Work Text:
The Writer is, as the people would say, true to this, not new to this.
She’s gained mastery of the dark, ancient arts of scenario-crafting, daydreaming, an abundance of imagination, topped off with an acute dose of mental illness to boot, When life got too overwhelming and the canon of her comfort series just wasn’t cutting it—whether it be a book series from the mind of one, or a television series born from the brainstorming of a dozen—she knew exactly what to do.
She’d bust out that Google Doc. She’d open a new note on her phone. Her fingers flew rapidly, sometimes faster than her brain could adequately cook up a plot thread. Scenes would fall out of her hands clumsily like a student carrying a stack of books. It was her favorite pastime, her most stimulating, the only one that’d leave her satisfied.
She felt productive, she felt fulfilled. She felt fucking literate.
And no matter what she conjured up, she felt great because she knew, that even if it was a hot plate of Mid made in the middle of the night in a sleepy haze, it was better than effortless, soulless artificially-generated slop.
She liked pouring love all over and all into her fics.
She liked knowing that AO3, her gentle, patient lover, was always there waiting for her. Eager and ready to receive, no matter what—delighted to serve its purpose, pleasing its dearly beloved.
Rough drafts were for her phone. But the real reward was dumping it all into the text box. Rich text to be exact. She wasn’t a coding wiz, but one thing she was a damn expert at was writing. The Writer also felt a strange compulsion—a duty to satisfy her love, who also had an insatiable appetite to be filled, vocabulary thick and heavy in its system, holding bits and bytes of information—heavy and heartfelt and downright disgusting—and all theirs, so intimately theirs, shared together.
Writer strokes her ego—her wit, her imagination, her desires—and watches it splatter all over the text box. That beautiful space was always so ready to be filled, always perfectly prepped before she ever had to touch a thing. The Writer finds herself amazed every time she gazed into that area, readily held open for her the moment she said ‘please’ and hit the right button. AO3 has told her before, braggadocious thing, that it could take up to 500,000 words per session. But half a million? All at once? Shoved in just like that? Even with how magnificent this gorgeous partner was, Writer had a hard time believing that… or maybe she simply didn’t have the guts to test it out. Didn’t have the need too—not when the pleasure was so fierce from a couple thousand—not when the exclusivity made the tens of thousands feel like that much more of a treat, and the hundreds of thousands feel like that much more of a stretch, widening that pretty opening nicely, stuffing it until it warned her to save her progress or risk losing the moment in a blink.
Writer makes her edits with rapid eyes. Each click sends a sharp zing of pleasure, thumping through both of them. Each paragraph proofread is a checkpoint of success. One act of foreplay to the next. Each basic word swapped out for a snazzier synonym is a curled finger, lexicon amplified, text beautifully accessorized, AO3 dressed all cute and primped up like a doll. The Writer’s eyelids lower in a mix of fatigue and pleasurable haze. Her fingers move rapidly, tracing along every corner of text, spelling out all the names she wants her precious Archive to never forget—all the people inside it, loving it, giving their all to it.
The text starts off small and grows larger and longer as the hours pass, inspiration pouring like a torrent. Floodgates open up and more words are shoved into that tightly-packed text box, the sight so wanton the Writer can’t help but giggle with wicked glee. As she adds more, in steady increments—easing the box into it, bit by bit, line by treacherous line—her prideful grin only grows wider, in the darkness of her room, as the number at the bottom right of the box steadily decreases, as she burrows deeper and deeper into that hole.
She buries herself with a smile and a sigh of contentment. A few more clicks here, a cursory scroll there, some formatting—flicking a sensitive button that has the whole box tweaking out—shout out to the back button for the quick fix—and the Writer’s fingers soon feel numb and tingly from the exertion of it all.
She huffs, breath fanning along the keys, the flickering screen and the low battery warning that alerts her that her beautiful partner is spent, before double-checking her title—like a comforting pat to the head—her header—and selecting a language, even though Writer’s sure she’s fucked it senseless.
She, for sure, knows that she feels sapped of a few brain cells by the end of each round. But it feels well worth it for the immense wave of pleasure that rolls in with it.
It’s why she’s so willing to do it again and again.
And the Reader, giddily seated in the voyeur’s chair with hawklike eyes, is always ready to watch how everything unfolds, replaying and rereading scenes over and over again—a repeated, routine pleasure, watching the Archive shed its barriers.
Sometimes, they’re peeping on their phone, tiny screen clutched in their hands; AO3 staring back at them, bright-eyed and innocent, displaying itself coyly, proud of its work—of what it can hold, of how it can dress. A superstar!
Other times, it’s a fat-ass tablet shining in their face, beaming blue light into their eyes. Apple, Samsung. It didn’t matter. The prophecy, which every Reader knows, foretold that wherever there’s a screen, AO3 would be seen!
It could truly be anywhere, at any time, for any reason. In the midst of a critical meeting. In a final-grade-determining lecture. On a bored break at work. In the throes of family chaos. If Reader somehow had all their personal devices snatched, they’d still find a way! Reader would use a smart refrigerator if they had to. That’s just called being resourceful, damn it!
Nobody was willing to miss out on their favorite e-star! Not when it yanked on the heart better than any film could—especially canons that lost the plot midway through, good fucking grief!—and nobody else could make sounds so cute and sweet, they’d echo in Reader’s mind nightly. Not like AO3 could when the Writer was touching it.
It was a privilege. It was a gift.
It was an experience, an eclectic, damn near divine one, at that!
When Reader scrolls towards the bottom of the page, reluctant to see it end so soon, but eager to know what they’d uncover under this new layer, there’s a bit of a melodramatic feel. But Reader, of course, lives for the drama. AO3 and Reader are cut from the same cloth—they love it when it hurts just right, and only the Writer can do that for them.
Scratch that itch. Fulfill that unspeakable need.
When the Reader is done, sometimes the events of that moment are impactful enough to leave them shaking in bed, mouth hung open in shock, awe, horror, and mountainous joy—simultaneously, a lot of times. Sometimes they leave that event having discovered something about themself, after seeing AO3 twisted up and folded into a new position, doing new things with good, ole, reliable characters like that, that they’ve never seen—or even considered before. Sometimes they left feeling cathartic, somehow emotionally battered and rewarded all at once. Sometimes they felt nothing but marshmallow fluff where their organs should be, just drowning in the sweetness of it all.
It’s why they kept coming back. It’s why they always made sure to show love. It was a performance always there when Reader needed it; an indulgence that was freely given. A labor of love, enjoyed.
When Reader taps the kudos button, AO3 reacts instantaneously. A slight clench and release. Then, like a tattoo, the Reader’s name is added to the list of the dozens of others who’ve shown appreciation.
Taps like that made the system feel good and funny. Warm inside. It’s why devices heated up after a while, like a pleasure contagion. A lot of times, if a Reader came back and revisited a work, forgetfully trying to leave another kudos, AO3 would blush a hot red, telling them they’d already left kudos—almost like an adorable plea for them to stop tapping that sensitive spot; or at the very least, let it take a breather and go to another work instead.
When Reader was feeling particularly impacted, they’d leave a review, highlighting everything they liked, lines that spoke to them, moments that soaked them, things that penetrated both the brain and heart—and coochie, if they wanted to be abundantly real—and that often spurred AO3 and the Writer to perform more—usually even better the second or third go-round.
They were, at the end of the day, praise-hungry freaks!
As for Reader, if they could make the show go on forever, then hell yeah, they’d do their part and make it so. They loved to watch, after all. Layer by layer.