So For Over A Month And A Half I’ve Been Told In My Creative Writing MA Class That My Writing Is Too

why is biopunk only ever used as horror? Where’s the biopunk equivalent of cyberpunk edgerunners? Give me a Sci fi setting with dungeon meshi style chimeric modifications as a primary worldbuilding mechanic.

extra arms, giant monster body from the waist down… go to a sketchy grafting parlor and get some budget bioelectricity organs that give you Lichtenberg burns every time you use them. Give me a character that wears a mask for half the story and then reveals that they’ve got three rows of teeth, six tongues, and heavily paralytic saliva.

I don’t know, maybe Tumblr User Heron Knight Georg, who repeatedly fantasizes about molting like a cicada, gets gender envy from bloodborne bosses, and thinks that the Bone Turner’s Tale would be the perfect summer read, is an outlier and should not have been counted, but I know what website I’m on. I know just how gender affirming having six arms or feathers instead of body hair would be for most of the people here.

I think there’s some potential here if biopunk is used for more than scorn-level H.R Giger dystopian shenanigans. Give me biopunk 2077.

turning into a dragon really helps in every situation

missed ur flight? dragon. insecure about how powerless you feel? dragon. want to protect the people you love? dragon. just want to be left alone? dragon. become a dragon. you want a hot dog but the power's out and a cold hot dog grosses you out? turn into a dragon and heat that shit up. want girls to be scared of you? dragon. want girls to be really inexplicably horny for you? strangely also dragon. want girls to scritch behind your horns and call you pretty when you start purring? dragon.

it will help you. become a dragon

Day X

"Alright class, welcome to your first day of Melee 101! Now a lot of you are probably wondering why this class is mandatory. After all, you're here to learn magic, not hand-to-hand combat. The thing is, though, you can't rely on magic. In certain fields, it works unpredictably, necessitating use of other methods.

"In this room, there is a field which nullifies all magic. Go ahead, try it."

The students all tried, quickly getting frustrated. Dale twirled a knife between his fingers for a few moments until only the most determined of students were still trying.

"You can stop now. I think my point has been proven. Magic, in this room, is nullified. Now! Let's say you're out adventuring and you come across a dungeon. Before you know it, you're surrounded by kobolds. Dozens of them. They have little spears, no longer than your arm, and they don't seem particularly hostile. What do you do?"

A student raised her hand.

"Aris."

"Shoot fire at them! Burn the spears!"

"Great choice! But say you try that and it doesn't work.

You teach at a magic school, but you do not teach any magic. In fact, you are not even a mage. Yet your classes are among the few that every student has to take, no matter what kind of magic they are studying.

reblog if you’re okay with people writing fanfics of your fanfics and/or fanfics inspired by your fanfics

How I learned to write smarter, not harder

(aka, how to write when you're hella ADHD lol)

A reader commented on my current long fic asking how I write so well. I replied with an essay of my honestly pretty non-standard writing advice (that they probably didn't actually want lol) Now I'm gonna share it with you guys and hopefully there's a few of you out there who will benefit from my past mistakes and find some useful advice in here. XD Since I started doing this stuff, which are all pretty easy changes to absorb into your process if you want to try them, I now almost never get writer's block.

The text of the original reply is indented, and I've added some additional commentary to expand upon and clarify some of the concepts.

As for writing well, I usually attribute it to the fact that I spent roughly four years in my late teens/early 20s writing text roleplay with a friend for hours every single day. Aside from the constant practice that provided, having a live audience immediately reacting to everything I wrote made me think a lot about how to make as many sentences as possible have maximum impact so that I could get that kind of fun reaction. (Which is another reason why comments like yours are so valuable to fanfic writers! <3) The other factors that have improved my writing are thus: 1. Writing nonlinearly. I used to write a whole story in order, from the first sentence onward. If there was a part I was excited to write, I slogged through everything to get there, thinking that it would be my reward once I finished everything that led up to that. It never worked. XD It was miserable. By the time I got to the part I wanted to write, I had beaten the scene to death in my head imagining all the ways I could write it, and it a) no longer interested me and b) could not live up to my expectations because I couldn't remember all my ideas I'd had for writing it. The scene came out mediocre and so did everything leading up to it. Since then, I learned through working on VN writing (I co-own a game studio and we have some visual novels that I write for) that I don't have to write linearly. If I'm inspired to write a scene, I just write it immediately. It usually comes out pretty good even in a first draft! But then I also have it for if I get more ideas for that scene later, and I can just edit them in. The scenes come out MUCH stronger because of this. And you know what else I discovered? Those scenes I slogged through before weren't scenes I had no inspiration for, I just didn't have any inspiration for them in that moment! I can't tell you how many times there was a scene I had no interest in writing, and then a week later I'd get struck by the perfect inspiration for it! Those are scenes I would have done a very mediocre job on, and now they can be some of the most powerful scenes because I gave them time to marinate. Inspiration isn't always linear, so writing doesn't have to be either!

Some people are the type that joyfully write linearly. I have a friend like this--she picks up the characters and just continues playing out the next scene. Her story progresses through the entire day-by-day lives of the characters; it never timeskips more than a few hours. She started writing and posting just eight months ago, she's about an eighth of the way through her planned fic timeline, and the content she has so far posted to AO3 for it is already 450,000 words long. But most of us are normal humans. We're not, for the most part, wired to create linearly. We consume linearly, we experience linearly, so we assume we must also create linearly. But actually, a lot of us really suffer from trying to force ourselves to create this way, and we might not even realize it. If you're the kind of person who thinks you need to carrot-on-a-stick yourself into writing by saving the fun part for when you finally write everything that happens before it: Stop. You're probably not a linear writer. You're making yourself suffer for no reason and your writing is probably suffering for it. At least give nonlinear writing a try before you assume you can't write if you're not baiting or forcing yourself into it!! Remember: Writing is fun. You do this because it's fun, because it's your hobby. If you're miserable 80% of the time you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong!

2. Rereading my own work. I used to hate reading my own work. I wouldn't even edit it usually. I would write it and slap it online and try not to look at it again. XD Writing nonlinearly forced me to start rereading because I needed to make sure scenes connected together naturally and it also made it easier to get into the headspace of the story to keep writing and fill in the blanks and get new inspiration. Doing this built the editing process into my writing process--I would read a scene to get back in the headspace, dislike what I had written, and just clean it up on the fly. I still never ever sit down to 'edit' my work. I just reread it to prep for writing and it ends up editing itself. Many many scenes in this fic I have read probably a dozen times or more! (And now, I can actually reread my own work for enjoyment!) Another thing I found from doing this that it became easy to see patterns and themes in my work and strengthen them. Foreshadowing became easy. Setting up for jokes or plot points became easy. I didn't have to plan out my story in advance or write an outline, because the scenes themselves because a sort of living outline on their own. (Yes, despite all the foreshadowing and recurring thematic elements and secret hidden meanings sprinkled throughout this story, it actually never had an outline or a plan for any of that. It's all a natural byproduct of writing nonlinearly and rereading.)

Unpopular writing opinion time: You don't need to make a detailed outline.

Some people thrive on having an outline and planning out every detail before they sit down to write. But I know for a lot of us, we don't know how to write an outline or how to use it once we've written it. The idea of making one is daunting, and the advice that it's the only way to write or beat writer's block is demoralizing. So let me explain how I approach "outlining" which isn't really outlining at all.

I write in a Notion table, where every scene is a separate table entry and the scene is written in the page inside that entry. I do this because it makes writing nonlinearly VASTLY more intuitive and straightforward than writing in a single document. (If you're familiar with Notion, this probably makes perfect sense to you. If you're not, imagine something a little like a more contained Google Sheets, but every row has a title cell that opens into a unique Google Doc when you click on it. And it's not as slow and clunky as the Google suite lol) (Edit from the future: I answered an ask with more explanation on how I use Notion for non-linear writing here.) When I sit down to begin a new fic idea, I make a quick entry in the table for every scene I already know I'll want or need, with the entries titled with a couple words or a sentence that describes what will be in that scene so I'll remember it later. Basically, it's the most absolute bare-bones skeleton of what I vaguely know will probably happen in the story.

Then I start writing, wherever I want in the list. As I write, ideas for new scenes and new connections and themes will emerge over time, and I'll just slot them in between the original entries wherever they naturally fit, rearranging as necessary, so that I won't forget about them later when I'm ready to write them. As an example, my current long fic started with a list of roughly 35 scenes that I knew I wanted or needed, for a fic that will probably be around 100k words (which I didn't know at the time haha). As of this writing, it has expanded to 129 scenes. And since I write them directly in the page entries for the table, the fic is actually its own outline, without any additional effort on my part. As I said in the comment reply--a living outline!

This also made it easier to let go of the notion that I had to write something exactly right the first time. (People always say you should do this, but how many of us do? It's harder than it sounds! I didn't want to commit to editing later! I didn't want to reread my work! XD) I know I'm going to edit it naturally anyway, so I can feel okay giving myself permission to just write it approximately right and I can fix it later. And what I found from that was that sometimes what I believed was kind of meh when I wrote it was actually totally fine when I read it later! Sometimes the internal critic is actually wrong. 3. Marinating in the headspace of the story. For the first two months I worked on [fic], I did not consume any media other than [fandom the fic is in]. I didn't watch, read, or play anything else. Not even mobile games. (And there wasn't really much fan content for [fandom] to consume either. Still isn't, really. XD) This basically forced me to treat writing my story as my only source of entertainment, and kept me from getting distracted or inspired to write other ideas and abandon this one.

As an aside, I don't think this is a necessary step for writing, but if you really want to be productive in a short burst, I do highly recommend going on a media consumption hiatus. Not forever, obviously! Consuming media is a valuable tool for new inspiration, and reading other's work (both good and bad, as long as you think critically to identify the differences!) is an invaluable resource for improving your writing.

When I write, I usually lay down, close my eyes, and play the scene I'm interested in writing in my head. I even take a ten-minute nap now and then during this process. (I find being in a state of partial drowsiness, but not outright sleepiness, makes writing easier and better. Sleep helps the brain process and make connections!) Then I roll over to the laptop next to me and type up whatever I felt like worked for the scene. This may mean I write half a sentence at a time between intervals of closed-eye-time XD

People always say if you're stuck, you need to outline.

What they actually mean by that (whether they realize it or not) is that if you're stuck, you need to brainstorm. You need to marinate. You don't need to plan what you're doing, you just need to give yourself time to think about it!

What's another framing for brainstorming for your fic? Fantasizing about it! Planning is work, but fantasizing isn't.

You're already fantasizing about it, right? That's why you're writing it. Just direct that effort toward the scenes you're trying to write next! Close your eyes, lay back, and fantasize what the characters do and how they react.

And then quickly note down your inspirations so you don't forget, haha.

And if a scene is so boring to you that even fantasizing about it sucks--it's probably a bad scene.

If it's boring to write, it's going to be boring to read. Ask yourself why you wanted that scene. Is it even necessary? Can you cut it? Can you replace it with a different scene that serves the same purpose but approaches the problem from a different angle? If you can't remove the troublesome scene, what can you change about it that would make it interesting or exciting for you to write?

And I can't write sitting up to save my damn life. It's like my brain just stops working if I have to sit in a chair and stare at a computer screen. I need to be able to lie down, even if I don't use it! Talking walks and swinging in a hammock are also fantastic places to get scene ideas worked out, because the rhythmic motion also helps our brain process. It's just a little harder to work on a laptop in those scenarios. XD

In conclusion: Writing nonlinearly is an amazing tool for kicking writer's block to the curb. There's almost always some scene you'll want to write. If there isn't, you need to re-read or marinate.

Or you need to use the bathroom, eat something, or sleep. XD Seriously, if you're that stuck, assess your current physical condition. You might just be unable to focus because you're uncomfortable and you haven't realized it yet.

Anyway! I hope that was helpful, or at least interesting! XD Sorry again for the text wall. (I think this is the longest comment reply I've ever written!)

And same to you guys on tumblr--I hope this was helpful or at least interesting. XD Reblogs appreciated if so! (Maybe it'll help someone else!)

Tw: mention of past abuse

something at will always hit me like a bat is when the super happy sunshine character has a horrible whumpy past! Whumpee began smiling when they saw their friend. "Hey dude! What's on the agenda for today?"

"We only have one guy to interrogate," A explained as they glanced at their clipboard. "Everyone is already inside."

A led whumpee through the rows of cells. They tried not to look at the people inside. They tended to ignore anything that could dampen their smile. Whumpee's eyes were drawn to the cell their friends surrounded.

"Who's..." whumpee froze as they saw the figure in the cell. It was all too familiar.

Leader didn't notice whumpee stiffen. "Our guy today is Whumper LastName. Accused of multiple accounts of kidnapping, torture, abuse... all kinds of stuff like that. Boss wants us to get locations. They think there could still be more captives." They turned to whumpee, unsettled by their silence. "Whumpee, what's up?"

whumpee realized they had been staring at whumper. "Nothing!" They smiled at leader.

"wait,"

Whumpee jumped at the sound of whumpee's voice.

"Whumpee? As in Whumpee LastName?" They chuckled.

"whumpee? Do you know this guy?" B asked.

"no?" Whumpee laughed, clearly over compensating. "I've never seen this dude before,"

"Are you sure? That would actually be really helpful for this case," Leader offered.

"nope! I've never met someone named whumper,"

"Come on now whumpee," whumper rose from the bed they were sitting on. "You can't forget this face. I certainly can remember your screams well,"

"Whumpee? What are they talking about?"

"nothing! Just them trying to mess with us. Don't listen to them." Whumpee looked around for something to distract everyone with.

"whumpee, you're shaking," B reached out to touch whumpee's should but they flinched and jumped away.

Oh god. Everything they've worked for. They've perfectly crafted this personality, and now whumper is going to destroy their life a second time.

"I used to know whumpee really well. I always wondered what happened to them after they escaped." Whumper smiled, as if thinking of a fond memory. (which wasn't too far from the truth) "I remember how well whumpee took whumper 2's beatings. I particularly liked their screams when I whipped them."

"Shut up!" Whumpee yelled. They hadn't noticed the tears falling down their face.

"Oh! How's whumpee 2?"

"You disgusting bastard! You killed them and you know it. How!? How is someone so sick and twisted as you?!" Whumpee stopped and looked at their friends and regretted it. They stood with shocked and worried faces. Fuck, whumpee really fucked everything up again.

I just think people write out of obligation too often.

"How do I motivate myself to write through the boring part of my story?"

"How do I make this boring scene not boring?"

Don't write it.

Don't write boring things just because you think the structure of the story demands it. I promise it doesn't need to be there.

If your characters need to have gone shopping for a later part of the story to make sense you can just have a sentence about how they went shopping and move on.

You are not obligated to write the boring parts. No matter what those parts are.

You are not obligated to make the parts of your story that you're not excited to write interesting somehow.

You can just write the fun and interesting parts and gloss over and summarize boring things.

Your audience will thank you and you will thank yourself.

"You can't believe that you will actually make a difference. You're just one person."

"And a snowflake is just one. And a pebble is just one. But a pebble thrown leads to a rock, a stone, a boulder. A snowflake can easily be the difference between a snow mound and an avalanche. Y'see, it's not about one. One is often too little. It's about one more. One more rock, one more snowflake, one more drop, one more person.

Writing Prompt #2948

"You don't believe you can actually make a difference. You're one person."

"The funny thing is that when just one person starts to act, you find a whole lot more than one person who feels the same way. Maybe I don't get anything done myself. Maybe I'm wasting my time. But I'm willing to try."

love me a classic enemies to lovers prompt but instead of them going all lovey dovey for each other, the “lover” phrase isn’t explicitly stated in the sense that they didn’t kiss or confess, as far as they and everybody else knows, they are enemies. but the love, the possessiveness and the protective are there in the sense that if one of them gets hurt, the other will stop at nothing until they find and rescue their own archenemy and nurse them back to health. and instead of pain and violence that used to be the only things they share with each other, this time it’s gentleness a character gives his own wounded enemy. because yes, that’s my enemy. mine. and he’s hurting. I must fix this. I must burn the world down and kill every single one who dares to touch my enemy. and then I must make sure he’s okay. because he’s my enemy and he’s hurting. I must take care of him. I must be gentle, even if gentleness comes as a struggle to me; for the only I know is violence. I must still be gentle with him because right now he’s wounded and scared. I must make sure he’s safe and okay. I must be gentle for him. I must.

— also check out this fic with this prompt here

Day V

My take on this:

"I'll be your waitress tonight. My name is Dorian. So, what can I start you two off with?"

Zené held his tongue as Marie ordered water and a glass of chardonnay. Zené just ordered a water, wanting Dorian to leave as quickly as possible. Dorian was Spike, a villain who liked to make his life miserable, coming up with some plan or another or just stealing something from the Embassy. He wasn't supposed to know her secret identity. It wasn't in her file. But he did. She wasn't supposed to know his. He was a hero. But she did.

"It looked like you knew that waitress. Who is she?"

"Just, uh, somebody I see sometimes. I come here, she waits my tables, she comes to the junkyard, says hi as she drops off some scraps or something."

"Oh, what do you do?"

"Um... Crusher operator at the junkyard. Half the time I'm rescuing perfectly good cars from people who think a dent's worth trashing 30+ thousand dollars of first car material. I'm also the unofficial salesman. Cheapskate parents'll come to the junkyard to buy some clunker, I sell a beauty of a '97 Camaro for $2,000. Half the time when it comes back, it's totaled. Fun times."

"Oh, that's nice."

"Yeah."

Dorian came back with menus and the drinks, then promptly left. Zené looked at the menu, so it wouldn't seem so awkward for Marie even though he already knew what he wanted.

"What do you recommend, Zené? I've never really been to a fancy restaurant."

"Oh. Well my go to is alfredo, either chicken or shrimp, or a well-done t-bone or sirloin. Expensive, but worth the convenience."

"Hmm." Marie flipped through the menu, locating the items he mentioned, rocking her head back and forth trying to decide. "I think I'll go sirloin with the special on the side"

"That's a great choice. Their specials are always amazing." About 15 minutes later, Dorian came back.

"Y'all know whatcha want?"

"Yeah. What's the special today?" Marie asked.

"We have chili soup and we have Naomi's Concoction, basically an alfredo casserole."

"Oooh. I'll have a side of, what was it, Naomi's Concoction? with a sirloin medium-well."

"Alright, medium-well. And for you, sir?"

"Chicken and shrimp alfredo, all in one, with a side of the chili special."

"Alright! Comin' right up."

Dorian walked off with a mischievous pep in her step. Zené noticed and sighed. Yet another date to-be-crashed. Just great. The only thing to do now was wait. Dorian never crashed his dates the same way twice. The first one was a simple case of bullying. Dorian came to the cafe as a "friend", making fun of everything the girl did. Another was an assassination as he walked the girl home. There were a few others, but each time Dorian was behind it and each time she made sure Zené knew.

Innocently, she brought the food to the table after about 20 minutes, the average time it took any amount of food to be made at The Golden Goose.

Zené dug in. He refused to stress out over what could be when he had no proof. Instead, he wanted to get it over with and he wanted to enjoy himself.

Dorian came by a couple times, as any good waitress should, not carrying any poisons or venoms on her. Marie commented on how good the food was and Dixie smiled politely.

Zené and Marie finished eating and sat back, full. Before long, Marie excused herself to go to the bathroom and that's when Dorian's plan sprang into action. She has planned it thoroughly, and was able to get her shift ended then. She changed into her normal clothes and sat where Marie was sitting, across from Zené.

"What're you doing? Aren't you on the clock?" Zené hissed.

"Nope, just got off. Works when you own the company."

"What-? You own this?"

"Yeah. How do you think I fund my villainy?"

Zené opened his mouth to respond, then closed it, nodding in acceptance.

"That girl. Marie. You'd really choose her over me?"

"Uh, yeah. You're a villain. I'm a hero. There's a big difference between us. I'm not gonna get with somebody who I'm gonna have to fight in the morning."

"Y'know, you wouldn't have to if we were married."

"No. And you know why."

"Let me guess: morality?"

"Precisely."

"Well, then it would be a shame if I stole you from your date, wouldn't it?"

Zené's brow furrowed. "What do you mean by that?"

"You know what I mean. So don't try to deny it. I know your nature. And I will use it to my advantage every time."

Marie came out of the bathroom and took stock of what she saw before launching into a tirade.

"Get out of my seat. That boy is mine. And if I see you with him again, I just might do something you'll regret."

"Oh really?" Dorian hummed, chuckling, "You'll do something I'll regret? I would love to see that." She slinked around the table and latched onto Zené's arm, who, with a miserable attempt, tried to get her off. Tried to get away. But she held fast and kept him anchored to the spot.

Marie threw a punch and Zené sighed. No civilian had the prowess to be a villain of Dorian's caliber.

Dorian caught Marie's arm and pressed her to the table calmly, yet firmly. She handed the half-empty bottle of chardonnay to Dixie, who took a swig, then said, "I get what I want no matter what, so I recommend you don't make this any bigger of a scene than it already is and leave. Let me have my man, and you can take whoever else you want." She let Marie go, who sulked out of there, and the rest of the patrons clapped at how decisively and quietly it was handled. Dorian bowed, then took Zené by the hand and left.

The next day, Zené went about his day like nothing had happened. Until he was summoned, privately of course, by Dorian. Well, by Spike. So he went in as Generator.

"What do you want?"

"Nothing, really. I've just noticed that your dates have looked more and more like me lately. Is that on purpose?" Generator thought about it. It hadn't been on purpose. But when your type is tall chubby hourglass goth, you look for that more than anything else. Generator set his jaw, annoyed by her accuracy.

"You can't just keep crashing my dates!" Generator blurted.

"Well, I mean, I keep doing it, so "can't" I don't think, is the operative word here." Generator scoffed.

"Stop crashing my dates."

"Oh, you don't go on them looking for a version of me that'll fit your moral code? Someone who looks like me and acts like me and who's similar enough that you can mold to be me without it being me?"

"...No."

"You don't want me to just claim you right then and there, pinning you to the table so we get removed and I take you to my place and we continue where we left off?"

"N-No."

"Oh. Then I'll stop."

"Wh-What?"

"I'll stop crashing your dates and flirting with you and we can go back to our hero/villain relationship while you find someone to marry. That's what you want, right? Of course, you could always say please."

"Say please?"

"Yeah. Say please and I'll pin you to the wall, kiss you breathless, and screw your pretty little brains into oblivion." Spike closed the gap, pouring two glasses of strawberry wine on her way. She offered one glass and Generator took it, taking a sip. It was good. Spike downed her glass, then set it on a nearby table. She advanced and Generator found his back hit a wall abnormally quickly. He took another sip of the wine.

"Just say you don't want this. It's that simple."

"No," Generator whispered. His nature made lying nearly impossible. It caused him to shake, like he was high or something. All that fixed it was the truth. Now, he could fool a lie detector and he could worm his way around the shaking, but he preferred not to lie.

The wine glass started to shudder, threatening to spill. He took another sip. Spike took the drink from him and set it on the table before settling her hand on the wall by his left shoulder. Generator knew one way to fix the shaking that was threatening to erupt out of him.

"Please~" he gasped, eyes unfocused as a wicked grin grew on Spike's face. She kissed him and he melted into it, supporting himself with her shoulder. She pressed him into the wall and got started on a hickey while he moaned and shuddered as the need overwhelmed him.

From then on, the only dates were with her in her office or her house.

Hi! Absolutely love your writing :) Would you be willing to do a enemies to lovers but with hero x villain? Maybe with like a controlling villain and the hero secretly likes it but is defiant externally? Sorry idk if that made sense lol

Thank you in advance though if you're able to!

"You can't just keep crashing my dates."

The villain glanced over their shoulder, raising an eyebrow in a mimicry of an emotion that didn't quite reach their eyes. "No?"

"No." The hero stalked closer, stopping in front of the villain, in time for them to turn. "I'm not yours."

"No?"

"No!" The hero's heart gave a little skip, at the possibility that the villain would then look at them and then say (in a growl, or devastatingly matter-of-fact, or in a teasing purr) 'yes, you are' or 'you're most certainly mine'. The villain had done it before.

The villain tilted their head, offering the hero one of the two glasses of wine they had just poured.

The hero took it, anticipating.

The villain didn't say anything, simply watching them as they took a steady sip.

The hero's face burned but they refused, stubbornly, to look away.

The villain set their glass down on the counter behind them. No rush.

The hero imagined the villain grabbing them, kissing them, as they had done before too. Twirling them, glass flying and wine sloshing, and pressing them up against the nearest flat surface. They would change every no to yes and please and more.

They both knew the routine, the dance of it. It didn't need saying.

"Your dates look increasingly like me," the villain murmured. "Have you noticed?" Their hands stayed, agonisingly, at their sides, as they leaned lazy against the counter.

The hero blinked, not expecting the comment. They took a sip of the wine instead of replying, hoping that perhaps an equally steady silence might come across as cool and mysterious instead of flabbergasted.

The villain smiled. "Say please."

"W-what?"

"Say please if you want me to screw your pretty brains out until you can't think straight."

The hero spluttered. "That's not - I'm not - that's not why I'm here." They undoubtedly would say please, but it had never been so close to the start, so when there wasn't any excuse they could possibly give for the desperate needing of it.

"No?"

"No." The hero swallowed.

"So you don't go on your little dates just to wind me up?" The villain finally straightened, taking a step closer.

The hero stepped back, but didn't run, didn't want to. Mesmerised. Their mouth felt very dry. "No." Such a lie.

The villain's smile grew. "You don't secretly wish I'd kiss you, claim you, in front of all of them?"

"No." The hero jutted their chin up. "I'm not a thing to be claimed."

The villain advanced; the hero back-tracked.

"You don't," the villain continued, a honeyed murmur, "say no, because you love all the ways I can persuade you. Because then you can pretend you don't want this. Because you like watching me take control of you."

The hero's back hit the wall. Miraculously, the wine didn't spill, still clutched uselessly in one hand.

"No."

"Mm." The villain set their palms on either side of the hero's shoulders, and the hero felt the very air between them might start vibrating with the urge to close the gap. "Perhaps I'll never crash one of your dates again then."

The thought was unbearable. The villain was bluffing, right? They had to be bluffing.

The hero wet their lips. The villain's gaze dropped to follow the movement, then flicked back up to the hero's eyes.

"You're a bastard," the hero whispered, because it was true and it wasn't no.

"Why yes," the villain's eyes gleamed, "I am." They waited.

The hero's stomach squirmed. "Are you actually going to make me say it?"

"I thought I didn't control you. I thought you weren't mine."

The hero shivered.

"So how could I," the villain leaned in to the hero's ear, still not quite touching, "possibly make you do anything?"

"...please."

"What was that, love?"

"I hate you."

"Do you?" The villain's lips finally pressed against their skin, kissing down their neck.

"Yes. So much." The hero's head fell back, offering more of their throat. The wine glass drooped in their hand.

"Don't spill on my floor."

The wine glass righted with titan concentration. There was nowhere to put it down.

The villain kissed them; soft, so soft, a promise of so much more to come.

"Would you like me to stop?" the villain asked against their lips.

"...no."

"No?"

"No."

The villain hummed and kissed them again, a little harder. The wine glass wobbled treacherously in the hero's hand once more. The hero's other hand clutched the villain's shoulder.

"I think we're done with the stage in our relationship where you pretend to date other people," the villain said, when they pulled back, breathless. They caught the hero's chin, and their stare was, for a moment, serious.

The hero scrambled past the kiss-drunk haze, brow furrowing. "It's actually bothering you?"

"No," the villain said, in the same tone that the hero said no, meaning yes.

"Okay." The hero leaned in to kiss them, just once, reassuring.

Tension eased out of the villain's shoulders. The wicked playfulness returned, and they shoved the hero back against the wall again. The next kiss was a consuming, hungry thing, and the hero could only chase after more than they were given, gasping.

The villain nipped the hero's neck, before giving a chiding click of their tongue. It once again sent an anticipatory shiver of delight down the hero's spine.

"Oh, would you look at that," the villain said, with soft and bewitching menace. "You spilled my wine. However shall I make you pay me back for that?"

"Make me?" The hero bit their lip. "You think you can make me do anything? Please."

The villain grinned.

There were no more dates with other people after that.