Nothing is always absolutely so.

jujuandgetdown requested reds, forced to visit a psychic and get a reading! Hopefully some of y'all recognize the character!

( To Make it True )

And with that, requests (from 2019...) are now done! These are currently being x-posted to ao3.

Be safe and healthy and good to each other. ♥

AO3 | FFNet | AskFM

Right about the time I get sick of looking at it!

ironysgrace requested Reds, specifically Brick finding Blossom's dark side intriguing. I'm pretty sure I went very sideways with this prompt but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless!

( Title stolen from the Æon Flux episode from which I also stole the conclusion: Ether Drift Theory. )

Thank you, as always, for your patience.

AO3 | FFNet | AskFM | Ko-Fi (currently closed)

By the by, I'm doing this civic action calendar starting this week (I know it's labeled for the month of June, but like most writerly folk, I'm a procrastinator). If you feel like following along it'd mean a lot. ♥

coffee_tea_2020 requested Reds and romance. This underwent some changes mostly in how I decided to approach romance; I wound up settling on maybe a more abstract take on it I guess?

( Pathetic Fallacy )

This is going to be the last one for a bit; I've gone back to revising TEF ch11 in the past week so the ficlets have gone to the backburner. Thanks for bearing with ♥

I mentioned that the last Reds ficlet underwent some rewrites. A common problem I think I have is I get too hung up on trying to set things up, which you don't always have time for in a short piece.

( Here was my first attempt at the intro. )

The other thing I don't love about the early intro I wrote is it doesn't quite set up the right tone; it's a little too heavy and bleak.

I also suffered from not having read the prompt correctly; for some reason my brain dropped the "school trip" aspect during my initial writings so I instead wasted spent most of my early words on the idea that the Reds were coming together as adults long after a tortured on/off again relationship, culminating in them sleeping together. Blossom's discovery of the condoms in their room (her room in the finished draft) was originally much more drawn out - like, she winds up checking them and discovering some jackass has stuck a pin in a few of them and throws those out, hence the bit later on down where she has a moment of panic after grabbing one.

( You might also notice that heavy/bleak tone carries over here, too. )

Oof, maudlin as hell. Is it too late for me to say this is an early draft? There's good bits and pieces but the whole of it is too, too. Just so overwrought. Ugh.

It carried over into the ending, which, with some cuts/edits, I was able to salvage for the final draft. ( I really liked the idea of the two of them pretending to be asleep just so they could have a little more time together. )

Did I mention this was overwrought? Ugh, yeah. I spent a couple of weeks very into this version, then, upon reading it over, I felt like it was just sad breakup porn for the sake of bad breakup porn, basically. I stepped away from it for a few weeks. Sometimes what happens is I work on a thing so much that I hate it, then come back and go "Wait, this is Not Terrible," but when that didn't happen with this one and my re-read consisted of me cringing at the Melodramatic Purple Prose Painyness of it all, I knew I needed to rework it. And then I reread the prompt and went Oh wait this wouldn't have worked anyway lol.

Part of the problem I had was with the nature of the Only One Bed trope itself - it's popular for a reason, but I didn't want to play to the usual hijinks, I wanted to try and play it straight. I thought it would be more interesting for the tension to come not from "We're attracted to each other and now we have to share a bed, OH NO," but from "We're attracted to each other but have a long history of things Definitely Not Working Out Between Us Despite Trying To Make It Work and now we have to share a bed, well great," but that just resulted in this mess.

I also did not like how passive Blossom came across in this early attempt. While she does make some choices, too many things just kind of happen to her here, and I never love her being so hung up and desperate for Brick's attention that she makes bad choices, especially for the sake of drama. I wanted her choices in this story to have more neutral-to-positive consequences, the one exception being the end when everything culminates in BOTH of them not being ready to face the prospect of making this relationship they both want real.

I'm happy with where it wound up - them in separate rooms, and Blossom being the one to make that choice and open the door and share the bed. I think the final version is more sweet and hopeful while still maintaining that sadness that I can't ever seem to not write for this pairing.

On a final note, here is the song that was included in otakuspirit's original prompt:


I also drew heavily from this one for them sharing the bed (I know I've posted it before, but w/e idwiw). For some reason this kind of EDM really puts me in a sappy, romantic mood.


I've got some scrapped bits from the Greens ficlet that recently got posted as well, though it's not nearly as much. Just a few lines that served as general inspo. Next week! For everyone who's celebrating, have a Happy Turkey Day in the meantime 🦃

otakuspirit requested "TEF!Reds on a school trip end up getting separated from the group and have to spend a night in a motel room together" (a classic).

This one underwent a few different rewrites which I'll maybe get into later this week. Also, disclaimer that this is not part of TEF!canon and basically assumes the Reds have had no significant interaction (certainly not romantically-inclined interaction) between where TEF is currently at (ch10a) and the timeline of this ficlet.

Also, still not exactly happy, but less sad than the last one.

( Stealing the title from the song that was included in the prompt: Dust to Dust. )

Thanks for your patience, as always. ♥