#it's not even a Bleach fic lmfao

[criminal-sen]

Hello????? Can I Help You?????

[tojiscumdumpster]

⠀⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀ ▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||။ knockout x renji abarai

✧ summary there’s no better way for renji to celebrate a big win than to spend the night with y/n.

✧ content warnings reader described as a black woman who uses she/pronouns. feisty!reader, chubby!reader x undergroundfighter!renji. modern au — no bleach verse. told in first POV — renji’s. mentions of stitches and bruises. usage of profanity, praise kink, cowgirl position, nipple play, facefucking — renji will finish in reader’s, squirting. terms of endearment — baby, sweetheart, angel, etc. reader and renji are in their late twenties.

✧ author’s note hello, hello. i am here with a fic that’s not jjk for once in my life, lmfao. this idea has been in my drafts since january 2023, and it was just sitting there collecting dusts on my old tumblr. but i said i was going to do more bleach characters, so here we go. first time writing renji, so if this ain’t how you see him, oops. still enjoy. also didn't really focus on the underground!fighter portion as much. but maybe i will if there's a next time. support me by liking, commenting, and reblogging this post. i would greatly appreciate it. AGELESS/BLANK BLOGS AND MINORS— DO NOT INTERACT.

I know she told me not to come by after the fight, but I needed to. 

 I won.

 I fucking won, and there’s no other way for me to celebrate winning ten thousand dollars than to be with Y/N.

 Well, that’s if she’s still not mad at me.

 Before I left for my match, we got into an argument. A huge one. She doesn’t like that I fight for a living, let alone illegal underground fighting. I mean—I get it. Seeing someone you care about constantly getting his ass beat isn’t a sight worth seeing. 

 But fighting is all I know. 

 I had a shitty childhood. Didn’t know who the hell my parents were since they gave me up at birth for adoption. Jump around in foster care homes until the mothers got sick of me and kicked me out in the streets. Survival was basically forced on me.

 Fighting is what kept me alive. For food. Clothes. A place to lay my head. Whether I lost or won, I know the reason why I’m alive today is because I’m a fighter. 

 It wasn’t until I was eighteen when I found out about the world of underground fighting. Ten years deep and I know nothing else. 

 Y/N knows this about me. She understands I didn’t have it easy and never judged me. But that doesn’t mean she agrees with my lifestyle. 

 She came to a few fights in the beginning. Eventually, she got tired of seeing me stitched up almost every weekend. 

 Shit, me too. 

 However, after tonight, I feel good about my future wins. I busted my ass in training, so now I don’t have to hear shit about anymore losses. 

 Even if right now I’m stitched up and have a black eye. I feel good.

 Great.

 Better if Y/N opens the door after keeping me waiting out in the cold for the past ten minutes. 

 I know she’s awake. She has a habit of staying up late, studying for med school. And plus, I haven’t messaged or called her yet. Despite her not showing up to my fights, she still wants an update afterwards that I made it out alive.

 “Y/N, let me in,” I say, knocking loudly on her apartment door. “You know I don’t care about making a scene.”

 After a few more obnoxious knocks, the door finally swings open and I am met with deep russet skin, tight curls, and chocolate-colored eyes that pierce an annoyed look in my direction.

 “What do you want?” She bites out. “I’m busy.”

 I smirk and hold the bag of money in the air. “I won.”

 “Congrats.” Her tone is flat and she tries to slam the door in my face, but I placed my foot to stop it from closing. “Seriously?”

 “Yes, seriously. Are you really still mad at me?” I teasingly ask. 

 “You won. I said congrats. What more do you want?”

 I shrugged. “I’m locked out of my apartment.”

 She arches a brow at me, already recognizing my bullshit ass excuse of being locked out of my apartment. 

 Y/N knows me. She knows I would do anything to be in her presence, so going back and forth in forty degree weather is pointless. 

 Her pretty brown hues travels across my face and body, examining the stitches and bruises that probably has her wondering, who the fuck treated him? 

 Me. But that’s besides the point.

 A deep sign escapes her mouth when she realizes I’m not going anywhere until she lets me in, so she opens her door wider and turns her back to me to walk further inside her apartment. 

 “Sit,” she orders, which I happily do so while chuckling to myself. 

 While Y/N goes to the bathroom (assuming she’s getting a med kit to fix my shitty patch job), I take advantage of staring at her round ass that’s barely covered in those tiny boy shorts. Every step she takes it jiggles, creating an ocean of waves I’m eager to swim in.

 I get comfortable while I wait, taking off my skully, sweater, and any other form of heavy clothing that would cause me to sweat in her heated apartment. 

 “I’m going to start charging you if you keep fucking coming to my apartment like this, Renji,” Y/N snapped, walking with the kit in her hand as expected. 

 “Outside of paying for your tuition, I can think of other ways to repay you.”

 She rolls her eyes at my suggestive comment. “Get over yourself, Abarai.”

 I let out a snort before she stands in front of me and tilt up my chin to start making work on my face. 

 She’s cute when she’s mad. Huffing and puffing while whispering slick comments under breath. But how she’s handling my face by moving it around with force rushes blood straight to my groin.

 I’m getting hard.

 Hard as shit, and it’s not helping that I’m in close proximity with her. 

 That jasmine lavender scent that circulates through my senses. Looking up at her full lips that’s coated with gloss. Then, lowering my gaze to her tits that’s big, naturally saggy, and pretty. My mouth is watering at the sight of her nipples hardening.

 And I don’t know if it’s because she feels that I’m checking her out or the coldness outside is affecting her. 

 Either way, I’ll act on it.

 Taking it upon myself, I grab the back of her thighs to pull her on my lap. As if she’s used to my antics, it doesn’t catch her off guard and she continues to clean up my wounds. 

 “You’re all bloody up with a black eye and somehow you still have the energy to be a pervert,” she retorts.

 I move one of hands to her ass, massaging comforting circles. “For you? Yeah.”

 The quiet between us was comfortable until she opted to speak again. “So… who’d you fight?”

 “Some huge motherfucker. I thought I was going to die.”

 She leans back to grab more alcohol and dabs it above my brow. “Maybe that’s what needed to have you stop fucking fighting.”

 I throw my head back to laugh, but she grabs my chin to bring my face forward. “Like you want me dead.” My hands creep beneath her cheeks to pull her closer to me and apply more pressure to my cock. “That’s what you want?”

 “That came out my mouth, Abarai?”

 “Why are you still mad at me?” 

 She scoffs. “Why am I mad that you’re practically coming to me everyday with a busted face and broken ribs?” That’s one thing I love about Y/N—her feisty personality. It turns me on so fucking much because I know when I fuck her, it’ll be a different story. 

 Continuing, she says, “I think I would be a little more satisfied if you did this professionally as opposed to underground. Underground doesn’t come with insurance, Ren.”

 “Aw, you care about me that much?” My question was supposed to be posed as a joke, but the look on her pretty face says otherwise. 

 “Fucking asshole. I don’t know why I still deal with your ass.”

 “Probably because you love me.”

 “Probably not.”

  Gripping her hips, I pull her with me and lean back into the headrest of the couch. We’re inches away from our mouths cooling and I take advantage of this proximity by basking in her sweet smelling breath and beauty. 

 Simply because Y/N exists, my cocks hardens for her. Holding her in my arms. Feeling her pussy against my erection and breasts suffocating pressed on my chest. Girlfriend or not, she’s mine.  

 And she knows it. 

 I can see how she looks at me, even when mad, that she cares and loves me. Y/N is a tough girl. I can only imagine what she’s been through. Still, she manages to soften up just for me. 

 We never made it official since she doesn’t approve of the underground shit, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop asking. 

 “So when are you going to say yes to being my girlfriend?” I whisper.

 She tries breaking from my embrace, but I tighten my grip. “Renji…”

 “You feel my dick pressed against you, right? It only makes it harder when you say my name like that, Y/N.”

 “Be real with me… will you keep doing this shit forever?” Her eyes waver as she awaits my answer and I can’t help the guilt from pinging my chest. 

 “If it lessens my chance of being with you, no.”

 She searches my face for hesitance or deceit, however, she finds nothing because I meant what I said. Y/N is the only person that looks at me like I’m a human, and I wouldn’t let my obsession with fighting get in the way of our future together. 

 How she tucks her coil behind her ear and nips down on her lower lip shows me the bit of vulnerability she reserves for me.

 So—I take advantage of it. 

 In less than three seconds my lips were on hers. I take my time relishing those sweet, plump and plush, strawberry flavored lips.

 I can feel the skepticism from Y/N while kissing her, maybe because she’s trying to put on this show that she’s still mad at me. But soon, her rigid body melts into mine and returns the kiss. 

 Our heavy breaths mingle, increasing in speed the more aggressive we lock lips. She begins rolling her hips onto my cock and I let out a grunt, feeling the moisture of her pussy liquefying on me. 

 The slaps I leave on her ass are harsh, causing her to bite my bottom lip and suck it into her mouth. Y/N is so fucking aggressive it drives me nuts. She gives me a high and adrenaline not even a fight could give. 

 “Pull your dick out, Ren,” she orders through muffled moans and our kiss. 

 “Fucking bossing me around to give you cock? Not mad at me anymore?” Y/N ignores my taunt and works her hands between us to untie my sweats. I hiss at the feel of her cool hands engulfing my dick to give it a few pumps.

 She must not know what her touch does to me. She handles my cock like she owns it, and gosh, I fucking love that shit. My fingers gently tangle into her coils to deepen our kiss, but she soon gets up to strip her clothes.

 Fuck… Fuck, she’s so goddamn sexy. I’ll never get tired of her thick body, filled with soft dips and curves. I look at her, observe her like she’s an expensive piece of art hung up at a museum because that’s what I see her as. 

 Pretty pussy leaking arousal and I smirk to myself, thinking how she had all that attitude earlier while being wet for me like she didn’t want me inside of her.

 “You’re fucking beautiful. You know that?” I ask, massaging her tits and looking up at her. “You still have that attitude or are you going to come ride my cock like a good girl?”

 She gently pushes me back against the couch with her lips on mine and straddles my lap. “Depends on if you’re going to be a good boy and take this pussy.”

 “Shit, angel. I will.”

 Y/N hums while reaching around to align my cock with her sex. Two seconds later, she slowly sinks down my length until I’m buried into the hilt. That soft lingering fuck that slips past her pretty lips sounds sexy as hell and has my dick twitching in response.

 I can’t bust now. Not yet. Even if the tightness and heat of her pussy pushes me off the edge of a mountain. Her pussy is so warm, so fucking warm, fat, and wet. Gosh, I don’t ever think I can be without this pussy. 

 I throw my head back and savor this feeling, but Y/N had other plans for me. 

 “Remember to look at me when I’m riding you, Ren,” she coos. “Eyes on me, baby. I want you to see how much I love this dick inside my pussy.”

 Fucking Christ. “Tell me how much you love it while bouncing on me.”

 And she does just that. Telling me how big and girthy I am, that she’s sorry for giving me attitude and admits that she just wanted dick. But no. I want her to fuck me like she’s mad. I need that type of energy pumping through my veins after this win tonight. 

 I reassure Y/N and tell her to fuck me harder. Her pace quickens and slaps her ass fervently against my cock. I can’t stop moaning her name. The wet slippery noises coming from her pussy increases in volume and it creates a mess between us. 

 This is where I belong, deep in her pussy and feeling her walls squeeze the hell out of me. I don’t even hold her hips or waist. I relax comfortably with my arms sprawl over the top of her couch, watching how gorgeous she looks while fucking what’s hers. 

 “Oh, fuck, Renji,” she moans, tugging her lips inwards and lolling her head to the side in complete pleasure.

 Those perfect, full tits bounces in my face and I can’t help but stare and become mesmerized. Light marks that resemble tiger stripes decorated the valley of breasts. Her nipples, pebbled and straining underneath my gaze, look desperate for my touch.

 I take it upon myself to pinch them between my fingers and a soft shriek escapes her mouth, further arching her back. 

 Y/N keeps getting wetter by the second, every bounce she makes. And hearing her sticky arousal, I know and see how she’s creaming my cock.  Purposely, I sit myself on the couch, thrusting up in her a bit to feel my head hit her g spot.

 “Ren, help me little,” she begs through a whimper. “Fuck me back.”

 I caress her cheeks with the back of my head. “Yeah? You want me to help you, sweetheart?”

 “Please.”

 God, I love it when she’s needy for me like this. 

 In no time, my hands are at her waist and my thrusts meet with her jumping movements. Y/N isn't loud when it comes to her sounds of pleasure. Vocal, yes. But right now, her moans and whimpers are louder than usual. 

 It’s like she needed my dick inside of pussy just as much as I needed it. 

 I see the desire in her brown hues. I feel the heat radiating off Y/N’s skin while my fingers dig into her flesh, holding her in place to pound upwards into her pussy. 

 This is what I wanted—to fuck my girl after a well deserved win. And she’s going to congratulate me how I want. 

 My lips are at her neck leaving wet kisses and sucking her flesh until purple specks form. “Coming home to this good fucking pussy. Gosh, I love how you feel, angel. Going to fucking mean it now when you say congrats?”

 “Congratulations, baby,” she purrs, slamming harder on my cock. “You did good… so damn good, Ren.”

 I hum, dragging my tongue along her neck. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

 Y/N continues to gasps out her pleas for me to fuck harder. I comply… I comply in helping my pretty girl come and savor the look when she washes over me. My grips are firm on her waist, betting that’ll leave marks when she wakes up the next poor, and drive my cock deeper into her pussy.

 I’m in pure awe. I feel my own releasing catching up to me the more I watch her take me. This is my woman. My fucking girl. I come home to this every night after every fight to hold her in my arms and fuck her. 

 Her name from my mouth sounds like a broken record when I moan her name. This fat, gushy, slick and tight pussy has this power over me. She won’t stop fucking squeezing me, I can’t prevent my face from growing hot. It’s intense how I feel right now, and it’s all because of Y/N.

 “Good, good fucking pussy. God, you’re so fucking good to me, angel face,” I rasp, pecking her lips. “You’re going to come for me?”

 “Yes, Renji, baby. I’m going to come. Keep giving me that dick. Please don’t stop, please.”

 “Put your fingers in my mouth.” She does quick with my command. I suck on her digits and coat them well with saliva before pushing them out of my mouth. “Now rub your clit, pretty girl. I wanna see you squirt everywhere.”

 Because she’s overwhelmed with arousal, Y/N stops bouncing on my cock and allows me to fuck her while she plays with clit. Her mouth hangs gape, drool slightly coating the side of her mouth and breathing heavily. 

 My balls slap her ass. My head kisses her soft cushion repeatedly. Her velvet walls transfer warmth to my cock and the bubble that rests in the pit of my stomach is on the verge of explosion.

 I’m about to come. Hard.

 But I need her to come first.

 “Fucking come for me, Y/N. Keep playing with that pretty pussy and moan my name,” I grit out, pushing past all my thrusts. 

 “Right there, Renji. Keep fucking me right there… I’m–oh, fuck–I’m coming.”

 She’s so pretty when she comes. Dark brown porcelain complexion, slick with sweat. Eyes rolling to the back of her head. Pussy clenching and unclenching around my cock. Moaning, whimpering my name back to back. 

She’s breathless. Flawless. I have this image of her painted perfectly in my mind. Watching Y/N come, makes me come, so I make quick work to pull her off my lap. And she knows exactly what I want–to fuck my release down her throat.

 Her mouth is as warm as her pussy, and I let out hitched breaths and harsh grunts when she swallows me whole. I’m relentless when forcing her head down on my cock as I facefuck her. The gurgling noises she makes are obscene. Pornogrpahic, even. 

 And what caused my come to shoot through her mouth is seeing that she’s still massaging her clit, eventually squirting all over her wooden floors. 

 My hips stutter and I throw my head back to moan into the air. “Fuck, Y/N! That’s my fucking girl. Look at you making a mess while choking on my cock and swallowing my come.”

 Y/N takes it upon herself to wrap her lips tighter around my cock and massage my balls, ensuring every single last of my nut has released in her mouth. I take it for a while, but I soon become sensitive, practically feeling my skin being sucked off.

 “Easy now, angel,” I say through an airy chuckle. I pull my cock out and her mouth echoes a pop sound. 

 She whines a little because I’m no longer in her mouth and it causes me to smirk because it wasn’t too long ago where she acted like she hated me. 

 My hand grasps her chin and guides it upwards to meet with my eyes. “You swallowed for me, Y/N? Open up.” She nods, sticking her tongue out. “Perfect.”

 “You’re going to fuck me again?” She asks, catching her bottom lip between her teeth.”

 Gosh, this woman will be the death of me.

tags: @dejwrld @hvshinas @diamondoidxx @xxjazzxx @thegirlwonder1 @ryukenzz @maiapuhpaia @elitesanjisimp @amyrahrose @sweetpeachies @abigolemess @linastired @diorsbrando @starrygetou @niya729 (if i didn't tag you it's because tumblr wouldn't have your user pop up)

[obscurecurse]

my favorite thing about KPTS fic is the prevalence of unnamed warehouses lmfao. i have done it too. MULTIPLE TIMES. but truly...

what the fuck is in there? shipping containers. shelves. machinery. crates. rust. dust.

un-knowable.

like yes - you got the architect-author who gets picky about descriptions of place and materiality on the case

buuuUUUUuuUUUuut

i will throw out some warehouse concepts for your repertoire: hastily duct-taped polycarbonate windows. metal mesh security screens - wait, what was even stored in this massive cage? loading docks and dumpsters are often located together. a tangle of mechanical ductwork hanging from the exposed steel structure. slowly rotating industrial fan blades whooshing lazily. barbed wire framing a chain link gate. Authorized Personnel Only sign. Low Clearance sign. the pull-in-case-of-emergency lever. does the emergency system still work? do the lights flicker? are you surprised it's still hooked up to the power grid? what color is the water that comes out of the taps? you try to turn the door handle and the handle pops off.

if it's an old warehouse, is it Rusted? Weathered? Is the paint faded? Chipping? Blistering? Sun-bleached? Does it smell like machine oil? Like wood? Like chemicals? Does the breeze from the nearby river drift in through the broken windows - and the air is surprisingly fresh? Does it smell like decaying wood? Like garbage? Like blood?

Has it been 30 years since someone swept the cracked concrete? When you trip and fall are you covered in the dust of time - years of pollen and wood splinters and flaking paint?

it often works, narratively, to not describe these things too much. because most people who are in a warehouse in some crime-related situation are not going to, for example, search the nearest pallet and check the contents. like, Chay is not going to mentally process the industrial nuances of his kidnapping (lmfao) [unless he's been stuck in this room for a long time and now very, very bored.]

(but honestly Kim might. Porsche might. those two are detail-oriented, though, in completely different ways. porsche is always trying to get the upper hand/get himself out of situations. kim needs all the answers on some 5D chess shit. You never know what might be a lead.)

but if it ever comes down to it again i'm going to describe the fucking industry. maybe there's faded lettering painted on the outside of the warehouse which describes that it is a logistics company. they ship things. maybe it is a glass manufacturer and they are boxing windows. garments. ceramics. electronics. DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY THINGS ARE MADE AND SHIPPED OUT OF THAILAND?

i know KPTS is some richboy mafia shit... but gangs, organized crime - they are often borne of the working class and thus entwined with working class industries. i do not reason the theerapanyakuls tango exclusively with other richboy mafia. somewhere along the line it's the working class and a fucking array of industries.

maybe that industry is a cover for something? or maybe they just broke in to this abandoned place and there is no connection at all? maybe there is evidence of a previous usage? was this once an auto-factory with car-sized elevators that's been retrofitted into an industrial-scale bakery?

you can continue to gloss over whatever the fuck is going on in this warehouse beyond a single kidnapping, a single deal. you have my blessing. i have not always given ~the bad guys~ much of an identity. but just a sentence or two identifying the industry these thugs come from can actually really shape your plot in interesting ways. it is like a freebie. you can make the crime sequences so much more dynamic:

suppose its a pillow factory and then there's a shootout and when the machine gun rounds run a line through that giant cardboard box over there, feathers explode out of it and now everyone is inhaling bits of down and coughing. and now you found the last guy that was hiding behind a shipping container because he couldn't stop choking on goose feathers.

(DOWN GETS FUCKING EVERYWHERE.)

the point of this post is to help you workshop your CONTEXT - not to shit on the vague warehouse full of unidentified bad guys. sometimes it is just not necessary to the plot to describe these things

gonna end it like a work email.

hope this helps

[doiefy]

ballroom extravaganza (m?) // kim doyoung, jung jaehyun // preview

The house on the hill has been a mystery for some time. Some say hell, most say heaven—but for the good and wicked alike, it remains a safe haven built by a faceless group known as the Seraphim, on a foundation of secrets they're willing to take to their graves.

For 27-year-old Jung Jaehyun trying to escape a family and job he hates, the manor is an easy distraction: wealth and extravagance where no one knows his name, and endless entertainment riddled with the type of danger he craves. But for the Seraph who catches Jaehyun's eye one late night, it's nothing short of home. Although held together by a twisted love and afflicted by paranormal activity, the mysterious inhabitants of the house are Doyoung's only semblance of family.

Whether by fate or sheer coincidence, the two are brought together to reevaluate the ground they stand upon, and the horrors buried beneath. And to come to the slow realization: their worst fears have been in front of them the entire time, rooted firmly in both their mortal bodies and broken souls.

genre: angst, paranormal, horror

pairing: kim doyoung x jung jaehyun (yeah i'm fully aware that you nerds don't read mxm but did I ask? no :))

word count: 4.2k preview, ~50k full fic

warnings: heavy language, blood and violence, minor character death, smoking. full fic includes alcohol, drugs, sexual content (not explicit smut but heavy references to/implications of rather intense sexual relationships. despite this, minors pls dni for everyone's sanity), some vague indication of undiagnosed mental conditions and stigma, generally this fic is pretty heavy but I've become desensitized as fuck writing it lmfao.

expected release: july 2023 at the latest or i will literally go insane

this was very much (and obviously) inspired by dpr ian's mito 2, from the general ✨vibes✨ to the chapter titles. absolute banger of an album, do give it a listen while reading. tag list available by dm/ask.

one: seraph

The skies begin to bleach red And the stars begin to fall.

AT DUSK, Seraph’s Hill was truly a surreal sight to behold.

It held the briefest moment between evening and night frozen in time. While the rest of the world darkened to a deep indigo, the property sat isolated, still bathed in a brilliant amber glow. All beige brick and polished marble, it seemed to cradle the sun’s remains between its soaring rooftops and overgrown balconies. It stopped the celestial bodies in their orbits, rewriting time, rewriting space and natural law, all in some vain attempt to retain a few more minutes of daylight. The fountains spewed molten gold, the gardens flashed iridescent colours, and the stone statues lit their wings ablaze. 

It wasn’t especially angelic or heavenly, despite its name. It was hardly coherent, if you stared at it for long enough: a strange mismatch of architecture styles, something vaguely between Mediterranean revival and neoclassical, with gothic fountains out front. The lack of coordination was all due to Leliel’s indecision at the time of its construction—so thought the estate’s various visitors. But as the original story went among the Seraphim, Azrael had murdered the original contractor, prompting the hiring of a second person to finish the job. 

On this particular evening, the pearly gates swung open for a black car. Behind the wheel, Kim Doyoung looked out across the property—he had one hand steering the vehicle, and the other hanging casually out the window with a cigarette stuck between two fingers. The gates closed behind him, silently, on well-oiled hinges. Even the automated clang of the lock was muted, so as to not disturb guests; peace was just another one of Leliel’s attempts to emulate paradise. 

He pulled the car up the driveway, making quick observation of the yard. There was no one in sight; no sign of his contact, and only a handful of familiar vehicles parked behind the west wing. He was to meet a man who had every ill intention against the Seraphim; and it seemed he had arrived too early. 

Most would feel restless at this point, either overthinking the entire ordeal or simply irritated by the notion of waiting, yet Doyoung was strangely calm. He parked the car, snapped the key out of the ignition, and hastily pulled the visor down to check his reflection.

The goal was to look effortlessly presentable for this meeting, and not like he had been on the road for several hours. Unfortunately, the black eyes that stared back at him from the mirror harboured exhaustion. The smoke spilling from his lips made for an even harsher appearance, leeching the colour from his cheeks and adding grey streaks to his long locks of jet hair. Someone had once told him he was a visually conflicting person: all soft curves dressed in angular shapes, fair skin marked with black tattoos, a gentle voice paired with an intense gaze. He understood now, their reasons for confusion, and how his strange sense of fashion could be disadvantageous at times like these.

He combed his fingers through his hair and tied it at the base of his neck—as well as he could, anyways; it was still too short to stay in place for too long.  A bit of cream to soothe the dry patches of skin on his hands, then the cheap cologne he kept in his bag, to mask the potent smell of gas and blood. The cigarette met his lips one last time before he climbed out of the car and crushed it underfoot. 

“There you are.”

Doyoung turned, his back meeting the side of his car as he searched for the source of noise. Confusion took him a moment later, when he registered a woman’s voice and a soft silhouette on the wall—dusted with the golden rays of sunset, harmoniously one with the gentle autumn breeze. She stepped out of the shadows in a flash of long, silver hair and silver jewellery. With mean eyes and a deep crease in her brow, she must have been in her early, if not late, thirties.

This certainly wasn’t who Doyoung had agreed to meet with.

“I’m sorry?” his voice came out relaxed, almost a little slurred. There was a long pause before he spoke again, this time tired. “Prince Seir sent you?” 

“Foolish boy,” the woman murmured; her speech was so unnecessarily dignified and irritating, but Doyoung said nothing of it. He wouldn’t bother.

Instead, he mustered a wry grimace. “You are Prince Seir, then.” He gave a curious tilt of his head. “Why waste so much of your time convincing me that you were a man?”

“You lot who frequent this hellhole don’t seem like the type to take a woman seriously,” she snorted, throwing her head back. Her silver hair cascaded down her back, catching moonlight between each individual strand. “The women here are treated like whores and servants, isn’t that right? You likely call them to your room for entertainment.” 

Doyoung scoffed. “I don’t care for women, ma’am. Never have.” He paused, realizing how that must have sounded to her. “I’m not interested in women.” It didn’t seem to help; she pointed an accusing finger at him. 

“You’re really something, boy.“

“And you’re a bitch who’s wasting my time, despite my trying to take her seriously. Now, are you going to give me a job? Or will we be here all night?”

The woman stared at him for another long moment, clearly enraged. Doyoung almost wondered if he was hallucinating—her figure seemed to phase in and out of existence, and her deep anger was so out of place on a set of soft features. She could’ve been a trick of the light, a product of the disturbed mind; and Doyoung could wake up stoned and piss drunk, nowhere near the current scene. It wouldn’t have been the first time. 

At last, she spoke. Paired with a deliberate, impatient gesture of her hand came the words: “Come with me.”

Doyoung obliged, following her out of the lot. They walked wordlessly up a gravel road and past a gate, into a garden. It was surrounded on all sides by white walls and arched windows—the centrepiece of the property. Eden was a stunning display of wealth and beauty. 

Lanterns dangled from every rooftop, flanking tall, white columns. Water spilled from a colossal arrangement of natural stone. Twin paths of interlocking stones circled the pool, splitting at a particular junction where they then lead to several smaller courtyards. Each alcove housed a statue and overflowing pot of vibrant flowers that climbed up the walls on twirling stems. Doyoung paused before a marble statue of a young maiden and dropped a single coin in her basket, as had become customary. Supposedly Israfel had started the tradition after waking up hungover at her feet. 

But the silver-haired lady ahead of him didn’t seem to know this; and even if she did, she didn’t care. Seir snapped her fingers impatiently, and Doyoung hurried to catch up.

They arrived at an alcove on the opposite side of the space, and were greeted by a stone king on his throne. He stared down at them unkindly, his fist tight around his scepter. Without hesitation, the woman reached for his crown, stuck her hand within the circlet of stone, and pushed. The back wall of the alcove, covered all over with ivy and wild begonias, quivered. Then with just the slightest resistance, it swung inwards to reveal a dark tunnel. 

The woman fished a flashlight out of her pocket and switched it on. “The Seraphim’s lair.” She gave the stone king a patronizing pat on the shoulder, then sneered at him in contempt, “Hidden behind a statue of a king. A little too on the nose, don’t you think?”

“Perhaps,” Doyoung muttered wryly, and followed her into the tunnel. 

With a bit of effort, they replaced the wall, though Doyoung thought it was an issue of little importance; at this hour, most would be far too intoxicated to notice.

Once the wall had been pushed flush against the statue, they were swallowed by darkness. The flashlight did little against it, but Seir forged ahead with confidence, leaving Doyoung to stumble along. It was silent for the first few minutes, before classical music began to drift through the walls, adagio and mezzo piano. Snippets of conversation followed. There was a broken moan, and then a flirtatious laugh. Slow inhales. Satisfied exhales. Deep within the walls of the property, the pair bore witness to a multitude of illicit activities.

At long last, it fell quiet again. The ground began to slope downwards, steeper and steeper, until it reached a short flight of stairs. Seir paused at the bottom, feeling carefully along the wall for something. All of a sudden, a dirty yellow glow washed across the room—what looked like a storage closet, only about two arm spans across. Pinned to the furthest wall was an arrangement of photos and notes: the Seraphim, their names, images, details, entire floor plans for the estate in which they supposedly lived.

“What is this?” Doyoung asked. He was taken aback, to say the least, by the sheer amount of detail, not to mention the unknown motivations behind it all. He stepped forward to take a closer look, reaching instinctively for the photo that had slipped loose from the corkboard. The image of a striking man with black hair and eyes flashed before him, then vanished as Seir slapped his hand away. 

“Don’t touch,” she hissed. 

“I was looking.” 

“Look with your eyes. You’ll touch them soon enough.” 

“These are the targets?” Doyoung raised a brow, doing a quick count of the photos. Eight. “All eight of them?”

Seir gave a dissatisfied growl. “I did most of the work, didn’t I? How difficult could it possibly be for you to kill them, when all the details are so conveniently prepared for you?”

“I wasn’t complaining,” Doyoung snapped. “And I don’t doubt my abilities. I doubt your abilities in miraculously tracking down every last detail about the eight most mysterious men in the city. Forgive me when I say I’m skeptical.”

“That isn’t your concern as a contract killer. You have no loyalties, you’re paid to do as I tell you, not to refute—”

Doyoung snorted in disbelief. “I’m not allowed to be curious? Believe me, you’re not the only person who has been after the Seraphims’ true identities. This house is a mystery, and I want to know how you solved it.”

There was a beat of empty silence. Then the woman's lips curled back in visible disgust, revealing a set of gleaming white teeth. Her hatred was unmistakable. “Go dig through a shithole first, go get dirt under your fingernails, go whore yourself out to the most despicable scum of the earth, then maybe you’ll figure it out yourself. You have no idea what I’ve done just to get here.”

“Well, then I commend you—”

“Your praise won’t change my mind, boy.”

Doyoung frowned. So she was conceited enough to be condescending, but not quite enough to break at his praise. Fine. He could resort to other methods.

He turned his attention back to the Seraphim, noting their angelic names and dangerous appearances. No two looked the same—each visually unique on their own—yet when lined up one after the next, they began to blur into an indecipherable, melted concoction of facial features. Brown eyes and dark gazes. Grey hair, wild manes, red lips, stained mouths. Uriel scowled at him from behind a pair of red-tinted glasses. Matariel watched with immense judgement, as if her hair wasn’t white as snow and there wasn’t a thick layer of cream blush smoothed over her cheeks. 

“You’re missing one,” Doyoung noticed after a few moments—an obvious gap between Leliel and Uriel, and a name written in big, black letters: “Azrael.”

“He’s been dealt with,” Seir replied shortly. 

“Didn’t leave his photo up? X his eyes out with a red marker, maybe?”

“You talk too much,” she hissed in frustration. “And Azrael was the worst of them. A cold-blooded murderer. He killed my brother.”

Doyoung scoffed. “And you hiring me to kill eight people doesn’t make you any worse than him?”

“You have no idea what type of people they are. You have no idea what they do.”

He sighed, taking two steps back. The shadows parted for him, and the room fell incredibly still, incredibly silent—and it did so incredibly quickly. One second, the woman’s voice bounced back and forth between the walls, filling the entire space with anger and disdain. The next, she was barely a whisper. Standing about an arms’ length away from Doyoung with her back turned to him, she had become strangely small in his eyes. 

“I’m well aware of the things we do, dear prince.”

The silence wavered, trembling as metal appeared between Doyoung’s fingers. There was a visible refraction against the far wall and a shrill warning as something cut through the air. Then his left hand was on the woman’s shoulder and his right was drawing metal across the soft flesh of her throat. Her mouth dropped open in a silent scream, and her eyes bulged out of her skull.

“You killed an innocent man,” he murmured.

He let her crumble to the ground. 

The waves crashed. Crimson lapped at his shoes. The weapon hung limply at his side, dripping rhythmically, shimmering with molten amber. He watched the pigment seep into the dead woman’s hair; he watched the white strands float down the red river. Unconsciously, he let a string of curses spill from his lips, then reached for his lighter. What a mess.

Azrael walked out of the room a few minutes later, picking blood off of his nails and bleeding smoke from the mouth. 

“You’re making a mess, Doyoung.” 

Doyoung looked down. Indeed, there was a trail of bloody footprints behind him: where he stood, they were pink marks against the glossy floor tile, and where the door opened to the hallway, they glistened bright red. Too distracted by his thoughts and the gruelling cleanup after Seir’s murder, he simply hadn’t realized. 

Now Johnny peered at him impassively from behind his desk—neither understanding nor upset, simply observing and strangely quiet. Doyoung could feel similar stares from the others around the room; though the other Seraphim were more forthcoming with their opinions, much more outspoken than their leader. Yuta sat in the corner, snickering in amusement and wiping at the red lenses of his glasses. Donghyuck waved at him mockingly. Jungwoo mumbled a pointed comment beneath his breath.

Scowling to himself, Doyoung stepped out of his shoes. He approached Johnny’s desk without them, and set the evidence down for his inspection: a clear plastic bag that held every photo, every paper, every piece of writing from Prince Seir’s wall. In his annoyance and carelessness while taking them down from the cork board, he’d torn several pieces and crudely taped them back together.

“How did you kill him?” Jungwoo crooned from where he sat, fanning his freshly-painted nails with a magazine.

Doyoung responded with only a finger drawn over his throat and a quiet correction: “Her. It was a woman.”

“And how did she manage to piece this all together?” Johnny asked; the room quickly returned its attention to him. He had laid the images out on the table, and was glowering down at them—as if flimsy, blood-stained papers still had potential to do harm. Perhaps they did; the notion of intruders and spies in their midst was hardly encouragement. 

“Ugh! That’s the photo on my driver’s license!” Donghyuck cut in, whining obnoxiously as he sauntered over, clearly and horrifyingly drunk. He reached for the two halves of his photo, only to have them snatched away by Johnny. 

“Enough,” the elder grunted, gently pushing Donghyuck into a chair and returning his attention to Doyoung. “Well? Do you know?”

Doyoung hesitated—he knew exactly who Johnny would blame if he told him—and he resisted the urge to look at the person in question. “She found the old service tunnel in the east wing,” he started, then paused to survey the leader for his reaction: Johnny narrowed his eyes, but said nothing for the time being. “She snuck around our quarters through the walls and installed cameras in the air vents. That was enough for her to get images of our faces and hear our names.”

“And what about you? She had never seen you before tonight?”

“No. I got lucky. The vents in my room aren’t part of the network in the east wing, and even if they were, I was out of town for a few weeks. She mistook Jeno for me while I was gone.”

Johnny’s jaw tightened. “And she had him killed.”

“Yes.”  

The revelation brought a deathly hush. Doyoung was right: they had gotten lucky. Had Seir hired any other person to kill them, had they been even a little less prepared, any one of them could have met the same fate as Jeno. 

“Mark,” Johnny sighed at last, locking gazes with the one person who had kept his quiet this entire time. “Come here.”

Mark obediently shuffled to his feet, rising out of the shadows. The expression on his face was already wounded, like he knew what was to come; and when he stood motionless before the leader with his head lowered, he took on the form of a child awaiting chastisement. For several moments, Johnny simply looked him up and down, all prior emotion having disappeared from his eyes. For several moments, the air hung still, as they all held back from doing anything they might regret. 

Then Johnny lashed out, striking Mark across the cheek with little remorse.

The sharp sound of contact rang through the room, snapping everyone back to attention. Yuta looked up, frowning. Doyoung tensed. Even Donghyuck seemed to sober, and momentarily quit his garbled whining. 

They all knew: Johnny didn’t get violent often.

“John,” Yuta said in soft warning, but it went disregarded. 

“This keeps happening, Mark,” Johnny said lowly, leaning forward against the desk so he could stoop a little lower and meet the younger man’s gaze. “Why is that? Did you forget what I asked you to do?”

Mark shook his head no—he remembered exactly what he had been told—but Johnny answered for him anyway. “I said we needed to tighten up our security. Any corridors we’ve stopped using, any rooms that could potentially give us away, I told you to block them off. So why haven’t you?”

There was a shaky breath. “Taeil said not to.” 

“Taeil told you that?”

Mark nodded slowly. “He still needs access to plumbing. And ventilation. So I made the corridor accessible on both sides, but only to us— I-I thought he told you—”

“Fine. If Taeil said not to, fine,” Johnny snapped. “But you can do better than some hidden fucking entrance behind a statue that anyone can find.” The pause that came directly afterwards conveyed an even harsher warning. His voice dropped in volume, not low enough to be inaudible, but enough to sound especially cold. “You disappoint me, Mark. You’ve disappointed me too many times. For your sake and the rest of our sakes, I hope this is your last.” 

“Johnny,” Yuta called his name again, this time sharply. “Lay off him.”

“When he learns his lesson,” Johnny replied through clenched teeth. “He could’ve gotten one of us killed. Hell, Jeno’s already—”

“You’ve put him through enough.”  

Watching wordlessly from the sidelines, Doyoung expected Johnny to snap—to round on Yuta the way he had with Mark, claiming to have done no wrong. He waited for the room to dissolve into chaos, as it often did. But to his surprise, Johnny stayed quiet. He averted his gaze, clenched his jaw, and held back the words that were clearly on his tongue. “You can go, Mark,” he said at last, his expression easing from anger to discontentment when he caught sight of Yuta on his right. “I’m sure you’re busy.” 

And to the rest of the Seraphim present, “You’re all dismissed. Doyoung, I’d like a word.” 

Mark shuffled out of the room with his eyes still glued to his feet. The rest hauled a drunk Donghyuck along, and Yuta brought up the rear; he closed the door on his way out, leaving Doyoung and Johnny alone. 

“You’ve been hard on Mark,” Doyoung said after a few moments, once the footsteps in the hall had faded away. 

“I’ve been hard on everyone,” Johnny corrected him. There hung an air of exhaustion around the angel of night, and it was clear as day. His hair hung in dark tendrils around his face. His complexion had gone uneven, dark around his eyes like he hadn’t been sleeping well. While he usually donned various silver accents and expensive accessories to blend into the crowd upstairs, his appearance tonight was rather plain. Doyoung had left town on business only two weeks prior; but this and the thick tension he witnessed earlier suggested things had taken a turn since then. 

“Should I be glad that I wasn’t here?” Doyoung asked, noting the collection of cigarette stumps in Johnny’s ashtray—it was normally empty.

And Johnny replied shortly, “I’m sure things were worse on your end.”

He wasn’t wrong; the red stains in the backseat of Doyoung’s car and the duffle bag he’d thrown in a bonfire were enough testament. 

“Well, the cleanup was rather—”

Johnny wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I don’t want details.” 

 Doyoung watched in mild amusement as the leader rummaged restlessly around his desk for something. “I’m worried,” Johnny said absentmindedly as he produced a new pack of cigarettes from the drawer. So the collection of black remains in the ashtray did belong to him, Doyoung concluded as he watched; it seemed Johnny had fallen prey to old habits. 

“About what?”

He was left waiting for an answer while Johnny fished a lighter from his pocket and raised it to the cigarette between his lips. 

“Everything,” came the delayed reply, flat and emotionless, tight with irritation. “Business has been getting worse. Guests are getting bored and leaving for good. Taeil’s gone off the rails too. He’s deaf to reason.”

“What did he do now?”

“He thinks he can solve all our issues with chemistry.” His face lit up with remembrance. “Right, don’t drink the tap water, he’s laced it with something.”

“Again?”

“Yes, again. Some sort of sedative. He thinks it’ll keep people soft and pliant and dumb enough to consider extending their stay. It doesn’t matter, because it won’t work. Now all of this—” Johnny spread his hands for emphasis. “—these people sneaking around the house and trying to unearth secrets that don’t exist? Strangers putting bounties on our heads when we’ve done nothing wrong?”

“I wouldn’t say we’re completely innocent.”

Johnny gave a bark of emotionless laughter; he couldn’t deny it. The drugs and illicit substances, Doyoung’s side hustle in contract killing, Taeil’s bloodied lab in the basement, countless other things that he had lost track of. All for the sake of found family, for the sake of the most important people in his life and for the sake of their collective sanity, he would allow it. 

“Tell me everything,” he said at last, resting his smoke on the rim of the bronze tray. 

“Everything about…?”

“This Prince Seir you met.” 

So Doyoung told him. He told him about the strange trails that had been left in dark corners of the internet and old clubs of a nearby town. They were subtle messages, sent by an individual who needed a “job” fulfilled on Seraph’s Hill. He told him about Taeyong, who had noticed a strange alias checking in and out of the estate every now and then, the same one Doyoung had seen online. Then about Jungwoo, who passed Doyoung’s name through groups and groups of distant associates, until it reached Seir herself—at which point she contacted him by email. 

Johnny never interrupted nor spoke. He maintained the same posture in his chair and took occasional drags from his cigarette, never moving more than was required. Though he was quiet, he was hardly a good listener: unresponsive, horribly vague when he did react, always maintaining an overwhelming presence that loomed uncomfortably over Doyoung as he spoke. He felt as if he was talking to a brick wall, and at the same time, like the brick wall was staring into the very depths of his soul, passing judgement on every word that came out of his mouth. 

“You’re on the internet often, then, if that’s how you stumbled across her.” Johnny peered at him with intrigue when he finished. “Forums dedicated to us, online discussion about us… Tell me, what do people say about Seraph’s Hill?”

“A lot of bullshit.” 

Johnny was cross. “What do they say?”

“That we’re a house of mysteries. That it’s strange, how people can come in sober and ready to unearth our secrets, but always wake up wasted the next morning.”

“Doing drugs does that to you.” 

“The water tastes weird. The statues in the back gardens are creepy. The whiskey is fucking overpriced, and the blonde bartender is sexy. That kind of bullshit.” 

Johnny said nothing. For the next minute and a half, they listened to the gurgling of water in the fountains and the classical music from the ballroom. The hands of the clock behind them moved along without noise, but Doyoung heard ticking in his head. 

“Thank you,” Johnny said at last, and put his cigarette to the dusty metal of the ashtray. A steady stream of smoke escaped his fingers, fading to nothing. “You can go now.” 

Doyoung got up from where he sat, only to see his leader’s expression shift once more—almost like he’d remembered something important. There was a momentary pause, and he seemed softer. 

“It’s good to have you back, Doyoung.” 

He nodded in agreement; it was good to be home. 

On the other side of the property, moonlight fell between the iron gates of hell—illuminating the crimson streaks on the prince’s face, and guiding the two figures who escorted her. Her silver hair made glimmering lines on the concrete, and her broken body scraped haphazardly along the ground. There was no need to be delicate, so long as her innards remained intact for what was to come next. She passed into the underground, eyes wide and unmoving, frozen in their sockets. 

And a cloud passed over the moon. 

[bitchy-peachy]

Trying to organize my ao3 with my steroid scrambled brain and blurry eyes was NOT a good idea. Now I wanna eat and nap like an useless baby again.

I even did whiny sounds while curling up. So embarrassing. Today was my last steroid so I hope this shit diminishes fast from now on.

I want my eyes to stop pulsing, I want no brain fog (these stupid pills were the only ones with that side effect so I know it was these steroid bitches again.) I want no under chin swelling that chokes me.

Blah, blah, blah... Anyways I'm TRYING to catch up on fic reading, fic reviewing, bookmark organizing, answering/approving old old OLD comments, meeting readers (yeah I had some trying to just hang so I'm checking if they're good people

And all sorts of wonderful organizing things. Also... there's me considering moving wattpad protected stuff little by little over to ao3 cos I don't think you guys have even seen the other DL, Bleach and Naruto stuff I've written... Plus wattpad readers kinda ignore us.

Gin and I are from there so we know 😆.

Anyways, that's somewhat of an ao3 update thingy. Feel lik2 napping again. It's like all the sleep I lost is coming back with a vengeance...

(Literally me. I do be having my phone like that on my lap whilst the lights are off LMFAO)

[yinyuedijun]

(HENGFENG BLEACH ANON) (*SMASHES THROUGH THE DOOR LIKE A SLEEPER AGENT BEING WOKEN UP*) I AM HERE I WAS BUSY W OTHER GAMES ASIDE HSR (we do not look at the unfinished paperwork at my desk do not perceive I will work on it once I'm finished doing my dailies) but yes. That. Mmmmh. Yes. Double Aventurine. Present and Future Aventurine. The wonderful self-cest which is somehow more fucked up than Hengfeng itself. I cannot write for shit. I do not have the time but mama Mao you must perceive my carnal vision. BUT FIRST FINISH 2.2 bc my idea hath spoilers for it so I beg of thee to FINISH IT.

Okay but the two "" fighting"" (i say that w quotations bc something about is it really a fight when you already know the outcome? :]) over you bc ofc the only time Aventurine will ever feel threatened is when himself is the opponent in question. I can see this happening when they're still stuck in Ena's dream, maybe [Aventurine] appears in [Kakavasha]'s dream with you. Where nothing had went wrong and [he] is the ideal man for you and everything is okay. [Aventurine] who mocks this idylic dream [Kakavasha] has by ntring him and with you becoming increasingly torn at who you want [Aventurine] or [Kakavasha]? (yes I wrote this w either translation mc or the casino table mc in MIND bc alpha malewaife mc would turn this soft real fast and turn it into a lesson for the two that no matter what they would love him and it becomes a threesome vanilla sex DO YOU SEE MY VISION MAMA MAO DO YOU SEE IT IM GONNA GO INSANE MAMA MAO)

ANYWAYS TUMBLR PLEASE SEND ONG

SCREAAAMMM HELLO HENGFENG BLEACH ANON I CANT BELIEVE THE SUMMONING RITUAL WORKED ??? now I know how to get your attention I simply need to post selfcest art of our faves HAHAHFDJSLSSJ

AND YES I SEE IT I SEE THE VISIONNN..... never did I think I would see ntr in my inbox I'm about to ascend godbless 🛐🛐🛐 <- fully revealing myself as a complete degenerate ig. I'm incredibly h-word over this but I'm also somewhat fascinated by the idea that Harmony!Aventurine ntring the reader and making them feel conflicted actually means that the reader kinda PREFERS how Real!Aventurine has been treating them in reality AGLFDJADJS VERY PAR FOR THE COURSE. especially casino pwp mc that one is a complete freak (I'm still not sure whether they're the same mc as translation but they're lowkey a freak too so it applies both ways LMFAO)

DYING that u immediately understood the outcome w alpha malewife even though I haven't posted the fic 💀 I agree it would end up with a threesome and ykw I think Real!Aventurine would end up being in the middle. the Harmony and alpha malewife will be tag teaming him and showering him with praise 👍

[shivasdarknight]

Fic Writer Interview

I was tagged by @sheepwithspecs for this! Looks fun, let's go! 🙌 I'm only tagging @starswornoaths and @fiercynnhere because I really lost track of who still writes and who doesn't 😅 So blanket "do this if you see this" statement here - also this goes for any AO3 alternatives people have bailed for given the state of that place right now.

How many works do you have on AO3?

20, though two are exquisite corpses so 18 are all me

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

259,190, though that's bound to jump up because a chapter I've been working on is ~22k rn, and that's just one draft

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos

I gave you dirt, I gave you water, you gave me uncontrollable horniness (108) - this is the second exquisite corpse that I did, and it's a rosemary fic that was more coordinated so I'm not surprised tbh? I wrote two sections for it, but it's so old. title is a reference to Little Shop of Horrors

The Shape of Water (2017) (53) - the first exquisite corpse, both were the same group and this was nonsensical. I wrote after the coordinator, and it devolved fast it was fun to work on. More Homestuck - but this was dirkjake - but it's also old and doesn't reflect my current writing. Take a guess why it's named that.

spare a moment, would you? (47) - oh hey this one's all mine. Yeah is it any surprise that the top 3 are all smut? wolysayle stuff, still like this one, though being a long fic writer and seeing the 4k word one do well is. Something alright.

how long you would wait for me? how long I've been away? (28) - wolestinien for wolestinien week, and this was a higher rated fic because yeah vague smut. I still like it, don't misunderstand, but I've got a different favorite lmao

don't test the tank (25) - the noncanon one because g'raha is no longer in the polycule lmfao. I'm pretty sure that's entirely why it got attention, since all of my non-exquisite corpse fics that have high kudos feature male characters in them and that's just not my focus rn. So it's really unsurprising that my favs have like. 12 and 2 kudos compared to all of the ones above, given they center Ysayle.

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I respond to all comments! At least most if I can lmao I like getting them? I also like giving them when I read fics, because idk. Acknowledgement that you saw something, discussing something dear to someone. That kind of thing.

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I think probably somehow, silence hurts the most? There's not really any good resolution besides Surkukteni recovering. Ysayle's dead (as far as she knows, shh), she tried to kill someone who used to be close to her and couldn't go through with it, and she's being shuffled off to another conflict while she's still not healed from the last one - even if it's where she had wanted to be, she's still stuck with the wounds from the war she didn't want to get involved in.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Oh, easy: i had a dream about you. It's a fucking rollercoaster of a fic, it's one of my favorites, and I managed to make someone cry :D It's definitely the one that has the happiest ending, because I wouldn't call one-shots really...that? They're set in their tone unless it's a longer fic. Multi-chapter is really the only way I actually like getting a happy ending from something because you had to work to get there.

7. Do you write crossovers?

Well, I used to. FanFiction Dot Net was just...better for crossovers than AO3 tbh? Even though AO3 is better set up for it, most people on there hate crossovers unless it's an AU of something (y'know, like the old -stuck fics). I've still got some of those mentalities from that site in that I've used adjacent crossovers to fill out the cast of things, but most notably would be Inkspill. It's a Bleachstuck fic, but there aren't any Bleach characters whatsoever. It's just the setting and Rose is the main lead. It also epitomizes the fact that I don't like crossovers/AUs where people stick to the OG plot beat-for-beat? Like if you're coming to it as a fan, why do you want to see it exactly but with new faces. Bending the plot to the characters is a lot more fun and you get more stuff out of it (see: a ffx/homestuck AU i was plotting at one point that saw Jake replacing Yuna and Dirk replacing Tidus). But Homestuck was one of those weird fandoms where this kind of thing was encouraged and thrived. Being in XIV, I'm kind of loath to step outside of it because the setting itself has so much going for it that I don't really need to supplement it with anything else - which is hilarious, since this is the game full of crossover events! With those, it's like...I'll supplement other FF titles in the same vein as the game does already (eg: you can tell what era of Allag's rule tech is from based on if it's Pulse or Cocoon tech from FFXIII; Garlemald uses FFVI and FFVII stuff, while older stuff they've appropriated is things like Tactics and FFXII; the FFIV stuff, etc), but all the non-XIV stuff (sans tactics ogre, because POTD is Staying), that just gets a passing reference and not a main focus. The most notable instance of this is how Nier is handled, because while the storyline is canon, it's more of a joke. Everyone talks about it, everyone is confused by it, but I'm never going to actually write them dealing with the crossover because they don't really add much? It's just more funny having a bunch of medieval fantasy heroes trying to grapple with Yoko Taro-ness and breaking their brains over it.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

...hm. I mean, the worst I've gotten on a fic was on Inkspill, where someone decided to get snippy with me because the second chapter is ~10k words. I'd love to find them to show them the word counts of my current drafts lmfao. But actual worse stuff was role play, which involved people tearing apart my writing in private and using it as an excuse to try and get me kicked. But considering I lost the receipts from the person who leaked it, I can't say shit despite one of them being a large ffxiv account who runs an anti-bullying schtick here and on twt so. Yeah.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I definitely write smut, but good god is it difficult to work on. Like, I don't have issues visualizing it, it's just the language. And actually writing the scene out. Makes me so gd awkward, even if it's arguably vanilla shit. Which is admittedly really frustrating, because part of why I do write smut is to try and reclaim that facet of writing from some pretty nasty stuff from a past relationship (no details; very few people actually know the details). So much of it comes from trying to be able to write stuff for myself, but that hesitation is still there. As for what, it's predominantly female focused. As in, you're not really going to see a lot of shameless smut focusing on men (be it m/m or m/f). If men are involved, it's predominantly service stuff for a female partner. Cunnilingus tends to be my go-to, obviously fingering and w/e, but I'm trying to also expand what that means because Surkukteni frankly has had a fair number of flings with trans women and fems. So muffing is on the list of stuff to write (the surkie/cylva fic, stuff with heustienne and venat...), but in general just trying to get away from this pervasive idea that trans fems always have to be tops and have to penetrate their partner. If you're looking for this kind of stuff, I recommend Fucking Trans Women. But either way, most of what I write tends to be a response to stuff I've had to go through + wanting to see other depictions in fanfiction since it's. So often so samey.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not really, but I did have this weird encounter on an AU server where they said that people could just set up channels to discuss their AUs and whatever, but I wanted to distance myself from that group and they really did not want me to delete my stuff. Like, they got aggressive and snapped at me for not wanting people to to use an AU that was fairly personal to me. ...Like, they said it was just a place to talk about AUs, I was never told that their intention was that if you post it, it stays, and free reign for everyone else to do stuff in it. This and the role play server have just really made me never want to engage with Kingdom Hearts ever again.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope, but I'm open to the idea.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Well yeah, I'm part of two exquisite corpses that I linked above lmao Those are seriously fun, y'all should try it sometime. But aside from that, I tried to with my ex gf but that was. Less actually co-written, and more me doing all the work.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

If we're talking about normal definition of ships, probably Edelgard/F!Byleth. Like, don't get me wrong there's a lot of stuff in XIV that I care about npc/npc wise, but something like Ryne/Gaia is like how I feel about NamiXi in that...I adore them, but I wish they'd been around when I was that age? They're cute, but I was introduced to them as an adult and there's still that disconnect. Love queer teen stuff for the queer teens, but I'm nearly 30 lmfao Obvs I'm extremely deep into stuff like Ysayle/Venat, Ysayle/Heustienne, etc. but that's like. So minor that there's not a lot of community around them like there is with edeleth. But that's what happens when you're a f/f shipper 💀💀💀 But in all honesty, the actual answer is wolysayle. I'm blanket including other peoples' dynamics because I just really like seeing people actually use Ysayle and give her further purpose, but also I'm super deep into Surkukteni/Ysayle and all the nonsense that surrounds it - especially how partners like Venat are involved. I care them, I'm very emotional over them.

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

As much as I would like to return to Inkspill, I'm never going to. It's an old fic and if it wasn't clear already, I'm not super interested in writing exclusively about teenagers. I'm also working on a fic that has been shown in snippets and whatever, but I'm hesitant about it because it's. This frustrating fkn thing of the fact that it's Perfectly Goddamned Normal, but people are so weird about it online - both the people who are way too into it, and the detractors. I just want to write about what Surkie goes through from post-shadowbringers to endwalker (which, iykyk what that entails), especially since this Scenario actually allows her to slow down and focus on other aspects of her relationship with her now-fiances, but people get so genuinely nasty about this topic. So even if I enjoy writing it and how it has her navigate her relationships - romantic, familial, and platonic - I'm not sure I'll ever finish it because of gestures.

15. What are your writing strengths?

I've been told I'm very good at writing dialogue, and I can't really argue that because I really do enjoy writing conversations between people. I know people are sick of the Marvel irony that shows up in dialogue and so it makes everyone leery of sarcastic exchanges, but sarcasm and banter are genuinely my favorite things to write. I like obnoxious assholes who know what the other's boundaries are, so they can just be as blunt or snide as they like without a wrong word causing things to get contentious. It's a stark contrast between Surkie and Estinien dialogue and Melisande and Ysayle, because the former is two people who deeply understand the other and know when to stop, vs the current stuff which is Melisande picking at every way she can upset Ysayle because she just does not like her. I try to keep speech habits in mind when writing, I also keep track of how frequently someone curses and what expletives they use, and it's just...really fun trying to make it so distinct that you don't need tags to tell who's speaking? Means I've done something right. And - at least, according to my mother (because she does know about my writing) - I'm apparently good at descriptive prose, because it's "very evocative" and "paints a good mental image".

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Writing smut, tbh? Like, I know it's similar to action, but I just can't get it for the most part. I'm also not very good at writing stuff that skims over things to cover a long span of time because I like idling in moments and having things go slow. Jumping from place to place and scene transitions are the bane of my existence.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I think it's important to at least try. I've run into this issue because my WoL is a polyglot but also has the Echo. Like was mentioned in the tag's post, I use Writing with Color a lot to inform me about how to better handle accents from other languages so I don't wind up with how people like Lovecraft write (because that's embarrassing), but I also try to use what I know to inform sentence structure because people kind of just...ignore that? I'll be more specific: I incorporate various English accents and dialects into what I write to get a better idea of what their voice sounds like, but nowhere in there is that used as a signal to view them as unintelligent the way that XIV (and frankly most English-speaking media) does. Kitase has a thick accent, but it's more Lominsan so it's reflected in his speech. However, both he and Surkukteni speak Hingan (japanese), Doman (ig japanese as well because fkn stormblood), and Rural Doman (chinese). I don't know if anyone's picked this up, but Surkie and Kitase both tend to drop the subject of who they're talking about after a while, and very rarely use self pronouns if talking at length. "You" is also fairly absent compared to a native Common (english) speaker, more so in Kitase than Surkukteni due to exposure. These habits come from Japanese sentence structure and how a lot of context is dropped if it can be clearly inferred. Obviously, it's a habit in English, but not to the same degree. Sign language is in here and a version of it used with the dragoons is prominent to Surkie. That led to a long research stint into trying to figure out how to portray that - and there's no good one answer? So I settled on using [Stuff like this] to show that it's talking, it's formatted as talking, and doesn't have the same flourishes as other speech. This is mostly because of how I format dragonspeak, internal brain buddies, and other things. It's treated exactly like normal dialogue, it just has different tags and punctuation. Otherwise, it is exactly the same to not make it seem like it's lesser to spoken languages.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Kingdom Hearts, but we don't talk about that.

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

Fire Emblem Three Houses, but HEAR ME OUT. HEAR ME OUT. Yes, I would love to contribute to the femslash edeleth, but my main motivation for an FE3H fic is a New Game+ meta fic. I got the idea from starting a new route and finding that supports and skills could transfer over, so it got me thinking about a looping story involving Byleth - an ever changing person, in presentation, name, and relationships - having to relieve the story of FE3H and trying to figure out how to break out of it. They're more cognizant with each loop, more manic, until it finally splits into the femleth and guyleth. Femleth remembers the fact that this isn't right, Guyleth stands in opposition to her. Femleth ends up with Edelgard and the Black Eagles, Guyleth ends up with Dimitri and the Azure Lions. And it's going to get messy. But I havent really had the energy to write it because it means finishing all the other routes, and doing Black Eagles first has made it very hard to go through Azure Lions. I'm sparing people my feelings on it, but omfg. I just want to go back to Crimson Flower.

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

i had a dream about you and you want a better story. who wouldn't? Like, they were the most fun to write (the latter is my active draft), and I just care them. Very proud of these two uwu

[homemadesterekpie]

even after years i still sometimes associate Lana’s song Gods & Monsters to that one fic called starts with f ends with u (if i remember correctly jfc its been ages) because it was in the playlist for that fic? i think? anyway and when that happens i want to pluck my eyes out or idk bleach my brain lmfao that fic fucked me up So Bad and i never even finished it 😅

[sunderedazem]

Can I do two WIP Ask?

One for Dragon Blade and the other for Shinigami Padawan?

You most certainly can, anon friendo!

SO, Shinigami Padawan was, as one may assume, a crossover between the anime Bleach, and the original Star Wars trilogy. It centered Hitsugaya just after the WInter War (he stabs Hinamori, his sister/love-interest/we're-never-really-sure and is nearly cut in half) who's isekai'd to Tatooine and is found by One Uncle Ben. Obi-wan therefore gains a new semi-Padawan (b/c midichlorians = spirit particles in this crossover), Hitsugaya swears off fighting and becomes a Force healer, and helps the Rebels and Luke through the rest of the original trilogy. I got maybe one or two chapters into it before A Distraction XD

And as for Dragon Blade - if you're unfamiliar, it's by far my largest, most well-known fanfic, but it's a few years since I've updated it. It has its own TVTropes page and is posted in it's entirety on ffnet (just goes to show how old it is) and only partially on ao3. It was mostly written before I knew what ao3 was...and before I was mature enough to understand that trolls love being entitled little shits and "criticizing" fanfic that's a) fucking free and b) clearly written for the author's enjoyment.

It is also a crossover - Boku no Hero Academia and Bleach - and again stars Hitsugaya falling into an alternate world, but this time it's not a pure isekai, it's a parallel-universe sort of deal, and both the Bleach universe and the Boku no Hero universe were eventually going to play a big role in the story. Hitsugaya has to deal with repressed PTSD, developing a Quirk, evil Villains, and trying to return home - it's kind of a rollercoaster lmfao.

However, as you may infer from my salt above...ffnet is shit for keeping unwanted commentary away from your inbox. Eventually I got so fed up with people being jackasses for no fucking reason (and got concussed around the same timeframe and couldn't look at computer screens for more than like 15 minutes at a time) that I moved fandoms, and the fic has been on hiatus since. I have the entire rest of the fic plotted out - hell, some of it's even written - but the entitled fucks on ffnet balanced out all the nice people there (there were many nice people. they were sweet. They are the sole reason the story hasn't been completely deleted from the internet until i finish it)

[blkkizzat]

Happy Thursday 😊

Omggg i love that idea of reader being engaged maybe to Naoya (ik he nasty but him and his bleached hair and tight black shirt does things to me)

STOPPP THE PTSD I GOT FROM PLUG!CHOSO WAS SO DELICIOUSSSS like fr i need to send you a whole ass book report on how that fic made me see colors i didnt know existed because 😵‍💫 its my weakness when the angst only affects the male character and not the reader HDJSKSKA i been suffer too much in my life to want to read about a fictional me suffered so why not ruin a fictional man's life 🤷‍♀️ that fic came to me at a good time because honestly i was spiraling a bit over some fic i shldnt have read where reader was this pushover who got cheated on (and then threw her virginity to the man who cheated on her 💀)and i had to nope outta there so fast bc that personally aint for me, thats why im saying i looove your bimbo reader and like, she aint takin shit- she causing it 😂

Otaku!Gojo wasn't incel coded to me at all btw, in case i said smth that made you think otherwise 😭 he gen seemed like just his goofy ass self i love him so much. Also semi rare opinion but I like the virgin gojo fics because I really do think as much as gojo is such an extroverted little bug, he really does have his walls up on who he lets in emotionally 🥲 I feel like he might even have some internalized "well im not gonna date or fuck around because i dont want to drag anyone into my ugly world" hsjsjks idk i just feel like he might force himself to be lonely because he takes his responsibility seriously. Aughhhh, especially if he's in love with reader? I feel like man would be in the friendzone for years, be the best man at her wedding, and live and die loving herrrr 😭 im delulu but its just so loverboy gojo to me hehe. Also omg I have so many requests I wanna make before they close but honestly I'm secondhand exhausted from reading all the fics you already got going on LMAO

p.s your about the editor- ummmm excuse me???? YOU'RE SO GODDAMN PRETTY!!!! Like you gen have doe eyes and flawless skin I'm so jelly. Also i love the gloves w the dress 😍. You didn't ask but visually i would ship you with toji 😤 yall would have that bonnie and clyde hitman x bad bitch aesthetic going on !!

🍒 nonnie

🍒 nonny!!!! hi babes you doing good today???

LOL i totally feel you though, i wanna hate naoya so bad and then i be finding myself hate reading naoya x reader fics with a hand in my panties he's such a lil worm tho 😭

LMFAO listen i have that nicki quote in my m.list for a reason. tryna give these men trauma fr 😩. i want them absolutely SICK over us LOL! i totally get that, i hate when its a really well written fic too cause im like damn i wanna read more but i dont wanna be in my bed depressed tomorrow dkhsfliahsd.

but i feel like authors always come out a bit in our work, im definitely bimbo/brat reader. i do not take shit from these dudes irl so im not about to write reader getting cheated on or played unless reader is about to go scorched earth gone girl on their asses lmfao. like entire lives ruined lol.

also omg, yes, yes, yes. i totally agree about gojo. i actually think hes very emotionally stunted in canon, as its suggested by him, geto and sukuna in later chapters that being the strongest comes with isolation so growing up with so much expectations i feel as gojo sees himself as disconnected from others. in AUs i feel like this can manifest in him becoming more isolated. i almost feel like he's an extroverted introvert. that he probably feels more used to being isolated but still feels that need for connection. so yes friendzone for years. omg (not you making me feel bad for this man now lmfao).

You can make more if you want! like idk when im gonna get to everything cause im at the mercy of my adhd but honestly with all the fics i do have and these requests i think im pretty solid until the end of the year lmfaooo.

ALSO OMFGFGFGFGF you gonna make me cry whaaaat. tysm!! i went to a charity auction for my mba program. i work from home and im legit in a bonnet and an anime shirt 80% of the time so when i have the chance to glam up i really like to do that! ALSO WHAT!? GET OUT OF MY BRAIIIIN LOL!! So i thought of this one selfship, that i was going to make into toji x reader that was pretty much bonnie and clyde kinda relationship. but i didnt really know where the fic was going besides us causing general chaos and being super downbad for each other haha.

but omfg tsym for the long beautiful ask you're so sweet omfgbsjdbasdkj id die for you 🍒 anon you da best pookies!

[dreadsuitsamus]

lately i feel very disconnected from my mutuals. like i'm only good for the content i put out, but rn i'm mainly just writing for bleach. several of my moots haven't experienced it (it's a big commitment, i understand that extremely well lmao finishing the anime is a labor of love) and the ones that have are likely into other things rn, such as jjk. i don't even find myself wanting to watch jjk for its story and experience as much as i just am ready to be able to connect with my mutuals again. i feel oddly separated from a lot of people. my dragon ball works lately haven't been getting much attention from me; i have several WIPs but the energy to write them isn't there. don't even get me started on the naruto stuff lmao i just feel weird lately. like i have expectations to read, write, answer asks and do requests and i only have a few free hours of my life that's not spent working and it's like i'm using those hours wrong. i'm always making someone unhappy. and those piece of shit anons i was getting; were they my mutuals venting out frustrations? ever since the one anon that accused me of not reading my mutual's fics came thru, i've had the feeling it was one of my moots lmao and can't imagine why they wouldn't just come talk to me rather than send me a shitty anon ask. bc why would some shitter care about that? shit had to be personal lmfao and i would much rather them just dm me with a giant fuck you than do that pussy shit.

this place was supposed to be fun

[ofmermaidstories]

I have something verse brain rot literally just thinking about any of them living their day to day lives 😭 today's brain rot star is kiri! I was wondering if you had any plans for a reader x kiri fic? Or even what that might look like? What sort of reader would it be? I feel like it'd be very easy to fall in love with kiri 😩 weeds had that same thought if I'm remembering correctly

Oh my gosh—I know I’ve blabbered on about this before, but like, originally Kiri was going to have a fic within the in another life verse!!! Him and Shinsou were going to round up the pack and I was going to call the series Five Lives (after my favourite Bleach quote LMFAO) and none of the fics were going to be connected—they were all true stand-alones.

this is a screenshot of my original notes when i first realised i wanted to write fics for this fandom LOL ldkfjsdlkfjsdj. you can kind of see where i like, ask myself questions? it’s almost like a stream of consciousness that i cut myself off with. But like, you can kinda see this with how Kiri’s Reader has two story ideas lmaoooo. I scrapped the Barista idea pretty early on because i had the much better, superior, idea of his Reader being a seamstress for the Tokyo Ballet!!! Especially considering I really liked the idea of giving Kiri a plus-sized Reader??? Like, I liked the juxtaposition of some one who maybe experienced a little insecurity in themselves for something visible—compared to a Pro Hero like Kirishima, who’s gone through that internally, like, you know what i mean?? And then I just made our Reader a ballet seamstress because ballet is PRETTY and the amount of fashion/costume porn I could’ve shoved in there…. *chef’s kiss*. Ugh. The swan metaphors???? I could’ve UNLEASHED! 🦢

Anyways, so why am I talking about this in past tense? Mostly because it’s not going to fit into what the in another life verse has morphed into, so now idk what to do with it. juggling three Y/Ns is enough of a test without trying to carry them over into two other stories (which is mostly why the IAL verse has been whittled down to three fics, instead of five). I want to do a Kiri and Shinsou fic—specially these ones, and they’re still on my personal list, it’s just given how unproductive I actually am with my fanfic writing (it’s ‘cause….. im lazy 😌) i just… idk, i worry, LOL. These ideas could work as one-shots but I know what people want out of a Kiri and Shinsou fic from me—they want length and adventure and romance. 🥺 and i wanna give that!!! it’s just………. gonna take us a bit of time to get there. 🥹 im slow. IM SLOW. 🐌🌿🌷 beep beep. 🚗

[rayshippouuchiha]

Ray,, I- ,,, holy fucking shit.

Ight, so it’s currently 3am and I just read a BNHA with a bleach infused AU where izuku is a substitute shinigami. It’s a relationship study between him and bakugo, but let me tell you, it really shows the effects of katsuki’s bullying and him being a shitty person but all the while being too late to even try and make amends. 

The fic, even with jt being a bleach AU it keeps elements from the bnha verse and - I’m sorry I’m rambling lmfao.

Anyways— fic rec vv

“Off-White” by ijustwanttodestroy

Ooohhh I'll have to check that out asap

[justjstuff]

BTS FIc Writing Asks: 1, 10, 12, 13, and 19! 💖💖💖

Hiya, Yossariandawn!!! Thank you for the asks, hon! <333 

1. What was the first fandom and/or pairing that you wrote fic for?

R: I already answered this one here! Basically, I first posted a fic in 2011 for the pairing HitsuKarin, from the Bleach fandom but I started writing a bit before that, mostly original short stories :)

10. Do you enjoy writing dialogue, exposition, or plot the most?

R: I actually enjoy writing all of it lmfao. I have more difficulty writing dialogue, tbh, but even then it mostly works out okay and I can have fun with it too haha But yeah, it’s the only thing that will give me pause while writing sometimes. 

12. Is there a trope you haven’t written yet but really want to?

R: Omg yes!!! I also already answered this here, but since the fic I was talking about is actually that SethKate one, I’ll just say it again xD Basically that fic will wander into Soulmates territory which is something I’ve always wanted to write. I actually still want to write that traditional, identifying marks trope for it but I’m glad that at least that one fic will kinda go into it a bit xD ALSO. I’ve never written enemies to lovers which is a goddamn tragedy so I might write one for SethKate hehe

13. Is there a trope you wouldn’t write if it was the last trope on earth?

R: Historical AUs are really not my thing and I’m kind of... meh on writing children. As in baby fics where the baby is more a toddler. I just don’t have a lot of contact with children and I feel like they always sound off when written so yeah, I rather avoid it xD Oh wait there’s a name for that, isn’t there? Kidfic??? Anyway, another thing I really would never write is incest lol sorry. What was the question again? xD

19. Who is the easiest/hardest character for you to write about? Why?

R: Oooh speaking of SethKate I just started to write for the fandom so I’m still not sure. Kate’s pretty easy to write but since I’m really not religious, it’s a bit of a struggle to remember to add that aspect to her character? Not in an obvious way but in her inner dialogue, kinda. Also, it’s hard to keep her from cursing lmfao I’m always saying any and all swear words so sometimes writing her dialogue at all is a bit of a struggle haha I think I might actually have an easier time writing for Seth even though I haven’t yet xD

- ask me a BTS Fic Writing question - 

[jameslovships]

I HAVE A BAD HABIT OF NOT FINISHING MY FAN FICS LMFAO

She sat rushed.

Almost aloof and not present as a clump of bleach blonde tendrils danced over her eye.

But that charismatic southern drawl didn't point to a woman afflicted but a woman who had mastered her many poker faces. Nobody in all of Wellsbury could vouch and say that Georgia Miller was a woman they knew, because in truth, Georgia didn't know herself.

Georgia wasn't even her name.

Mary.

She shuddered at the mere mention of that name that brought back memories of a childhood she had been desperate to forget.

She had gotten used to playing up to the southern belle that the town of Wellsbury knew her to be, and when to play it down.

The only one that had gotten close to unearthing who Georgia was... Joe at the rest stop all those years ago. His kindness had revitalised a woman plagued with both physical and emotional trauma and sparked a want to give Ginny the normality she never had.

It was a shame Joe hadn't yet put two and two together, that kindness got Georgia through the worst kind of days.

Dressed in plaid, Joe ambled in where Georgia's smile was brief as she plastered it with her usual southern drawl, "Hey"

In unison, Joe extended a warm hey back at Georgia but couldn't help but to notice how she didn't really seem like her usual chipper herself.

[touchmycoat]

I LOVE YOUR PORN AU!!!!! LIKE SO MUCH - and i'm just. if you don't mind me asking, how - the way you flesh out the characters, their motivations, and feelings in every scene in such an eloquent way, and just little things here and there, a habit or an activity that adds dimension to who they are, and - your prose is wonderful. you achieve this addictive, engrossing narrative space that readers just absolutely melt into, and i have to ask - how did you develop your writing style? 1/2

what books did you read that formatively shaped the way you write? or you know, what did you do to improve your writing? i'm so in awe of how you world-built and established the porn au - like lqg & hc being national taolu champions?? how do you come up with that stuff? i cannot comprehend the amount of research and effort that must've gone into porn au, and i'm just so deeply thankful that you decided to share that with us. i apologize if i'm coming on too strong, but wow. thank you 2/2

--

oh my god please don't apologize, when i saw your ask i rolled on the floor giggling hysterically for a solid 15 min, bless your heart

part of the answer to your question—i've taken like, 8 years' worth of creative writing classes/workshops! there was also a transnational literary component to my degree so whenever possible, i took literature classes fksjdfksd so whatever you see and like is definitely the result of a lot of work. My writing from not even 10 years ago but like, 5? horrid, ridiculous, wild, cringe. The Porn AU itself is the second draft of a MUCH more lackluster piece.

about my writing style. gosh, you really know how to make a writer blush. "I like your writing style" is literally an instant kill LMFAO okay okay, the useful answer: my primary criteria for choosing what to write is, don't be obvious, be interesting. Fiction tells us to show, not tell, right? Poetry is about concretizing the abstract. Screenwriting says cut all useless lines. A lot of writing rules and advice—never start with the weather, avoid detailed descriptions of the characters, don't use adverbs, etc.—are all really about this exact sentiment.

I once took a seminar on writing for horror movies. The golden rule of the horror genre is Never Show the Monster, because whatever the audience is imagining is always going to be scarier than what you actually show them. There are obviously exceptions to this (to all writing rules), but in my mind, it's all the same principle.

LONG answer under the cut

So you start with building a scene. I approach it like essay-writing—I state my thesis for the motivations/main propulsion of the plot. "In this scene, LQG and SY are motivated to save Cang Qiong's porn production, so they have sex on camera." Then you build the sub-motivations: "LQG is also doing this because he's pining after SY."

I learned this "thesis-writing" from theater, specifically from writing 10-min plays. Theater is all about characters being driven by their wants and needs, and the reason I say 10-min plays in particular is because longer forms of writing will give you more leeway, but in 10-min, you pretty much need your character motivations established from their very first line. That's why you need that very clear thesis for yourself—if you don't even know what the character wants from the get-go, then you can't establish who they are, what they want, and where they're going to go in a dynamic and interesting way.

So this thesis drives EVERYTHING that happens in your scene, just like an actual thesis for an essay, just like topic sentences for your paragraphs. Once I do this, I have the emotional direction & narrative scope of how much this scene will cover, I have a sense of where it begins and ends. "Begin with the dynamics of their sex. LQG starts showing signs of his feelings. Reveal LQG backstory for exactly what those feelings are and why he isn't telling SY. The rest of the scene implies that LQG's feelings may not be so unrequited, but also sets up the fundamental problem at the heart of the whole fic—SY's inability to comprehend his own feelings." This is kind of my new thesis now. They're having sex; LQG pines; SY doesn't know he himself is pining.

Now it's time to manifest. This is the "storytelling" part, and the hardest lmfao.

Personally, my approach is largely shaped by my very cool screenwriting teacher, who hammered into us: don't fucking waste lines. The Golden Rule of screenwriting is that every line should reveal something new. I found my old writing kind of repetitive, especially on the emotional front, so this is kind of my editing mantra now—is this line either propelling the story or revealing character? If it's revealing character, is it a revelation that has to happen right now, or is it slowing the momentum of the scene?

But these aren't rhetorical questions! "Momentum" doesn't just mean tumble forward as fast as you can, it also means taking the time to draw the bowstring back further, so your next move has even more propulsion. That's why you get the little "LQG has been in love with SY..." cut scene in the middle of the fucking (at least, that's my reasoning for putting it there). Every line has to bring a fresh revelation that "proves" your thesis further.

That brings me to the details. You said you like the details I inject into the world-building, and honestly that's so gratifying to hear, because that means I'm successfully manifesting my intentions, y'know? "Every line has to bring new info" kind of sounds like a tall order, but the most effective way I've seen it done in books and onstage/onscreen is with these hyper-specific details. If you're writing a scene in which someone feels dirty, never have them just say that—have them say they want to take a shower. Show them running out of bleach again as they scrub down the stall after they wash. Begin the scene like "Steve always washes his throat first now." Then pack the scene with even more revelatory details: "Soap in hand, he heard the pipes above his head groan for a half note on adagio, and readied himself for the blast of icy water that always followed." Shitty shower, probably not rich, is likely a classical musician.

By the same token, I want to build LQG's character. The "Liu Qingge has been in love with Shen Yuan" section is the first insight we get into his background and perspective, right, so: I need to establish LQG's emotional context for filming this scene -> I can characterize him as a nut for martial arts in the same stroke -> so this takes place at a gym, beating up sandbags is a classic way of showing manly emotional distress -> so give me more details on this gym -> Puqi Gym, XL the martial god is obviously the owner -> how do I have XL & LQG a relationship beyond gym owner & client? They spar together -> I want XL & HC's position in this AU to mirror their god/ghost king statuses in TGCF canon -> how can I concretize their fighting prowesses in real-world details? -> they're martial arts champions -> what's an actual competitive martial art form that involves weaponry? -> wushu -> wikipedia Wushu, find taolu weapons sparring

(I just realized that in my songxiao daycare AU, Hualian are Olympic gold medalists by the same narrative logic laksjdnflaksjdnflsd)

So, that's the flow of logic behind my world-building lmao. It's all in the details. Leverage is one of my all-time favorite TV shows and the way they build their stories is super inspiring. If their thesis is "the rich and powerful take what they want, we steal it back for you," they manifest it in the most specific and concrete narratives: mine workers who like the work but are fighting for workplace safety vs. the money-grubbing mine owner who will blow up their livelihoods if it means a bigger payday; the little girl from Iraq with refugee status forced to be an accomplice to antique smuggling vs. international smuggler with a fetish for British royalty.

Last pieces of writing advice I've gotten: pay attention to the real world. A writing exercise we did was just sit in a public spot and make concrete observations on our surroundings. There are stories in everything!!! I learned to observe things like weird holes in the concrete (earthquake? drilling accident? bullet mark?), odd patches of moss or bird shit (look overheard: it's an AC unit dripping water for the former and nesting swallows for the latter), ladies in flipflops walking alongside ladies in high heels (excited mother walking her antsy daughter to the bus for the daughter's first job interview—the daughter's shirt collar is unfashionable and she's taking the bus, so there's a good chance the shoes were passed down, maybe from an office lady aunt. Maybe she's even overdressed for the interview, so will her outfit be an unintended source of tension once she gets to the interview? Is it a group interview, to make the comparison more stark?).

Also, write what you know. You know why SY is a video editor in porn AU? Because I'm a video editor. One of my more popular MDZS fics is set in a plant shop 'cause I worked in a plant shop. SL was First AD in Bachelor!AU 'cause I was First AD on a set once. Concrete details like the editing software having a split-screen, always answering questions about how often to water plants, and being up until 3AM editing call-sheets are the ones that will fully immerse your readers.

And if you can't do the actual things, just watch someone who is, listen to them talk, pick up lingo, and fake it. I watched like a 15-min vox video on fencing for the fencing!AU and a 45-min music theory video on the hospital pianist!AU (also I started learning piano sklfjnlsdjlfkjsd). Of course, I just finished reading a wangxian fic that had me going, "holy fucking shit, the author is literally getting their masters in a music program" so my 45-min youtube video ain't shit, but if you just need a little bit of character establishment, then it's enough to do the trick.

Anyways, tl;dr. Find the details, find the tension. Never tell outright what the tension is supposed to be, manifest it instead. Make the manifestation as interesting as possible, and if it's meant to be funny, make it funnier.

Sorry this turned into a fucking lecture lskjnflskdjnflskd but last thing, someone asked me before if I had formative authors, and this was the list I wrote at the time:

Angels in America (play) by Tony Kushner

The God of Small Things (novel) by Arundhati Roy

The Penelopiad (novel) by Margaret Atwood

“Litany in Which Certain Things are Crossed Out” (poem) by Richard Siken

Night Sky with Exit Wounds (poetry) by Ocean Vuong

Giovanni’s Room (novel) by James Baldwin (and then Go Tell it on the Mountain and then his essays)

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

And, ooh, now that I have this list I think I can even roughly sort it as such: Kushner, Atwood, Siken, and Salinger I really latched onto for their dialogue and very present narrator voice—same is true for Go Tell it on the Mountain. Roy, Vuong, and Giovanni’s Room, I think, are texts more representative of the kind of saturated figurative language I like, and emulate. Of course they all do imagery and voice and overall structure amazingly, but that’s the rough dividing line I’d draw.

But yeah James Baldwin is my fucking hero.