oh yeah also HBD to Land Between Our Bodies 💜 She started posting in november 2025!
Hard to believe it's been a year of Simon making Wille take off his sunglasses and then regretting it.
Big thank you to everyone who commented on that fic and said anything you liked about it. Writing it was a huge labour of love and knowing some people enjoyed it really made such a difference for me.
Writing little details is my favourite part of the process and sometimes I write one that makes me go hehe that's why I stick with it
He looks around, trailing his fingers along the top of the dresser, and can’t find Wilhelm’s broken snow globe. Wilhelm touched that all the time, which Simon knew not by seeing it but by the small trails of glitter that Wilhelm left in his wake. A speck on the pocket of Simon’s jeans, or snagged in the weave of a sweater, in the hood of a jacket.
Land Between Our Bodies, my wilmon exes fake dating fic hit a kudos milestone! I wanted to do something special but I got nothing but! Fun fact, I've cut about 25k words out of that fic so here's a deleted snippet (with apologies to @bigalockwood who helped me name this cat and then I cut it sorry)
“I don’t want Simon pulled into any public events,” Wilhelm says immediately.
Simon narrows his eyes. “Well, I don’t want Wilhelm at any public events.”
“That just isn’t very realistic,” Wilhelm says. “We’ve tried that and it didn’t work. But I think we could protect Simon better.”
Simon is feeling an overwhelming urge to pinch Wilhelm somewhere, maybe high up on the thigh where it’ll leave a welt.
Before he can decide if he’s going to give in to that urge, Felix twists around, picks up the spray bottle on the counter, leans in, and spritzes Wilhelm twice in the face.
“No! That’s defeatist thinking! This is the brainstorming session.” Felix holds the bottle menacingly.
Sara laughs.
Wilhelm wipes his face with his sleeve. Simon would be worried about it but he looks fifty percent more human than he did before the spraying.
“Did you just treat him like a naughty cat?” Ayub’s mouth is half open.
Felix sniffs. “I would never spray Betty. This is for plants. And soggy Wille’s.”
“Okay, sure, fine,” Wilhelm says. Simon pushes his hair back, trying to dab away the water dripping off his floppy front piece. “No one ever sees my face again and I grow a beard and go incognito.” Simon looks at him, picturing it. He doesn’t hate it.
Hey!! 💜 I have a few for the fic ask game 🙏🙏 putting down a few because i’m being greedy/ indecisive but don’t feel obligated/ feel free to choose hehehe!!!
🏴☠️ - for lbob?
🥇- for sliding doors?
🔮 - for be the place after wolf comes home?
🔍 - for any of them?!
bro ofc im going to answer all of these im always hoping someone wants to talk fic and like, i love an ask, so. thank u
🏴☠️ boy did they EVER. wilmon were always trying to pick a fight. A couple of key times, one was at that first party at Felix's Simon was very fighty and I had to write it like 3 or 4 times so they weren't fighting in the bathroom.
Also when Linda got upset about Wilhelm planning to move away, I had no idea that was going to happen, there wasn't going to be that subplot but then she super projected her experience of moving countries and being with Micke and that falling apart and how lonely and scary it was and i was like oh shit yeah
and then finally right at the end when Wilhelm is dissociating after the conversation with his mother I also had to write that like 3 or 4 times and I think I made a friend also read it because Wilhelm tried to pull away and then Simon felt rejected and it was a whole mess. Like at one point it was Felice and Wilhelm on the phone instead of Simon talking to Felice. There was a lot. When I say I cut 25k from lbob some of it is stuff like that which is the same scene but many times rewritten
🥇for sliding doors (grief timeloop fic) What scene were you most excited to write? Did it end up being the one you enjoyed writing the most?
I was most excited to write the scene where Kristina comes in and takes care of Wilhelm like he's little and it's such a powerful moment for Wilhelm who has gotten so used to being criticised for her. And like the little visual of him trying to roll out of bed and failing and feeling like he's become the sea floor.
I ended up most enjoying the scene where Wilhelm has the panic attack and ends up in the bathroom I've written a few panic attacks in my time and I liked that one felt especially sparkly, Wilhelm's brain just firing and then eventually locking in on the tactile sensation of the grout
🔮for be the place/wolf comes home Have you imagined what happens to [character(s)] in the future? Or does the story only exist to you as a moment in time?
ok wellllll for be the place I have imagined more of that in-between time, the cool artists circle that wilmon live in, the terrifying number of plants they keep and tend to. I did start the fic where they get married also.
For post wolf comes home that's murkier to me. I usually know exactly what happens right after the end but then after that it becomes very many possibilities much like Dune Paul Atreides had. I meddle in so many universes to create them.
One thing is that the consequence of the wolf comes home is that the dissolution of the Swedish monarchy unfortunately re-royalises Wilhelm a bit. When he was the only not royal, then there's a legit space to place the focus, but now like if you look at the tabloids they still talk about the Greek royal family fr ex even though there is no Greek monarchy. When they're all not-royal then they are all royal, if that makes sense. So there's a bit of wrestling with that increased attention, which they mostly mitigate by getting strict with their routine and going on vacations to controlled or isolated spots.
August and Kristina have the hardest time coming out of that and there's a lot of figuring out new boundaries for them. How much taking care of Kristina can Wilhelm be expected to do, and so on. She's still got private property and resources so she's fine, materially, but it's her whole life's purpose gone and that's a lot. A lot of people don't cope with retirement well and that's especially true for her who never expected it and did it involuntarily.
But wilmon have the foundations of their life that they've chosen and love. Wilhelm still has his lab job and coworkers who would never ask even if they're dying of curiosity, and Simon gets his chance to say his peace and then he controls what clients he works with, and he produces and writes his own music and releases it without label interference, and he performs at gigs and places on his own terms and doesn't need to leverage any fame. It was important with me for both of them that they had a lot of control. Also. Also v important for me to show that there are MANY WAYS to do music as a career that aren't popstar or teacher. SO MANY GUYS THERES A LOT. if it's ur dream you can have it!!!! message to the kids.
🔎 What detail(s) in the story are you particularly captivated with? Is there any behind the scenes info or backstory?
I'll take this one for a quick lbob because I think this is a detail that doesn't come across.
so in general lbob is about simon. We get into Wilhelm's journey inasmuch as it matters to how simon makes decisions. (which is a bit why it's sad when someone thinks im not fair to him because like. he is the protagonist of this fic? literally everything is in service to him feeling happy and good in himself and able to be who he wants to be)
So there's some Wilhelm backstory here going on and also this might be the most important moment in the fic in terms of them shifting out of their conflict dynamic and towards working together
Wilhelm offers something to Simon that he feels vulnerable about and cares about and is a way of showing care and Simon rejects him. If this was earlier in the fic, or before the fic, Wilhelm would have flipped out here and gotten upset and they would have had a BIG FIGHT. But that pause there is Wilhelm basically doing a little cbt on himself. He goes, Simon said I don't have to make sauce, not that he thinks my sauce will be bad or that he doesn't want it. He only says I don't have to. Ok. But I want to make sauce, it's a thing I want to do for me to feel good and to do something I love and to show Simon my love even if he doesn't understand it. I can do this without expecting reciprocity and still feel good about it. Ok. I will continue to make sauce.
you read sliding doors so you know that I used Wilhelm learning to cook in that one as a way of him developing a skill for himself that he can practice and fail at without feeling like a failure. And at the end it becomes a thing that he can do that reminds him that he's a person and not just a symbol of Sweden. It's a big deal to him. So him pausing and trying to explain that he had lessons is the what, but he doesn't actually say the 'why' of why he cooks which is that it makes him feel real. And he wants to be real with Simon.
None of that is actually in the fic and that's fine, a lot of my writing is like, underpainted? I have to know what's going on there but it isn't always relevant.
Wilhelm POV on some scenes in Land Between Our Bodies
ch 1: the phone call where Simon asks Wilhelm to be his fake boyfriend
In one of his earliest memories, possibly his earliest memory, he is making Christmas cookies with Erik. Making is an overstatement, at his age what he was doing was mashing the cookie cutter down on the dough and having the cookie itself come out a bit misshapen. In his memory, he is surly and Erik cheers him up by playing with the cookie cutters. He makes a goat dance and Wilhelm laughs and declares that goats will always be his favourite cookie shape. The thing about this memory is that Wilhelm is so young he’s not sure if he really remembers it, or it’s that his mother has shown him the video of them doing it so many times, has told him how cute they were then. It’s a memory with two layers. In one layer, his brother is kind to him and makes him joyful and it’s a sweet family moment. In another layer, Wilhelm was four and already knew that when the cameras were out he wasn’t allowed to leave the room and go play with legos, even when he was bored and they’d been at it for ages. In this layer, Erik is doing the best a nine-year old can do to keep Wilhelm engaged so they could all go home. Now, did Erik do that because he’s an attentive big brother who wanted his little brother to be happy at Christmas, or did Erik do that because he was a Crown Prince with an awareness of what the expectations for him were?
Some would say it doesn’t matter, that at the end of the day the video was cute and goat cookies are still Wilhelm’s favourite. But it does matter. It does.
Ok @malinowaj requested a bit of you've made your mind up, the Wilhelm pov bits of land between our bodies so she could hear me say the word toque. So here's 6 minutes of Wilhelm having a griefstorm breakdown about Simon and him being exes
This one is better actually cause no dialogue yay
Transcript below
He goes home. Maybe he has dinner.
He wakes up in the middle of the night, sweating, cobwebs of the dream sticking to him. In it he’s on a long road, going fast, but no matter how fast they go, he doesn’t get anywhere. The road spins out in front of him in illuminated stretches, blurry trees on the side and there’s nothing else. It’s a nothing of a dream but instead of being in a car Wilhelm feels like he was running, heart pounding. The feeling of the dream lingers, the sense of tension, the borderline panic.
He pats under his pillow for his phone to check the time. Three a.m. Nothing good happens after three a.m. Two a.m. the party can still be fun, but after three is when bad decisions are made. Everyone still out past that point is only there because they have a terminal case of FOMO and the longer they stay the more they feel like something is slipping away from them, which it is.
He presses the heel of his hands into his eyes until they flash purple, green.
Visualising a forest and counting his breaths only takes him so far and then he’s faced with the reality of how inadequate those tools are against the flood inside of him, shovel and pail against the wave. Grief and longing swamps him.
This time last year Simon was sending him texts, asking after him, checking in and he was too much of a coward to respond to them. He had this amazing gift and he was afraid of what might happen if he let himself try. ‘What if Simon and I dated, wouldn’t that be hard.’ The hubris of it! Look at the riches Wilhelm of last year had, so confident that if he said yes to Simon that they’d work out. How stupid. What a fool. Who did Wilhelm of a year ago fucking think he was?
He opens up his album of pictures of Simon. His phone blasts him with blue light so bright it stings his eyes. When they clear, there is Simon, smiling back at him and his eyes sting for a different reason. He has more than four pictures now, so many more, but not enough, especially not of the two of them. Photographing Simon is easy, he’s a perfect subject, every bit of him is loved by the camera, shone on by the sky.
Wilhelm’s favourites are the ones where he’s smiling though, when Wilhelm caught him laughing at a joke and held his camera up in time. The best ones are blurry, Simon in movement, reacting with the entirety of himself.
Wilhelm swipes through the album masochistically: Simon in a toque, a selfie from the back of Ayub’s bike, tongue out, Simon reading a book with both of his feet tucked on Wilhelm’s chair under Wilhelm’s thighs, Simon at the piano with his eyes closed. He has more and he looks at them all. Funny pictures he took on purpose, like one taken below Simon’s chin that’s all nostril.
He wishes he could have been better for Simon, he wishes he could have made him smile more. In the end, he couldn’t do anything for him and he wanted so badly to. He wanted to because he always wants to help him, wants to do what he can, but he also wants to make up for it, the mistakes he’s made before. And he knows that Simon also doesn’t know how Wilhelm can make up for it, that he said as much, but Wilhelm still wanted to try. But he couldn’t do it. And now all he has are the pictures and the memories of the best times of his life.
Does Simon carry anything of Wilhelm’s? Wilhelm would get if he didn’t want to, if he wanted to put it all behind him, maybe do one of Maddie’s cleansing rituals and set everything on fire.
Maybe he kept the Switch. Wilhelm didn’t mean to give it to him but once he realised that Simon had it, he couldn’t help but want him to keep it, to have this one thing that came from Wilhelm that was part of his life, that he used and got enjoyment from; Wilhelm wants to be useful in that way, part of Simon’s every day. Arctic Monkeys quoting John Cooper Clarke. That song seemed all peace when Wilhelm first heard it, but now he knows the struggle of it, the tension of wanting to be there and not be too much, of knowing that one person can’t be all that for another. Maybe in another life he’ll be someone’s vacuum cleaner. Things can have spirit right? Tsukumogami. If he could be anything he’d be Simon’s keyboard.
He can sort of imagine Simon’s expression if he told him that, a combination of unimpressed disbelief—rising eyebrows—and unwilling affection—smile that starts on the right side of his mouth and migrates to the left until it’s big enough his teeth show.
Wilhelm misses Simon so much it’s an all body experience. His hair is tight when it’s not being messed under Simon’s fingers, his ears ring when Simon isn’t speaking to him, his eyes burn from the strain of looking for him in the backs of strangers like Wilhelm could go down the street and Simon would be there. Wilhelm’s arms are made for holding Simon and without him they lose their strength. His knees are sore his feet hurt his fucking eyelashes and toenails and lungs hurt.
He can’t bear it. His traitorous thumbs tab over to their text conversation. It’s the same as it has been for days, Wilhelm’s poem and no response, which is at least easier to look at than the bit above, Wilhelm asking Simon what he wants to do, desperate and transparently vulnerably hoping for Simon to say something inadvisable like he'd still like to talk or want to be friends and to which of course Simon said nothing.
It’s a good reminder that he shouldn’t call, he shouldn’t press himself on Simon. Not when Simon is being so polite after what he called Wilhelm out for. Even so, he can’t help but think if he just heard Simon’s voice, if Simon said his name, even once, it would all somehow be bearable. Even two weeks ago he could have sent Simon a picture of his bedside table or a random thought and Simon would have responded, but he fucked that up too.
Wilhelm POV of Simon calling him after being bullied in Land Between Our Bodies (exes fake dating)
Wilhelm holds the phone tight in his hand, listening as much as he can. He pulls it down slightly towards his mouth. He breathes into it, as loudly and clearly as he can, lion’s breath. He tightens the back of his throat, feeling the constriction as the air passes over it.
He keeps doing it, trying to hear Simon, desperate to hear him. He looks around. Malin is watching him, alert and waiting. It’s not advantageous if they were attacked or approached, but the threat has never been on the outside.