This blog has been sent to kill John Connor;

some assembly required

Mel King x Frank Langdon | 13k | Explicit

He should leave it at that. He should leave, period. They’re skating on the edge of a line so thin it might as well be nonexistent, but it’s there. There is a way that this moment ends and nothing much changes between them. There is a way for them to go back to everything being the way it was before, the way it should be. The right way. The safe way. They can go back to being work friends, or whatever it is that they are, and this night can just be a vaguely awkward memory. It starts with him stepping back. It starts with him saying goodnight. It starts with him heading towards the door. It starts with… “Hey, listen to me.” He takes her gently by the chin to coax her to look at him. When she does, when he’s certain she’s listening to him, he says, low and quiet and just for her, “You are easy to love.” Then, because she doesn’t pull away, and because she’s looking up at him in a way that makes something physical and real ache in a part of his chest that’s felt cold and empty for a long time, and because he’s never been very good at impulse control, he kisses her on the cheek.

DARK ANGEL 2.06 Two

bonus:

i decided to try a romcom i somehow missed i the 2000s 'head over heels' and i got 3 and a half minutes in and we're introduced to the lonely MC with bad taste in men as evidenced by her extremely short list of ex boyfriends, including her first boyfriend when she was 11 or something because i guess that's still relevant in her adult life.

so she's resigned herself to never finding love and prefers to ignore men to focus all her energy into her career.

this job is immediately presented as though it's for spinsters with no hope of ever finding a man.

the mc's lesbian bestie (whose first line involves her being scolded for being too sexual in the workplace, but moving on) points out their colleagues as evidence that they're doomed to a romance-less, sexless life if they don't switch up their shared career path. the colleagues are three old women, so-dubbed "the menopause triplets":

these women are presented as if they have no idea what's going on at any given moment. this is 2001, and presumably this is an entry level job requiring low effort and no experience.

then their boss bursts into the room, unceremoniously bumping a large painting into the door jam and walls, announcing that it's a new project for our MC.

our MC is thrilled to see the painting. apparently it's a light in the daily slog at her dreary job for loser women with nothing going on in their lives.

And that job is? Conservator of paintings (specializing in Renaissance) at the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The painting being handled like an old couch on its way to the curb?

The Bacchanal of the Andrians by Titian.

Her lesbian colleague who is presumably also a a highly trained & skilled curator finds it depressing that the MC is so excited about the painting.

Just something sweet. Discord was talking about hands a lot.

Bonus content:

I got to admit, I find this question just as baffling as it is fascinating. I could point to dozens of recently published works that could be described as fanfic-y. I could point out a couple that used to be fanfic and were marketed as such (controversially, but that is besides the point).

However, your question is if something can feel too fanfiction-ish, and I'd say no. The romance genre is filled with what could be called coffeeshop AUs. Traveling through AUs is Waking up on a TV show or traveling through AUs are just interesting Sci-Fi ideas. You can turn any idea that feels like a fanfic to you into an original series that feels fresh and fun to a new audience. Naomi Novak's first series was just that!

Ultimately, what makes something feel like fanfiction versus original fiction is how you write the story. Fanfiction operates on the assumption that you know and love these characters even if you are writing an AU. Stories that feel like fanfiction to me are ones that don't put enough effort into making my care about the characters or their wants, because when you are writing a fanfiction everyone knows what that is already (no matter how AU it is).

I think the exterior of the house is asbestos siding which apparently hides bullet holes really well.

I'll remember to mention that.