a line in the hand

Highschool AU ( a personal hatred )

College AU

A/B/O is one I'm into but there's a 70% chance that I won't like how its written. When it's basically sex pollen + worldbuilding around different genders + characters are so so into each other (and a couple other kinks I shan't mention) I love that shit, A+. But it's more common to find RL Gender 2.0: Extra Bioessentialism, social conservatism treated as fact, abuse red flags treated as hot, condescension treated as hot, rape culture, controlling possessiveness, DD/LG, etc, all things I actively find gross.

High school AU is an F from me. I tried them more when I was closer to that age and never found one I liked. I'm not into slice of life, and I find that putting characters into that setting typically cuts off the most interesting elements of their character, let alone the interesting stakes of their original plots. To make a high school AU I'd like functionally requires a setup like the Worm webserial/Spiderman/Animorphs: keeping a cover identity is an active issue in this person's life, a complication; the point isn't the schooling itself. (ps Worm is fantastic but it legitimately is a content warning for almost every subject imaginable FYI, and I'm not being flippant).

College AUs are more readable to me, maybe a D-- similar issues to High School AU, but at least theres more space for the characters to still be interesring to me. Maybe 1 in 30 would be something I'd actually want to read. It'd be cooler to me if it was a Magic University situation with actual worldbuilding, I'd eat that up. But alas. I've literally never encountered a College AU with worldbuilding or original (non slice of life) plot to speak of. Oh wait I take that back-- there was one fabulous GoT author who wrote a spectacularly fucked up one about an intelligent sociopath abuser professor. That one was cool as hell. Kudos to that author.

My unflattering assessment though is that both High School and College AUs represent training wheels-- using more familiar settings in order to have to do less thinking about setting or even character actions and personality (I rarely see the characters' personalities accurately translated into the setting.) This is great for early authorial development, but not what I'm looking for as a reader. It also, I must assume, makes the characters more hashtag relateable-- but I'm generally seeking out fanfic because I already clicked with the characters in their unique setting! I'm a reader who really prizes novelty, so the removal of unique settings makes for a downgrade for me personally. Kind of counter to my personal impulse for seeking out fanfic (my reason being I want to fully explore a universe in ways that are not at all practical for a single story; to get to see it from a bunch of different angles and interpretations and scenarios.)

For all these tropes, the fact that the authors and audiences are having fun are the only things that matter, but they're not for me.

S FUCKING TIER BABY can't get enough of those. I love ultra slowburn romances and I feel like mutual pining is one of the easiest ways to get there.

Or

Sharing body heat to stay alive

There Was Only One Bed was the first scene of As Mountains Yet Unseen I ever envisioned hehehe. A-tier trope. The funny but ironic answer: I eat that shit up with a spoon, but I'm picky about the execution.

I'd give sharing body heat to stay alive a solid B! I love most things under the umbrella of forced proximity and pining and UST, and I will happily click it when I see it, but shared body heat scenarios often lack nuanced emotions/juiciness. Excellent erotica oneshot setup tho.

Thanks for the tag @onelooseskull :)

Originally this was 5 things, one Rook, but choosing is about as hard as Emmrich is about to get, so. Here we go.

Butterflies and Softened Eyes

Emmrich is really into her legs (why, Rook isn't sure-- by her standards, her legs are "stout"-- I'm making knowing eye contact with my wlw audience here.) which has the unexpected consequence of him popping a boner whenever he sees her do things like kick a door in. Two-person missions have ABSOLUTELY been delayed before by quickies against the closest alley wall.

When she murmurs in his ear right after she wakes up in the morning, her voice raspy from sleep

When she traces her fingers down the tantalizing line of body hair from the center of his chest to his cock-- he's hard before she's even made it to his navel

Emmrich is a big fan of taking baths together-- his intent is always much more sensual and intimate than sexual. But whenever her hands stray to his ass, things tend to escalate very quickly.

Again We Light Our Fires

Pinning him. Need I say more.

Watching her take other people down like it's nothing.

Sometimes she makes him fetch things for her from the high shelves just so she can stand in the way and cop a feel while he's stretching up for it. Ends in having sex against the counter about a third of the time

Rook has a particular very intense look that she shoots at him in public that says I'm going to climb you like a tree the first second we're alone. Not being the most patient sort, she's definitely gone for semi-public sex way more often than Emmrich ever imagined. (Can you blame her? The way he looks when she's ruffled his perfect hair, opened his collar to leave secret bruises all along his throat, having him panting and those pretty eyes of his half-lidded from desire...) It makes him weak in the knees every time.

As Mountains Yet Unseen

Once their relationship is established, Isolde is very forthright (and physical) about how she flirts with him. It's almost cute how he can go from lounging on the couch reading, completely not thinking about sex, to painfully hard as Isolde gracefully settles with her thighs around his ears 'v' (he'd never be able to admit it, but he absolutely loves this about her, and would beg on hands and knees for her to do it again if she ever stopped)

He really, really likes her hands. Sometimes he gets half hard just watching her do something competent with them, like sharpening her weapons or whittling.

When she kneels, going for his sash. This seems like a given, but in their story, it's really not! When Emmrich first started sleeping with Isolde, he was so self-conscious about getting blown that he couldn't stay hard. Over time, Isolde manages to get him out of his head and overthinking and worrying about being greedy to just enjoying himself :)

He has to look away when he's climbing after her on stairs because hng. Wow. Butt.

once Bellara has entered the picture now Emmrich conspires with Bellara, as the chef, to keep Isolde's weight up. He's only really concerned about it from a health and sensual enjoyment perspective, but it does have the added bonus of making Bellara even more attracted to Isolde lol (once she's properly fed Bellara thinks her back muscles are impressive 🥴)

Emmrich continues to do Isolde's hair now and again, and he comes to fold Bellara in as well. Sometimes on Bellara's hair wash day Emmrich will make a whole Thing of it. Bathing together, him washing their hair, and then putting it into elaborate styles...

he does their hair the day of their marriage ceremony 🥺

they canNOT escape the tall jokes. Bellara and Isolde are pretty matched in height, 170cm/5'7" (Human equivalent 183cm/6') and Emmrich is ALSO unusually tall for a Human, like 190cm+ (6'3"+)

Between Isolde and Bellara, Isolde is more into topping and Bellara is more into going down 😊

Emmrich is thoroughly in favor of both. Please let him watch sometimes.

Bellara and Emmrich sometimes end up getting Sleepover Energy talking late in the night. This is extra bad for Emmrich, who is a morning lark and CAN'T handle going to bed at 3am. Once in a while they will get too excited and raise their voices about their discussion, at which point Isolde (a light sleeper) will come out to judgmentally stare them down and force them to bed. The judgemental look doesn't actually work, they just think it's so cute that they're compelled to go cuddle her.

Bellara makes the best pillow. Sometimes both of them will lie their head on her at the same time and it's very cute.

Sidenote if Emmrich's head is pillowed on her thigh there's about a 75% chance it's going to end in him eating her out. Bellara and Isolde both know this; Emmrich, hilariously, hasn't cottoned on.

Bellara had Emmrich shave his body hair once out of sheer curiosity about what he'd look like if he were more Elven

Isolde continues to have hangups about appearing wealthy, so it's Bellara who gets more of Emmrich's gold jewelry gifts :) (she looks great in them.) Emmrich compensates by getting Isolde a lot of flowers.

Bellara likes some occasional pillow princess treatment and what better way to make that work than two partners 'v'

Isolde stops being embarrassed about how she looks when super aroused (the combo of partners who were bad at sex + knowing prostitutes personally created some weird hangups about the natural tendency to lower ears when really into it-- similar to how moans are natural but because of porn can sound feigned...) because now she sees Bellara do it and goes Oh I See. Firstly that's hot and secondly I need to wreck her, RIGHT NOW,

(it's honestly a really good look when paired with a deep flush and Bellara biting her lip)