it really is that serious

fadel theheartkillers

(*) ray onlyfriends

style theheartkillers

ABSOLUTELY, YES, THANK YOU and also sorry in advance for how long and rambling this got lmao. but the gender - !

when the beautiful lesbian thk posting era was happening, i was like i'll write a really quick thing about style sucking the strap bc she WOULD. and then i got completely sidetracked bc i tried to describe what fem style and bison would wear in the bowling alley and it honestly ruined my life and, obviously, sidetracked my whole plans for the fic. thk already has some of the dykiest outfits ever, even compared to gls, and lesbian kant and fadel feel very obvious (i do understand that logically lesbian fadel might not even look masc bc of not wanting to stand out, but she has to be butch for me i'm sorry i can't handle seeing her another way, don't harm her or me like this!!!!) but i could not decide for the life of me how fem or not fem style and bison would dress. and it wasn't until i unlocked those - as my tags on the fic say, masc4masc fadelstyle can be so personal - that the whole fic fell into place and i realized it was going to be about gender overall (bison jersey tucked into mini skirt can also be so personal). and that really helped find a focus for the sex scenes and know what the ending conversation would be

i initially planned for the fic to mostly be the bathroom scene and it wasn't until i was doing my research on packers that i was like. well from reddit it seems like ppl don't use a strap for packing, but i still want this bathroom scene (need to honor style's desire for public bathroom sex!) and i also still want style strapped down so now i'm locked into 2 sex scenes, fuck it, i may as well honor fadel's desire to train style into getting fucked frequently. i also thought more about canonical fadelstyle sex for this fic than i ever have before and it made me update a lot of their dynamic to match what's Really in the show - for instance, the climax of the second sex scene being moreso about tenderness and vulnerability & style's understanding of fadel.

but also fadel's side of this fic is literally just like on a nightmare double date (to her) and thinking [on rotation] i need top surgery so fucking bad. from her pov she is not deliberately trying to rile style up or turn her on, though it works in both regards, she's simply trying to dress in a way that mitigates dysphoria, and is v surprised by how turned on style is and leans into it. it was important to me that style's assumptions are wrong, that style knows enough about fadel to sense her moods but still needs to learn more - hence why this takes place in that beautiful crunchy ep 5-6 pre-reveal time. i can't get over how much constant lying and vulnerability and prying and tenderness and revelation there is during that period. anyway. style needs to be aggressively wrong, which is why the first sentence of the fic is setting her up for failure. i also wanted to hide the packer from the audience for as long as possible (it's untagged on ao3) so that they're right there WITH style when the revelation happens.

um. what else. the style/bison/kant scenes got extended bc of conversations w/ lofi. i put emphasis on how sweaty style was in the second sex scene bc lofi and i had talked about fadel being into sweat, and then i forgot to add fadel being into the sweat lol. i forgot to mention a carabiner of keys on fadel's pants. some people already noticed but the redhead in the bathroom is meant to be gorya. "is that a gun in your pocket" might be the highlight of my career. i'm not a (m)preg person, but i'd had that breeding kink line kind of locked and loaded for another fadelstyle fic, and once i realized it fit more w/ the gender fuckery happening in this one i moved it here. i'm still not pleased with the title but i'm learning to live with it. the conversation b/w fadel and style at the end about the spectrum of butch-femmeness made me teary eyed to write lmao.

<3 yay! thank you!

first of all i'm really proud of the title. most of my titles come from song lyrics (which of course this one does), but i wasn't decided on which song to choose until i looked up the definition for cultivate. i like it for its obvious link to raising/growing something, but it can also mean work, domestication, and dedication. i loved linking all of those themes to an older ray

the fic was originally going to be topmew's kid calling ray for help while drunk, bc i'm against sandray w kids, but then that thought is exactly what made me want to challenge myself with it. as i was writing it i ended up adding more conflict b/w sandray as well (or at least different opinions) rather than just between the kid and ray. i also liked adding hints of older-sand in the background, i adored him. i was going to add a section about ray initially calling dot "your daughter" to sand and sand hating it beyond belief, but it didn't fit anywhere well. i was also going to have a whole section on the car ride home w/ ploy's parents calling and ray needing to lie on the kids' behalf, but it also didn't fit. sorry ploy. i had the ending in my head from the jump, especially once i started littering in flashbacks (my thesis advisor once told me i jump tenses/timelines too much. oops!)