for the wip ask meme under pressure 👀
aha yes! this is the fuck-or-die mingling fic, a trope which I have incidentally never written before. the core of this is about the madonna/whore dichotomy between sha hualing and liu mingyan, and distinct approaches to sexuality, and liu mingyan's cnc kink set against sha hualing's complicated relationship to desire as a site of potential vulnerability. but as a fuck-or-die fic.
I realized the problem I was having with writing this one (because it was taking me a long time to get somewhere with it) was the fact that I was dwelling too much on the fuck-or-die part (important, integral, core to the fic) and not enough on what the fic is actually about (different relationships to desire and how that interacts). I think I was also thinking of it as more light-hearted than I actually want it to be, which makes sense, because taking a common fandom trope and then taking it way too seriously is a thing for me.
anyway this is a fun reminder that I really like this fic conceptually and in terms of what I've written so far.
excerpt from the beginning:
“No, wait,” Sha Hualing said, just as Liu Mingyan’s sword scythed through the creature’s neck and cut off its head. It tottered for a moment before falling, fountaining gouts of blood, and the moment it touched the ground the innocent-looking grass…exhaled. A fine mist rose in the air and Sha Hualing clapped a hand over her nose and mouth, but she could already feel the tingle in her nose that told her she hadn’t been quick enough.
Great! Wonderful! Exactly what she needed!
She coughed frantically, like that would do any good now. She heard Liu Mingyan sneeze but barely registered it, too busy figuring out what she was going to do next.
“Are you all right?”
Sha Hualing straightened up and let her hand fall away from her nose and mouth. She narrowed her eyes at Liu Mingyan, standing there with her blood-stained sword still drawn, pretty eyebrows furrowed in what looked like honest concern.
“What’s it to you,” she snapped. Wasting time. She needed to get away from here now, but she didn’t have Mobei-jun’s handy portals to rely on, and if she just took off into the Human Realm with no direction there was too much of a chance she might run into, you know, one of the humans. Which she didn’t want any more than she wanted to run into a demon. What she needed was an antidote but she didn’t have one of those on hand, and the only one she knew of was too far away for her to reach in time.
Unbelievable!
