i listened to @sillyunicorn's final podfic chapter of Obviously on my drive today and it made me WAY more emotional than i expected!!! i have been so delighted by this podfic all the way along its (two-year!) journey, and i think this is the first podfic of any of my work i've actually listened to (some lovely people in my previous fandom made podfic of my fics but i was too embarrassed at hearing my words in other people's voices), but this chapter hit different!!
i think part of it was that this chapter existed almost entirely separately from the Normal People canon I had woven Wilmon et al into. the previous chapters still relied heavily on that canon, but this chapter was everything i still wanted to experience with this Wilmon, and listening to it after all this time i felt shocked at how much it was like returning to a movie I'd seen, a movie that lives only in my head but is as real as anything, a movie I tried to help share with my dear friends and readers. the scenes were so familiar, i could feel Wilmon at that lakeside as they laugh and take in that they're finally doing this. it really, really took my breath away.
there were still things i was self-conscious of as a writer! there were several physical descriptions where i was like. i thought he was facing the other way how is he sucking his dick now ajsdkfjalskdjf. sometimes i think i state things too plainly and loop back to things too much, afraid the reader will miss the callback or connection or conclusion i'm trying to evoke. but i'll leave the self-critique there for now.
also having been to stockholm (twice!) since i wrote this was really special. i was in stockholm in august when Pride was happening, and while I didn't go to the parade some of my friends did, and I did go to Pride Park (to see omar!), and hearing all of that in the podfic and hearing my other descriptions of them wandering around and living in Stockholm made me nostalgic and emotional. PLUS i mentioned them hanging out at the bergius botanical garden, which I got to visit in August with @grounded-parasocial @k-pepp @phneltwrites @skibasyndrome @themarsbar and @alkalinetrios without even remembering I'd written it into this fic!!
and i think another reason this chapter moved me so much is that as much as it was about covering many of the moments and conversations and experiences and whatnot that i still wanted for this Wilmon, i could also hear in it so much of what I want for myself, so much of resolution and expression and affection and community and ease and self-love and contentment that i crave and strive for and miss.
thank you thank you, @sillyunicorn, for letting me relive this story and understand it anew <3
