#fics that are 100% smut but also feel like character study but are also peak comedy and just extremely relatable

[babyilluwu]

smut Hisoillu fic rec!

really cute, really awkward, really funny and SO IN CHARACTER IT MIGHT JUST BE CANON

https://archiveofourown.org/works/55457692

[sidehowriting]

Movie Night

Masterlist in bio!

A/N: I posted a bit ago about how I was writing some Supernatural stuff with Jack. I decided to post one of them! This was purely for my friend and mine’s self indulgence. Also, I 100% wrote this while I was on my period. 

If this is your introduction to me and you’re thinking “hmm, does she have more Supernatural fics?” I don’t! They’re all Marvel! This is my first Supernatural one. But I have more written of Riley and Jack so if you want an emotional roller coaster (fluff, smut, heart break) lemme know! I have 4.5 other parts in various stages of development. 

Pairings: Jack Kline x OFC (Riley)

Summary: Riley and Jack have a movie night.

Word Count: 2.2k

Warnings:  Fluff, period talk, Jack being too pure for this world

I walked into the bunker, plastic bags in my hands. I was happy to be back with my supplies and ready to hunker down for the evening. Sam and Dean were at the table, looking over some fliers. I was hoping it wasn’t a case.

“Hey, Riley!” Dean signaled me over. “Look at this.” He held the flier out to me.

I read it over. “The new diner just opened? That’s cool.”

“Not just cool.” Dean rolled the flier up. “They have this burger. Double The Triple. Six layers of pure beef and cheese.”

“It’s a heart attack on a bun,” Sam interjected, glancing from me to his brother.

“Sounds like it,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“Anyways,” Dean said, louder than normal, glaring at Sam. “They’re having a contest. If you can eat it all in one sitting, you get it for free. If you can eat it in under a half hour you get a free piece of pie.”

“Could you even eat a piece of pie after that?” I asked.

“You can take that home,” Dean countered, sounding offended. “I love me some pie.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. Of course, Dean would want the pie.

“So, Dean’s making us go right now,” Sam said, sounding annoyed.

“Dude, the flier says while pies last.”

“I don’t think they’re gonna run out of pies anytime soon, Dean. No human can eat that much in that short of time.” Watching Sam and Dean bicker was always fun. “Wanna come?” Sam directed the question at me.

As my reply, I simply dumped my bags out in front of them. Bars of chocolate, boxes of tampons and pads, and pain killers skirted across the table. “No, thanks. I’m gonna stay in tonight. Just bring me back Dean’s leftovers.”

“I’m wounded you don’t think I can do it.”

“Oh, I know you can’t.” I started putting all my stuff back into the bags. “Is Jack going with you guys?”

Sam shook his head. “No, he said he wanted to stay here.”

“So, you’re babysitting tonight,” Dean said, getting up. “We’ll be home later. Call if you need anything.”

“Yeah yeah,” I waved them off. “Try not to die.”

“I’m not gonna die. I’m gonna truly be livin’,” Dean said, pulling on the opening of his flannel. Sam rolled his eyes and followed Dean out, still trying to convince his brother this was a terrible idea.

With the two of them out, I went up to my room and got comfortable. Big, baggy sweats, all my chocolate around me. I was snuggled under my covers, laptop prepared with sappy romantic comedies. I was ready to fully indulge.

Just before I pressed play, I heard a knock on my door. “It’s open!” I called, knowing it had to be Jack.

Sure enough, he peaked in. “You didn’t go with either?”

“And watch Dean vomit up two pounds of cheeseburger for a free slice of pie? No thanks. Plus, I’m on my period. Don’t really feel like goin’ out right now. Why didn’t you go?”

“Dean still doesn’t seem to care for me. I didn’t want to burden him.” He sounded so defeated. It broke my heart.

“Do you wanna hang out with me instead? I’m not doing anything real exciting, but I could use the company.”

Jack’s face instantly lit up. “I’d really like that.”

I scooted over, inviting him in under the covers. He climbed in, his warmth filling the bed. I adjusted my laptop so we could both watch it. “I hope you don’t mind rom coms.”

“I don’t even know what that is.”

I smiled. “Well, I think this will be a good lesson for you.” I pressed play and the let movie start, passing some chocolate to Jack. He took the piece, popping it in his mouth and eating it happily. “This is nougat!”

“It is!” I smiled at him, knowing it was his favorite. “I have chocolate nougat, chocolate crunch, chocolate peanut, and dark chocolate. You can have whatever you want.”

“Thank you, Riley.” His smile was so cheery and sweet, warming me from the inside out.

We went back to watching the movie and Jack seemed very engrossed in it, much to my surprise. He munched on the chocolate nougat, eyes glued to the screen. “So, they end up falling in love?” Jack asked, breaking the silence.

“Yep. That’s the basis of rom coms. Man and woman meet. They kiss. They fall in love. They live happily ever after.”

Jack studied the screen again, brows furrowed and eyes tense. “This isn’t how it works in the real world, is it?”

“No, Jack. This is fiction,” I said softly, watching him. “Not everyone falls in love. Not everyone gets a happily ever after.”

He leaned back against my pillows, his shoulder brushed against mine. “Have you?”

“Fallen in love?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think so. I thought I was back in high school, but he was a douche and just wanted to sleep with me. That’s probably as close as I got. Then after my mom died and I moved in here with Sam and Dean… Dating and boys really hasn’t been a top priority since.”

“I’m really sorry you lost your mom. I understand what that pain is like.”

“Thank you,” I said softly. “I really appreciate that, Jack.” I leaned back next to him, laying my head against his shoulder. There was a moment where he was tense, but that quickly dissipated.

As the movie went on, I felt his hand moving towards me. Small, light touches. Like he was testing the water. I didn’t push him away and, eventually, his fingers twisted themselves with mine. Coincidently, it was the same time the two characters in the movie were holding hands.  

Lying next to him was relaxing. He had a warmth and gentleness to him that made my heart flutter. It was something I could do all day. I snuggled closer, rolling and wrapping my other arm around him. I quickly glanced up at him, happy when I noticed he was smiling. I mimicked his reaction and turned my attention back towards the movie.

The credits had just started to roll when I heard Sam’s voice again. “Riley!” He called and tapped lightly on my door. “We’re back. I have food for you.”

I closed my computer and moved off Jack. I winced, feeling a sting of cramps. “I’ll be right back,” I said to him. He nodded, his usual sweet smile on his face.

I found Sam in the kitchen, unloading some white Styrofoam containers. “Hey,” he greeted me. “I got you and Jack a cheeseburger. Do you know where he is?”

I nodded. “Yeah, he’s in my room. We were watching a movie while you guys were gone.”

“Anything good?”

“Just a rom com.”

“Did he like it?”

“I think so. He was smiling a lot.”

Sam gave a soft laugh. “I’m sure that’s why he was smiling.”

I changed the subject. “Where’s Dean?”

“Probably dying in the bathroom.”

“Did he win the free pie?”

“Ha, no. But he did eat the whole thing by some miracle. He had to have me drive us back.”

Sam handed me two of the containers and I took them. “He’s so dumb.”

“Tell me about it. We coulda just bought a piece of pie.”

“Well, I’m gonna go back and lay down. I’ll give Jack his food. Thank you, Sam.”

Sam gave me a wave as I carried the food back to my room. Jack was exactly where I left him, perched on my bed next to my laptop. I climbed back in, curling my legs to me to help with the pain. “Sam brought us food.”

I passed Jack his container. He opened it and pulled out the burger. “That was nice of him.” He took a bite of it. “Can we watch another rom com?” He asked through bits of food.

I smiled. “Of course. I’m glad you liked the other one.”

“I did,” he said as I started to scroll through the options. “I like seeing couples in love.”

Hunched over my computer, I glanced at him. His eyes shone so brightly, his lips slightly shiny from grease. Sam had pointed out before that Jack had a crush on me (much to Dean’s dismay). I wasn’t sure I believed it at first. Sure, Jack was very nice to me and always smiling. He’s like that to everyone. But now…

“That’s real sweet,” I said softly, setting up a new movie. He smiled proudly and I couldn’t deny that I had some feelings for him as well.

With my own food in my hands, I adjusted on the bed and hit play. Jack ate eagerly, focused intensely on the movie. My hunger and focus were fading in and out, interrupted by cramps. I set my half-eaten burger to the side, reaching to my bedside table. I started searching around for the pain pills I had just bought.

“Are you okay?” Jack asked, his eyes now trained on me.

“Yeah,” I said, finding the little bottle. “This is just a rough period. Lot’s of cramps.”

“I know you mentioned it before, but I don’t exactly know what that is.”  The look of confusion on his face was utterly adorable and I started to giggle.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t explain. You know what makes boys and girls different right?”

Jack nodded and said bluntly, “I have a penis and you have a vagina. Dean told me.” He had no shame.

“Yes, that is accurate,” I said, brushing my hair behind my ear. “Well, I also have a uterus in my body and every month it thinks I’m going to have a baby and every month I don’t so it basically…” I started sweeping down my lower half like I was brushing crumbs off. “Sheds. The lining of it sheds.”

He just stared at me in utter fascination, not a spark of shame or embarrassment on his face. He seemed more concerned than anything. “Does it hurt?”

“Very much so.”

“I can help.” He sounded excited and eager. “I can take the pain away.”

I had nothing to lose. “Okay. How?”

“Show me where it hurts.” He put his food to the side and scooted closer to me.

I placed my hand on my lower stomach where the cramps were currently showing no mercy. “Right here.”

“Lay down,” he instructed, and I did as he said. I stretched on my bed, laying perfectly flat. He took a deep breath and hovered his hand over mine. “Will you move your hand?” I did and a moment later his hand was pressing against me. It was uncomfortable, lying flat was not an ideal pose for dealing with cramps. But as Jack’s eyes and hand began to glow, the pain ebbed away.

“How did you do that?” I asked once the pain was completely gone. He removed his hand as I sat up, staring at him in shock. “That was incredible.”

“I’m not really sure. I’m still learning to work my powers. But I just thought about how I didn’t want you to be in pain.”

“Thank you,” I said softly, sitting back up. “Thank you so much.”

He gave his signature smile and I leaned across the bed and kissed his cheek. His eyes widened and the blush spread across his face at lightening speed. Startled a bit by my own brazen gesture, I turned my attention to the movie still playing on my computer. I adjusted it to the point we dropped off.

Jack and I re-positioned ourselves, still sitting close to each other, shoulders touching. We finished our food as the movie played, scooting closer and intertwining when we were done. By the time the second movie came to an end, I was laying across Jack with his arms wrapped securely around me.

I didn’t bother to stop the credits. I was too comfortable laying with Jack. “Can I ask you something?” I tilted my head up at him, trying to meet his eyes.

“Of course.”

“Do you like me? Like, how it is in the movies?”

“I do,” he said shyly. “I think you’re really pretty and nice and you always make me smile.”

“Jack,” I pushed myself up, leaning across him. “You’re so sweet.”

“Thank you,” he said. “Does that mean you like me too?”

“Yeah, it does.” I sat back on my legs, facing him. “Do you wanna kiss me like the movies?”

Jack nodded eagerly, making me laugh. I took the initiative and cupped his face, bringing him to me. He seemed frozen when our lips touched. Very unsure of how to act. “It’s okay,” I said softly against his lips, brushing my nose against his. “Just relax.” I opened my eyes and saw him staring back at me. “Put your hands on me. Be natural.” He complied, setting them on my waist as I kissed him again.

It took a few more kisses but he got the hang of it. Head tilting, lips parting, tugging me closer to him. I pulled away again, stroking his cheeks with my thumbs. His breath tickled my skin, our lips still close. “Was that good?” He asked so innocently. “I’ve never kissed anyone before.”

“It was perfect, Jack.”

Tags: @lancsnerd @81mysteriouslyme (hope you don’t mind the tag, and tagging this account since this is a Supernatural fic lol)

[narwhallove]

Behind the Curtain: Interview with Romy Writer Ludi-Ling

House of Cards actually started out as a random smut scene that burgeoned into something far, far more.

@ludi-ling goes meta in our final interview about her writing process; how the Romy fandom’s changed over the years; alternate universes (AU); and the role of smut for Romy fans. (Spoiler alert, our heroes are hot.)

No surprise that it’s a pleasure interviewing Ludi. I kept sending her more questions (25 total!) because her responses fascinated me and inspired me to ask more. It’s a rare person who writes visceral, startling prose and can also talk about her work with clarity, intelligence, and an affection for her characters that doesn’t occlude good writerly judgment.

The superlatives don’t end there. Anyone who knows the community knows that Ludi is a friend to her readers and to her fellow writers. As we all enter a heady 2019, reading Mr. and Mrs. X together, Ludi is someone to cherish.

If you haven’t read our other interviews, please check out: Part 1 of interviews: X-men Origins Part 2 of interviews: Going Dark

As a scholar of fan studies, do you believe Romy fanfiction fulfills needs that Marvel never can? What needs might those be, for Romy fans?

Certainly I think that fanfic is built on the premise of filling in the gaps, scribbling in the margins (to quote the seminal fan studies scholar, Henry Jenkins!) and fixing perceived wrongs. Comics are unique in that regard because the characters and stories within them continue for years and even decades. Comics continuities are convoluted and complicated, and there is a constant churn of writers working on them. Many fans have followed characters for far longer than the writers, and may know the characters more intimately than the professionals. Comics are full of retcons and contradictory takes on the characters. And I think fanfic is an important medium for allowing fans to “fix” that, to negotiate it. Because of the ongoing nature of comics, and because the futures of the characters are always going to be nebulous and subject to the whims of Marvel and the writers indefinitely, I think it’s going to continue to be important. Romy may be married in the comics, but there will still be plenty to write about—kids, divorce, a reconciliation . . . who knows? ;) 

What do you think Romy readers seek out when they read fanfiction? If it’s wish fulfillment, what kinds of wishes are being fulfilled? If it’s looking for “gaps” that the comics skip over, what have you found to be the most common sorts of gaps?

I think Romy is a very interesting example of the “wish fulfillment” function of fanfiction. Because part of the mystique of that ship (no pun intended) is that they can’t touch, they can’t consummate their relationship . . . And fanfic is a way that fans can get them to touch, to work out that angst. I think that one of the staples of Romy fic is the sexual tension between the two, and how they resolve that; the push and pull between them. Sometimes these take place in epic, superheroic backdrops, sometimes in AUs, where they have no mutant powers and where the tension between them is born from other factors (such as already having significant others, or being enemies, or in illicit lines of work).

What draws you to AUs? Your stories aren’t a case of fanfiction filling what’s “between panels”; you tend to shift characters and relationships to entirely different settings, whether it’s a Strange Days–like world or another genre, like a Southern gothic procedural. Can you talk about AUs and how they play out in your imagination?

What I’ve always liked is world-building. One of my first large-scale writing projects was a fantasy trilogy called The Legend of Elu. Most of the fun I got from that was actually building the world, the kingdoms, the mythology, the theology, the languages, the history of that story. That definitely bled into my fanfic.

Now I tend to write canon stuff as one-shots, and novel-length stuff as AUs, because they give me more space to play with world-building. That was something I realised I enjoyed more when I wrote Threads. Writing all those little worlds in a series of one-shots felt too “small.” HoC was originally an expansion of the Threads tale Touch and Go, but it grew into something else, and since then, I’ve preferred to go the AU route for the longer-form stories. :)

We’re living in peak Romy times—I think we’re still reeling from the wedding! Let’s say you had the power to go back in time and drop a pin into an earlier moment in the Romy timeline that you felt truly represents what Romy means to you (which isn’t the same as when they’re happiest!). When and in what universe? Why this choice?

There are so many iconic moments from Romy’s past, but, for me personally, I always go back to their time in Valle Soleada (in X-Treme X-Men). That’s not because they’re happy per se, but because I think that that period was the perfect example of how great they worked together on every level, and was proof positive that they were a good match. I often say it, but I will say it again here, because it’s the truth, and y’all can fight me to the death over it—if there was a time they would’ve got married and I would’ve bought it 100%, it would’ve been in Valle Soleada.

On Tumblr, it seems a large contingent of Romy fans are women in their 30s who discovered Romy at a tender age, thanks to the animated series. This includes you and me! There are exceptions, of course. What’s it like for you to have been in the fandom from the early aughts? What changes in the fandom have you noticed between 2003 and 2018?

I really joined the fandom at an exciting time for Romy—they’d just got back together properly after all the turmoil of the Trial of Gambit. X-Treme X-Men was a treat for Romy fans, and Claremont wrote such a great dynamic between them. As fans we were all excited and happy and well-fed on all that Romy goodness.

So it was weird (not to mention disappointing) when the 2004 reboot happened, and Marvel did everything they could to tank Romy. Which is one thing, and I can stomach it if [it were] logically and well written, but it was just so terribly done that I think many of us just tapped out of the fandom completely. I’d say 2005–2018 were fallow years for the Romy fandom. Most (if not all) of the fan friends I made at that time completely left the fandom. For myself, as someone who enjoys writing AUs, it was the perfect time to branch out from writing in canon and fitting Romy into my own world.

Who are your influences? What writers do you feel a particular affinity for? Are there writers whom we might be surprised to discover informed your work, but you feel have, despite appearances?

I was heavily influenced by the dark, modern fairytales of Angela Carter about the time that I was writing Queen of Diamonds and Threads. She had a really magical way with words—her prose was lyrical, sensual, and unbelievably rich. She was a huge inspiration, but later I moved away from her tone, firstly because I felt I was doing a poor imitation of her, secondly because it wasn’t really appropriate for the direction I wanted to move my fics in, and lastly because I was becoming self-conscious of my insane verbosity and wanted to pare down my prose. That’s something I’m still working on!

At some point during the writing of House of Cards, I finally got round to reading Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and I think it was Douglas Adams who convinced me to move away from Carter’s beautiful but too-flowery prose. I loved the way his narrative just sizzled. I’m bad at capturing that energy—but I do think that from HoC onwards, I’ve tried to learn to be more economical with my words—which is hard for a florid soul like mine. 

Threads—structurally at least—was influenced by Italo Calvino’s If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller, and later, by David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. 

Let’s say you can pair your fiction with other works of art—of all forms, films, paintings, music, etc.—as if you were pairing wines to foods. What other pieces of art might you say go along with yours?

Wow! OK—that’s hard. Threads I’d probably pair with Cloud Atlas (the book, not the film, which I haven’t yet watched). HoC—I don’t know that there’s any one thing I would pair it with, but you can bet a load of post-apocalyptic stuff was thrown into that stew, along with a bit of The Matrix and probably some Inception.

52 Pickup was influenced a lot by Asmus’s Gambit run, cos I really wanted to write a heist fic with Remy and Rogue rather than Remy and Joelle (who I freely admit kicked ass). But if I had to pair it with a piece of media, it’d be with the video game Remember Me, which dealt a lot with themes of how memories inform our identities, and the ethical concerns of having memories essentially become “documents” that are uploaded and shared digitally through the cloud.

This is a good segue to talk about high-low culture. We may not want to believe in a hierarchy of culture, but we can certainly talk about the differences between fanfiction and “regular fiction.” When you read fanfiction, do you approach it differently than you would regular fiction? Are your expectations for form, reading pleasure, or anything else different? If so, how so?

Interesting question! I don’t know whether I approach it differently per se, but I think that readers have different expectations of fanfic. Hopefully we all read “regular fiction” for the same reason we read fanfic—for pleasure. But I don’t think there’s really a binary between regular and fanfiction. I think both exist on a continuum. There is a lot of “regular fiction” (I prefer to call it “profic” or “professional fiction,” because I think that’s where the binary between the two exists) that is actually very close to fanfic, and vice versa. By that I mean that there is plenty of fanfic that is epic in scope, deals with serious themes, and might be considered “classics” if they weren’t fanfiction.

And there is also profic, like romance, that is more similar to fanfic in terms of the kind of functions that it serves. There is an illicit pleasure to reading romance—for example, it’s not the kind of thing you’d openly read in public! There’s a similarity between that and fanfic, and I think, as readers of fanfic, we anticipate some level of illicitness when we approach it—even if the illicitness is only in the format (i.e., it’s fanfiction!), not in the content.

Fun question: What role do you think explicit smut functions in a fic? How do you deal with smut in your work? There’s an interesting moment that’s not in HoC, in which you write about Gambit and Rogue’s first time having sex in his point of view. It’s a separate chapter that exists as its own entity on your fanfiction.net page. Notably, it is much more explicit than the scene in Rogue’s perspective. Can you talk a little bit about this decision?

Well, I do think that fanfic is a safe space for writers to explore their sexuality (and I think that’s a huge part of the reason why fic is looked down upon), and smut plays a significant role in that. And smut certainly plays a part in my own fics. HoC actually started out as a random smut scene that burgeoned into something far, far more. Generally, I do try to make the sex scenes have a purpose in the plot (’cos I’m kind of anal about plot structure!), but in the particular case of Slow Burn and the other HoC vignettes, those are more self-contained one-shots where I could explore things that I couldn’t explore in the main story. So I could indulge in the smut a bit more! And let’s be honest—Gambit’s dark sexuality makes it thrilling to write smut from his perspective—of course his “thoughts” are going to be more explicit! ;)

But I also think that it’s interesting to write their individual perspectives on their sexual encounters, because of that tension between their characters. Rogue is the quintessential virginal Southern Baptist gal who’s inexperienced; whereas Gambit is the sexually aggressive alpha male who’s probably never had a woman turn him down in his life. That makes for a very combustive love affair between the two, and makes it fun to write that love affair (and all the smut in-between) from both their points of view.