His hold tightens on her waist, metal claws threatening to rip the fabric underneath.
4. a story idea you haven’t written yet
nervously kicking my document of plot bunnies under the bed, 60+ items and all.
no but really — there’s an au i’ve been hashing out for the shuake week royalty prompt! ill-timed trysts, treason, and completely-above-board mercantile practices, oh my!
23. pick three keywords that describe your writing
dealer’s choice, hmmmm… then, for this section near the end of my most recent fic, “the art of losing”:
The look in her eyes is intense and familiar, if not in its scope: a deep, dark ocean, lapping at Ren’s heels, aching to drag her under. If Akechi has ever wrestled with who she is or what she had to do to become it, Ren wouldn’t know — but she imagines if she had, it might look something like this.
Her hands — ungloved and uncharacteristically cold, like a corpse — raise to Ren’s throat. They wrap over either side, thumbs pressed to her larynx. There’s no pressure — only the threat of pressure. Her dark, high-tide stare doesn’t waver.
i wanted it to really seem like akechi was struggling with the upcoming 11/20 events and her place in them, and even potentially stewing over how/if things could be different. i think that akechi is a character with a lot of regrets, but at this point, he’s so far into this hole that in his head there’s really no digging his way out. in my initial plan for the ending of this fic, i wanted it to read a bit more hopeful — maybe akechi changes her mind! maybe they work together! but it didn’t really end up that way, which, characterization-wise, is probably for the best :-(
also in this section, ren compares akechi a lot to a corpse, a ghost, a specter, etc. i think she is pretty confident (like, 80% sure) that she isn’t going to die. but unlike some of my other rens (like in “best laid plans”), she is also pretty sure akechi is not making it out of this unscathed, and she’s struggling with that. the imagery is pretty direct in this, i think:
Akechi’s thumb drags slow over Ren’s carotid artery, as a cut or caress, then drops away. She steps back, clicks her briefcase open, and pulls on a fresh pair of gloves. Her smile flicks back on, bright and shiny and impersonal. Ren shifts, back leg stinging, poised to run.
“Thank you for the coffee, Amamiya-san,” Akechi says, like they’re strangers. Washed out and backlit by the window’s distant city glow — she’s already a ghost.
thank you for the ask! <3
link to the fic:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
link to the ask game:
Reblog this if you want readers to come into your ask box and ask for the “director’s commentary” on a particular story, section of a story,
send me the rarest pair you can think of and I'll tell you if I ship it and how I think it can work
(assuming you mean raidou rather than the AU raido because... i don't know how to characterize that guy asdhjfk) i actually did a version of this in a crosscanon rp once and it was a delight, so i can say i ship this one! :D
raidou and joker are really fascinating mirrors of each others as protagonists - they have a ton of really interesting commonalities, from aesthetics to plot beats to small characterization quirks (to raidou and seimei in the unfortunately poorly fan-translated manga i swear i will get back to redoing it someday basically being proto-shuake) and are simultaneously incredibly similar and totally different in where they come from. raidou is, even when chaos-aligned, still functionally serving as an instrument of peace and not a rebel fighting for social upheaval - but could joker's been a pawn in a game beyond his understanding himself, and could certainly have a lot of compassion for someone only a couple years older than him who knows and struggles with being raised to be a weapon. and with raidou defying the expectations for him to be an emotionless tool and using the strength of his bonds with the people he loves being such a core beat of the manga, i think joker's ability to form and draw on those bonds so easily would be really admirable to raidou. and he's even technically a detective to joker's phantom thief! he lives with a guy who's super passionate about coffee and curry! they have not-cats in common! i think they're neat and if the dsrk-typical timeline shenanigans allowed them to coexist in a story they could definitely develop a really interesting relationship.
also they're my two favorite megaten protags so the thought of them interacting just makes me happy
