his son like his father.

To my knowledge, it doesn't exist an Henry Lightwood in canon and I think it's a cool name.

"“Six five,” the man grumbled under his breath before turning his head back to face Jamie. He easily towered over them by 6 or more inches, causing Jamie to shrink in their shoes as he looked grumpily at them. “Doesn’t help that he’s built like one of those world’s strongest man competitors. What is he? Some sort of weight lifter?”

Jamie didn’t answer, instead pointing to a sign that hung over the counter at the cash register, gathering the courage to straighten themselves as they tilted their chin up at the shop owner. “Your store policy says large to ten XL. That means a waist of nearly 70 inches and sleeves close to 40 inches. There has to be something that will work for him.”

The shopkeeper sighed, rolling his eyes as he looked back at me. He glanced up and down at me again, causing me to stand up straight and adjust my feet beneath me.

“Wrestling, sir,” I said, answering his question from earlier. “ ‘m a wrestler.”

He gestured for me to follow him as he took off towards the back of his store. “If you’re a wrestler, why’s Miss Thing yelling at me for you?”

"That there’s who’s payin', sir,” I responded, glancing behind me to see Jamie desperately taking the longest strides I’d ever seen on someone to catch up to the two of us.

He nodded before stopping at a circular display of clothes. Holding the measurement tape up to me again, he measured my chest, waist, arms, and neck before picking a few items off the rack.

“Makes sense,” he muttered before gesturing towards the fitting room. “Go try those on and I’ll take yer girlfriend here to find more things that’ll fit you.”

At this, both Jamie and I objected.

“OH! Woah, no no no. You have it all wrong, sir, you see-”