I am realizing now that there's this new...not genre but like, writing style (?) of book called "the author got into a fight on twitter and that became their whole book"
Babel falls into this category (see previous reblogs), as well as Seasonal Fears, where the author chose (chose!!) to make the main couple a frail, disabled girl and a big beefy football player, and then basically spent the whole book apologizing for it and explaining painstakingly that he would never abuse her oh noooo. It got to the point where the book was barely readable. I just know that came about because the author either got into a real twitter argument or made up a potential one in her head about how ~problematic~ people were going to think these characters were because of the physical/strength differences between them. I really wish the author had either stuck to her guns unapologetically (it would be a cute romance if she wasn't begging forgiveness for it every time they kissed) or just changed the characters entirely to save herself the anxiety.
I would also put Iron Widow loosely in this category, because it's a very angry book, clearly born of a lot of rage about misogyny, and I think sometimes that anger is detrimental to the plot (it just makes everything too...simple, I guess? when all the men do X and all the women do Y except our special MC who is the first woman ever to choose Z?). However, it's the one I liked the most out of the three, because the MC learning to trust (some of) the men in her life and learning that the shitty system is screwing them over too is a big part of the plot, so she doesn't just....wallow alone in anger, and the author doesn't constantly apologize for having A Man Do A Kiss On The Woman Oh Gawd (sorry, I'll stop, McGuire just HARDCORE disappointed me with SF).
Anyway. I feel like this "writing style" (idk, it's not really a genre? mood? frame of mind??) is why I hesitate to pick up a lot of new releases. It's not always bad, but those books always feel a little lacking, because the author is so obsessed with twitter arguments, extreme bad-faith takes, and trolls that they either completely fail to tell the story they wanted to tell (Seasonal. FEARS.) or it just...robs the story of that extra bit of complexity that would really make it Work.
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“come morning” (wip)
in which it takes tanjirou a little bit longer to return nezuko to a human. in which nezuko can turn back in her sleep rather than while running to a battlefield. in which nezuko does not remember all the years she was a demon.
saafggdaf opening scene of a kind of angsty au fic. idk if i’m gonna finish it ever, so have what i’ve currently written!!!
.....
There is a sort of magic in the space between sleep and wake. Where dreams still linger behind fluttering eyelids, but the tangible begins to encroach on the senses. Everything is a little bit soft and fuzzy around the edges, and yet the world can feel particularly sharp in this rousing hour. Memories take their time to return and nothing seems quite as important as settling right back into sleep.
Nezuko wakes up gradually, drifting in and out of dreams as she does. In those fading moments of sleep, she sees unfamiliar faces, hears snatches of words or sentences, feels cold moonlight on her skin and a burning in her veins. When she wakes up, her body feels sluggish and heavy. It’s alright, though. It feels as though she has all the time in the world.
Well, at least until Shigeru or Hanako come and wake her up. At least Rokuta still sleeps in, and Tanjirou and Takeo are nice enough to leave her be on warm mornings—
Nezuko’s eyes snap open, a gasp tearing through her. She’d forgotten. Oh god, how could she have forgotten? The memories of that night are practically burned into the back of her eyelids. Thorny limbs tearing through their home, cutting into the flesh of Mother, of Takeo and Hanako and Shigeru. Piercing right through her back to skewer Rokuta.
Nezuko twists beneath something heavy and tries to reach for her shoulder and stomach. Surely there will still be hot blood and pain, or at least the remnants of it. But she finds nothing but the soft cotton of a yukata. And something about that, too, feels strange. Shouldn’t she be wearing something else? The thought is preposterous, but Nezuko finds herself almost certain that she was wearing a kimono before…
Before what? Before the attack? No, she was in a yukata then, too. Perhaps her dreams have left her confused.
Nezuko pushes herself upward, leaning hard on shivering arms that feel far too feeble. The covers of the futon she’d been under fall away, and Nezuko takes a moment to look around the room. And strangely, she finds that she has no idea where she is. The room is largely barren with a sliding door cracked open to let in sunlight, and what she can see outside is a fenced-in area that is not her house.
Frankly, it’s far too warm to be Mount Kumotori at all. The temperature reminds Nezuko more of summers in the village at the bottom of the mountain. Her shaking hands begin to pull the cover away when a hand curls around the edge of one of the shogi doors and pushes it further open. Nezuko gasps at what she’s met with, as a ghost steps into her line of sight.
Long black hair glinting red in the sunlight. Tied back, but with a few strands framing a healthy face. Dark eyes with a flash of scarlet in them, looking at her with such love. For the briefest second, she thinks she’s looking at her father, returned to life and health. But then Nezuko looks again, and the face she finds— while familiar— is not who she thought.
One eye too pale and red, a mark like flames curling over the forehead, a haori checkered black and green instead of black and orange. Nezuko blinks, bewildered by the strange man before her who is so familiar and yet so foreign. Before she can voice her confusion, the man steps into the room, a look of unabashed relief on his face.
“Nezuko, you’re awake!”
She jolts at the voice, because— like everything else about this man— it is so achingly familiar that Nezuko finds herself very nearly brought to tears. And even still, she can’t place it. Or at least, not until he kneels before her and takes one of her shaking hands into his own calloused ones. And it’s a feeling like déjà vu. Because she knows that these hands have held her own before.
The missing puzzle piece slots into place and Nezuko looks up at the man before her. He looks tired, profoundly so. And beyond that, he looks so happy, in a way Nezuko hasn’t quite seen in a long time. Because she has seen this man’s face before. Because despite the scars and the blind eye and the height and the- the everything, this man is simply and undeniably her brother.
This man is none other than Kamado Tanjirou.
“How are you feeling?” the man who must be Tanjirou asks, his eyes wide and worried. “Does anything hurt? Are you tired? Hungry?”
Nezuko doesn’t know what to say. She just sits there, gaping at her brother. What can she say? What words can encompass everything she’s feeling in this moment, looking at this… this stranger. This grown man wearing her brother’s face.
After a long moment of silence, Nezuko finally speaks and asks, “What happened?” Because it’s the only thing she can think to ask. What happened to her? To Tanjirou? To Mother and Takeo and Hanako and Shigeru and Rokuta? If she lived, then could they have too? Tanjirou doesn’t answer immediately, looking down at their joined hands with a pensive expression.
“… How much do you remember?” he asks with trepidation in his tone. Nezuko frowns and wracks her brain. She remembers dreaming, certainly, but those memories are fleeting and fading fast. Mostly, she remembers what happened before she fell unconscious.
“There- there was a strange man in western clothing. He came into our home and he- he…” She chokes up then, struggling to voice the words. “He killed them. Takeo and Rokuta and Mother and- and-”
“It’s okay, Nezuko,” Tanjirou says, but he suddenly looks so much more tired.
“I’m sorry,” she gasps out, clinging as tight as she can to Tanjirou’s rough hands, “I’m sorry that I couldn’t- that I was too weak to- to do anything!”
Tanjirou shifts forward and his warm arms wrap around her. And in his arms, Nezuko feels so small. And Tanjirou feels so huge. And in his embrace, Nezuko can feel the musculature to him that wasn’t there before she woke, the strength to him that’s frighteningly new.
As Nezuko leans into Tanjirou’s hug, she whispers into his ear, “How long have I been asleep?”
Tanjirou gives her a squeeze before pulling back to look her in the eyes. “It’s been six years since the death of our family,” he says, voice grave. “You’ve been… asleep for six years.”
Nezuko squeezes her eyes shut, as if it will do anything to hide her from the terrible knowledge that she’d already begun to suspect was true. How else could her brother— the boy who was barely a year apart from her in age— suddenly be so much older? A part of her wishes that she were still dreaming, that this was all just a nightmare.
If only.
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