#wow it feels weird to post a fanfic without an illustration

[recurring-polynya]

Hey, we made it through another week! Because I am your friend and I love you and @diademchiofthetripod​ told me that all RenRuki fans deserve nice things, here is a short and sweet little fanfic about Renji proposing very badly. Please enjoy. I have included AO3 and ff.net links for those who enjoy leaving comments, or you can just read it under the cut like an animal.

Any Proposal You Can Walk Away From | AO3 | ff.net |

Summary: Renji pops the question a day early... or possibly 40 years late.

Rating: The AO3 version is T for cussing. The ff.net version is cuss-free.

Rukia usually took Renji up to the hill on the Thirteenth Division that overlooked the training grounds whenever they wanted to do some chill outdoor boozing. Tonight, though, she had gone to the trouble of staking claim on the other hill, the one that had a romantic view of Ugendou Pond. It was especially romantic tonight, with the moon bright and full, reflecting silver in the pond's surface. A bit of fall chill had crept into the air, just perfect for snuggling up close to someone else (assuming you were bothered by cold, which Rukia was not, although she was not above pretending when snuggles were at stake).

They weren't snuggled together though, or groping each other, or engaging in an extremely competitive match of tonsil futsal, as they usually did these days whenever that could find a spare moment and a place that offered even the most tenuous veneer of privacy.

Instead, they sat side-by-side, silent, gazing out at the ripples of the lake, a little bit unsure of what to say to each other. They had already blasted through two bottles of sake, and were paused in a foggy, peaceful haze. Rukia reached out, and started groping around without looking down. Renji thought she was getting ready to crack open the third bottle, but instead, her hand found his, and settled gently atop it, her sword-roughened fingertips brushing gently over his own scarred knuckles. He looked down at their hands for a moment, thinking about how much he liked the way they looked together. His gaze traveled upward, only to find that she had turned her head and was looking at him now, eyes shiny with drunken affection.

Renji wasn't sure his heart had ever felt so full.

"How are you feeling about tomorrow?" Rukia asked gently.

Renji rolled out some of the stiffness in his neck. "Fine. I'm sure it will go fine."

Rukia, who had never fallen for his bullshit, not even once, quirked a smile at him. "Oh, yeah? Gonna go home and get a restful, full night's sleep after this?"

With that, Renji tackled her, rolling through the grass until they both lay on their sides, faces so close that they could each tell how terribly the other smelled like booze. "Who cares?" Renji declared. I'm gonna sleep so good when I have you in my arms again every night."

"Yeah," Rukia agreed, "I'm the one who's gonna be up all night listening to you snoring."

Renji buried his face in the join of her neck and shoulder, nipping at her collarbone. "I am not the one who snores and also, that's not what's gonna be keeping you up all night."

"Mmm," Rukia agreed, threading her fingers into his hair. "I can tell by the way you are trying to distract me that you are not fine about tomorrow."

"Is it working?" Renji mumbled.

Rukia disentangled her fingers from his hair and bopped him on the head. "It's a big fucking deal, you dummy, it's okay to be nervous about it."

Renji pushed himself up onto one elbow. "I'm not nervous . Your nervous-ass brother made me practice with him all afternoon, I can do my lines in my sleep."

"Buuuuuut?"

Renji sighed. "It's stupid."

Rukia lifted her head up to kiss his nose. "So what? Stupid or not, I'm your best friend, tell me."

Renji smiled fondly at her. "You are my best friend, so I guess I gotta." He sighed. "I dunno, I've been thinking about this moment for a long time. A really long time, actually. And I had sort of a plan, y'know, and some stuff I was gonna say, except that now there's a script and a bunch of people I don't even know are gonna be there…" He trailed off. "It's fine. It'll be nice. We'll be all dressed up and I'm much less likely to make a bonehead of myself, and of course, your brother will be there, as he somehow manages to be at all the important moments in our relationship--"

"Renji."

"--and if we get real lucky, there could be some drama, one of the Gotous flippin' their shit and throwing a vase at me or something--"

"Renji!" Rukia tried again to cut him off, although she was having trouble not laughing. "I get it. So why not just do it, y'know, now?"

Renji stared at her. "You want me to propose to you right here? Right now?"

"Sure, why not?" She gestured around. “We got, like… the moon. The lake. Very romantic, thank you, Rukia, you’re welcome, Renji.”

Renji ignored this. "Why not? 'Cause I'm utterly pasted, f'r one, and f'r two, if I ask you now, what am s'posed to do tomorrow when it's time to ask your brother for your hand all formally and shit?"

F'r one," Rukia shot back, "I think we've made some of our best relationship decisions while sauced. And f'r two, you can ask me again, you moron. No one has to know you've already scandalously elicited a promise from me before formally petitioning my Honored Brother."

"Wow, you made that sound kinda hot. Okay, okay, you've convinced me. Let's do this. You better say yes, or it's gonna break my heart, okay?"

"I told you weeks ago I would say yes! Get on with it!"

With a great deal of grunting and groaning, Renji heaved himself to his feet. He swayed for a few moments until the world stopped spinning, and then glared down at Rukia, still stretched out languorously on her side.

"Would you mind at least sittin' up for this, your Majesty?" he grumbled.

Rukia stretched as she sat up. "Would you rather I stood? You're kinda far away. I'm not sure I can hear you from down here."

Renji rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, if you don't mind. That's always the way it was in my head."

"I don't mind," Rukia replied kindly, and held out her hands, wiggling her fingers, so he could help her to her feet.

Renji paused, a thoughtful expression on his face. He seemed to have become distracted by the pleasant sensation of holding her hands in his.

"Everything all right?" Rukia nudged.

"Ah, uh, yeah. I just realized that, well, I wrote this with a certain game plan in mind, and then it got boogered up, and I didn't really… I mean, I wasn't sure when… or even if I was ever gonna get to do this, and it seemed like bad luck to be updatin' it all the time and,  well… it's kinda outta date."

"I am stupid drunk right now and I don't care," Rukia announced firmly. "Just hit me with it."

Renji nodded slowly, working himself up to it. "Okay. Okay. So, first of all imagine I'm dressed nice and I've just loaded you down with an inconveniently large bundle of flowers."

"Like your dress uniform?" Rukia asked hopefully. She was a great fan of Renji in his dress uniform.

"Oh, no, way shittier than that. We're talking back before I met Yumichika, I didn't have any taste then." He sucked his teeth. "Imagine I'm wearing something I borrowed from Kira."

"What, like, with your ankles and wrists hanging out?"

"Yes. Precisely." Gently, he placed her hands back at her sides before boldly putting his own on his hips and puffing out his chest. "Inuzuri Rukia!" he began.

"Oh, no," Rukia giggled.

"Inuzuri Rukia," Renji started again, furrowing his brows in mock crossness. "As of…" he thought for a moment, "Thirty-nine years and five months ago, I have passed the last of my exams, therefore completing the requirements for graduating with honors from Shin'oureijutsuin. Furthermore, I have been offered a position in the Fifth Division of the Gotei 13, under Captain Aizen Sousuke (I hear he's very nice.)"

Rukia clapped her hands over her mouth delightedly.

"I will be getting a salary of 50,000 kan per year," Renji continued, affecting a bit of nervousness. "It's not a lot, I know, and this dumb city is so expensive, but that doesn't count bounties for killing Hollows, and after a year, I'll be able to try for a seat, which pays a lot better."

"What do I care about your paycheck, you fool?" Rukia interrupted, her voice bristling with the defensive thorniness of her youth. "I'm gonna get a position in the Gotei, too, y'know. I can take care of myself."

Renji's eyes softened, and Rukia could tell it was real emotion, not just part of the act. "I know that. And it's not because you need it, it's just that I want to. The fact is, I've never had anything worth having before, but if I did, I would give it to you. All this work, I did it for you, Ru, because the only thing I want is to be able to give you the life you deserve." He took a deep breath and screwed up his face like he was about to do a terrible job casting a kidou. "I love you more than anything, Inuzuri Rukia, and I'm asking you if you'll marry me." Renji stood there for a moment, blinking, as if surprised that he had managed to get it out. Belatedly, he dropped to one knee and smiled hopefully at her. "Don't forget, you promised to say 'yes'," he muttered out of the side of his mouth.

Rukia rubbed her chin. "So, in this scenario, as envisioned, had you already told me at some point that you loved me? Or am I getting this all at once?"

"Oh, no," Renji clarified. "No lead-up. Going in cold. This is for the whole ball of wax, here."

"Ah, I see," Rukia grinned. "Well, on one hand, Abarai Renji, that proposal would probably work on the Rukia it was intended for. She would have beaten you about the head and shoulders before accepting, of course, but the fact is, you had her at 'an inconveniently large bundle of flowers.' "

Renji regarded her suspiciously. "Buuuuut…?"

"Buuuuuut," Rukia continued, "I'm an Acting Captain, now, partner. You're pretty cute, but I need someone who's going to be able to keep up with me."

"Well," Renji hedged. "Like I said, it's a little out of date. You wanna hear some of my more recent achievements? Would that help?"

"It's worth a try," Rukia shrugged. 

Renji pondered. "I did eventually get promoted to Sixteen Seat."

"Okay…" Rukia drew out. "Was that better or worse than that weenie Kira?"

"Ah, he was Seventeenth at the time!"

"And my archnemesis, Hinamori Momo?" Ruki raised an eyebrow.

Rukia and Momo had recently struck up an affected and extremely melodramatic rivalry. Renji was personally in favor of this, felt it did both of them good, very much enjoyed listening to Momo attempting to trashtalk the most foul-mouthed woman he knew, and did not, under any circumstances, want to be caught within 100 spirit miles of it. His eyes darted to the side nervously. "Er, uh… moving right along, when I transferred to the Eleventh, I made Twelfth Seat right away, much less prejudice against people who are balls at kidou over at the Eleventh."

"Did that entail a raise? Rukia asked archly.

"It did not," Renji replied, "The Eleventh pays garbage. But! I did get used to withstanding nauseating maelstroms of reiatsu without getting nosebleeds (very handy for hanging out with you) and also I learned the secrets of growing just really killer sideburns."

Rukia nodded along. "I am not gonna lie, I am way horny for your sideburns."

"Does that mean you'll marry me?" Renji asked hopefully. He wiggled his knee around a bit. "Gettin' kinda uncomfortable down here."

"Eh, you might want to switch knees. The thing is, I also have this brother… 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And mostly, his opinions are bad, just like, the worst opinions you've ever heard, but I do care that he likes the person I marry."

"Okay," Renji agreed amiably. "I'm very likeable, y'know. What kinda stuff is he into? Sunglasses? Futsal? Siiidebuuurns?" 

Rukia pursed her lips. "Mmm… more like… poetry? Reciting the provenance of furniture he owns? Lecturing people? Orchids, of course, but who doesn't?"

"What about…" Renji paused for dramatic effect, "devotion to Squad Six, excruciating attention to detail with regards to Gotei paperwork, and bankai?"

"You know, you really could've led with 'bankai' when I asked you to list your accomplishments."

Renji raised his eyebrows hopefully. "Is that a yes?"

"It's a yes to the question of does my brother love all those things. To be honest, you're very close on the other yes, almost there, but there's one more thing." Rukia rifled around in her sleeve and pulled out her phone.

"Rukia, may I remind you that it's eleven at night and also, you are stupid drunk?"

Rukia flapped her hand at him. "No, no, it's cool. It's probably daytime in the World of the Living."

"The time difference is nonlinear, you have no idea what ti--"

"Oi, Kurosaki! It’s Kuchiki Rukia. I need to talk to Inoue, but she doesn't have a spirit phone! Can you, like, call her on your pathetic human phone and hold your two phones up next to each other so that-- oh? Oh, she is? Yes, that would be great! Thank yoooouu, Ichigoooooo!" Rukia covered the mouthpiece with one hand. "Apparently, she's right there. Wait, why is she right there?" She removed her hand again. "Orihime! Hi! Yes, I'm great! Yes, also drunk! Look, I need to ask you something! Mm-hmm. Right. Look, you remember Abarai, right?" She leered at him.

Renji frowned back, offended.

"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, he's over here asking me to marry him, d'you think I should?"

A very loud, very high pitched noise came out of the phone's speaker, followed by a rapid stream of excited talking.

"Mm-hmm," Rukia would agree from time to time. "True, true."

"Be a pal and help a guy out!" Renji shouted, hoping Orihime could hear him. "I'll let y'ride on my bankai next time you're in town!"

Rukia scowled. "You fool," she hissed. "Orihime is incorruptible."

The words "-- ride on Zabimaru!! " very clearly echoed out of Rukia's phone.

Renji waggled his eyebrows triumphantly.

Rukia listened for several minutes more, and finally said, "Okay. Okay, I will. Look, do me a solid, will you, 'Hime? It's not official until tomorrow, y'know, Kuchiki bullshit and all, so don't tell anyone yet, okay? Nope, not even Ichigo. He can think what he likes, just deny everything. I'll see if I can scam some daypasses and we'll come visit this weekend, okay? Tell everyone all official-like? Yup, love you, too, thanks for the advice!" Rukia flipped her phone shut. "Well," she said firmly.

"Yee-essss?" Renji sighed, raising his eyebrows hopefully.

"Apparently the most perfect person in all planes of existence thinks you are 'the best' and says if that if I turn you down, I am a 'huge dumbo.'" 

"Ouch," Renji sympathized.

Rukia took a step closer to him, and took his face in her hands. "Fortunately, there is no danger of that. Yes. Yes, I will marry you, Abarai Renji, because you are the best and I love you with all of my heart. I don't care how many bankais you have or which squad you're in and I would marry you even if we had to move back to Inuzuri and get good at stealing water again."

Renji jumped to his feet, scooping Rukia into his arms on the way by. “No backsies,” he murmured before kissing her soundly.

“No backsies,” she agreed, ruffling his hair. “Feel better now? Was it everything you hoped and dreamed?”

“It went so good,” he grinned. “Wow, that went so much better than it ever went in my head.”

“I am suddenly no longer comforted by your confidence in tomorrow,” Rukia replied dryly.

“Tomorrow’s gonna go great,” Renji assured her. “I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? We cause a huge rift in the most powerful family in Soul Society? My Third Seat, who derives all of his power from petty spite, discovers his bankai? The rest of us go to bankai, we destroy a bunch of buildings, get banished from the Seireitei? We have to teach your brother how to survive on the outskirts of the Rukon?” He pressed his nose against hers. “Who cares? You just said ‘no backsies’, what else could possibly matter?”

“You’re the worst,” Rukia mumbled, having lost interest in everything that wasn’t kissing him.

“And now you’re stuck with me,” he confirmed, and gave her what she wanted.

~end

[mittensmorgul]

OMG. California scenes. I'm a SoCal girl and I just realized that this... is true. I think of myself as guarded, but wow. I think I've actually sat down and opened up to a relative stranger over lunch and then coffee. But I don't do it to seem centered! Anyway, gotta go back and look over my unpublished fics and make sure that I don't accidentally put too much of myself into them...

hi there! I swear I’m gonna write a bit about your message, but for reference, for others reading this, I think I need to provide a bit of context first. :) This is regarding this post about writing exposition:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/190756281185/cthonical-gallifrey-feels-fanfic-authors

Disclaimer time! I reblogged it specifically for that highlighted bit at the top:

And my specific intent in reblogging this was every complaint I ever read about why Dean and Cas don’t just ~talk to each other~ and deal with their issues. Every single “but they could’ve dealt with this years ago and been together!” I will counter “No, they really couldn’t! Because that’s not the story they’ve ever been telling!” 

But, I’ve heard argued, if they really wanted to, they could change the story they’re telling. They could so easily make it obvious, explicit, textual between them. And of course they could! If they had zero authorial integrity, they could do whatever they wanted.

The way they have set up this story for the last decade and a half has established-- through the slow unfolding of more and more important facts, of gradually uncovering details, as above in purple, that become necessary for comprehension of the characters and their progression through this story-- that Dean’s relationship with Cas has been established in an ever tighter orbit around their mutual most deeply buried and tightly guarded secrets.

For reference, I’m not pulling this line of thinking out of nowhere. This is literally a rephrasing of something Davy Perez said in an interview when he first started with SPN back in s12. I never finished transcribing that podcast, but the relevant bit of the two hour conversation is included in this post:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160988290690/12-while-i-do-not-ask-this-to-be-negative-at

but the tl;dr of the handful of paragraphs of full context from that post:

Television is about a character that you become invested in, and that you fall in love with. That character grows in incremental ways. Not only do they grow in tiny little increments, and sometimes don’t even grow, they go backwards. You don’t close the loop. You keep the loop open, so that hopefully when you know that okay, this is our final season, this is our final run of episodes, that’s when you can find those landing points, and that’s when you can sort of say this is the end of this journey.

And Supernatural has been narratively riding around on that loop, on that spiral, for 15 years. And this is now the final season, and they’re gliding toward those landing points now. They’re homing in on those “painful truths the characters don’t want known,” those huge personal issues they’ve all been grinding down over the last 15 years and inching ever closer to unveiling. Because that’s how stories work when authors are writing to the narrative rather than writing instant gratification for a fickle audience. If one thing has been consistent over the years, it has been this progression of character. And Dabb era has chosen to lampshade all of this in text, through Chuck the Original Author.

And that is effectively the exact writing advice from this random post about how to write a believable and engaging story that has been all over my dash over the last few days. Like... the irony, right?

So now that I’ve explained my vagueing with this post, I’d be happy to address your actual question, from the rest of that page of writing advice. Thank you for bearing with me... :’D

I’d venture to say that the description of that sort of “identity info dump” that the article described as “California scenes,” where characters just spill their deepest secrets, isn’t always a negative thing. And it’s not a phenomenon exclusive to California, or borne of a need to prove someone’s authenticity, or angst cred, or whatever. Because it’s something we see happening on the internet, too.

And it’s absolutely something you can USE in your writing. I find it hilarious because it’s actually a major theme of my pinefest fic this year, which will be posting in April. Sorry I can’t point everyone to it yet, or really give too many spoilers... other than trying to explain this phenomenon.

Social media creates a weird sort of culture of identity. There was a post on tumblr years ago that explained it rather well. It said something to the effect of “in real life you meet people and slowly feel them out and reveal your deepest secrets only to a select few people after they already know your whole life story, but on the internet you’re just a screen name and an avatar and you might reveal your deepest secrets without any of the people who read them even knowing your NAME or what you look like or anything else about you.”

Because it’s not about complete open honesty, you know? It’s about understanding what carefully selected bits of information you present in a given circumstance. It’s social engineering.

Revealing your deepest desires or darkest secrets is an entirely different prospect when, say, sitting with a new acquaintance over a cup of coffee face to face or with a coworker in the break room than it is in an anonymous internet chat room. And it can be fascinating to understand what we’re willing to reveal about ourselves in these very different circumstances.

And once you sort through that sort of character analysis, you can write a truly believable and entirely in-character info dump like that without it feeling like an info dump. Because what the character chooses to reveal about themselves in a given situation can be as informative of the character and their relationship to the other characters as the details of what they say.

So, I guess the takeaway here is the reminder that you should still take all writing advice with a grain of salt, and remember that it’s not a blanket rule and all these “California scenes” should be excised in order for your story to be good, you know? If you know your characters well enough, they can be strategic moments of character insight, or even a complete misdirect. The key is to be aware you’re writing one, and then use it to illustrate a character’s weakness, or strength, or the dynamic of the relationship being exposed, rather than being a strict infodump of facts. Because infodumps are always boring if that’s actually the scene you’re writing and there isn’t a deeper layer of understanding going on or a deeper insight for the reader to gain.

Lol, this reminds me of another quote about writing that’s perfectly related:

“If the story you’re telling, is the story you’re telling, you’re in deep shit.” Robert McKee

If the only thing the reader takes from a scene is the words coming out of the characters’ mouths, you done screwed up... That’s why so many of these California scenes are just bad writing. They serve no other purpose than telling the reader a series of details about the characters’ backstories and fail to provide any deeper insight. The key to writing a GOOD scene is make it less a backstory catch-up bit of filler text, and more about what the characters aren’t revealing, or why they’re revealing any of this information in the first place. Because “to inform the reader of these facts” is never a good enough reason for a character to spill their guts like that.