#also i know my writing style is weird just go with it

[bitchfitch]

My mother's bf had a fairly major surgery (he's fine and recovering well DW) and he's going to be housebound for his birthday this year, so I've been enlisted to come up with a fancy birthday meal for the special birthday boy that's primarily fruit and veg, sweeter than savory, and is something he's never had before.

Bc I'm making watermelington. It's beef Wellington, but watermelon. bc my mom only found out recently you can use watermelon as a tuna substitute. And I know that you can substitute most higher quality beef cuts with tuna or salmon.... usually. Anyways the idea fascinates her so I'm hoping to use that for bonus points.

Now he's off his ass on pain killers so I can't like. Ask him if he's ever had something before. so to meet my brief I've decided to just. commit a novel hate crime against the British I guess.

Anyways. I'm writing this because I need to walk myself through this process and think it'll be surreal enough to be worth taking y'all along for.

So, Beef Wellington. In its most basic bitch arrangement is a beef tenderloin wrapped in prosciutto/really thin bacon, with a layer of mushroom and onion mush, that has been further wrapped in mustard slathered puff pastry.

We will be ship of Theseusing this. bc beef Wellington is like. the opposite of what he wants. Which is why it's funny.

Puff pastry-> it's still just puff pastry

this one doesn't have to change (aka I can't be fucked to do pastry prep and I'm just gonna use store bought it's Fine.)

the prosciutto is also just going to be prosciutto.

Thin meat

Beef tenderloin-> watermelon,

Tbh this is a pretty 1 to 1 substitution. I'll bake the slices at like. 250-300 for an hour or so ahead of the rest of prep to dry it out a bit. bc you can't like. Sear watermelon to seal in the water like you can beef. By definition it's a very wet fruit (like me when I fall into the lake). Ill Add salt and chili and lime juice while baking maybe. this is the easy part

The mushroom mush-> salsa done bad style

As the word mush implies, this is meant to be a very soft mix. It adds a lot of nuttiness to the wellington that rounds out all of the salt from the meats. I'm replacing it with white person salsa(the birthday boy can't handle spice). Tomato, lime juice, parsley, avocado, cucumber, feta, and maybe mango so I can have an excuse to have a lil mango treat. I said I wasn't making it spicy. I'm still putting a bit of chili in it. bc it'll be better like that. This is also a ridiculously wet bit of mush, Even the original mushrooms have too much water. I'll figure something out.

Mustard -> jelly

He lives in a big city. those preserve sections are massive. I'll find a weird one. maybe apricot.

Prep:

We're in the mind palace kitchen, I have not attempted any of this. We're just thinking real hard about it and I'll edit as needed on the day and post results.

The watermelon

Preheat oven to eh. 300f? We want low and slow to dry things out without it taking a year. but idk what his oven is like. If it's gentle I'll bump it up another ten-twenty.

Slather some watermelon slices in salt chili powder and lime juice mixture.

bake for 30 min on a wire rack or directly on the oven racks (after cleaning thoroughly) if he doesn't have a wire rack. with a drip try underneath to catch the drippage. check frequently. Have one slice that's for being poked to see if it's approaching being meat. Bake longer if needed.

Salsa bad style

chop everything up and add it to a pan with some oil in it. Tbh I don't think the type of oil you use for cooking matters if you're not like, getting near any smoke points. Most people can't tell the difference unless you made your food bland as hell.

Anyways there's some wildly different moisture contents on the list so there has to be an Order to cook off as much water as possible without getting yucky.

Tomatoes and cucumbers go in together with some salt to get the cucs softening, then the mango chunks and lime juice. Once most of the water is gone the avocado feta and parsley can go in. There is a good amount of water in avocados but they're delicate and don't pan fry well, so we're just going to ignore their water crimes and hope for the best. They just need to be evenly mixed through the rest of the mush.

Putting it together

lay out the puff pastry, cut into sections to wrap each watermelon slice individually with.

Slather in jam

Take the prosciutto and lay it out on half of each section of the pastry,

spoon the salsa onto that

Melon

Another layer of salsa

another layer of thin meat

Fold the pastry over the top and pinch the edges bc watermelon slices are not a rollable shape and I don't want to carve a watermelon into a tube for this because that sounds irritating.

Brush with egg wash and more parsley

Cook in oven following the pastry's preferred temp and time. it's fucking watermelon, you're not getting ecoli from it.

watermelington :)

I'm serving it with baked sweet potatoes and spinach based salad with whatever toppings are left over from making the salsa.

anyways thank you for joing me on this thought experiment. I will post updates once the deed is done. I'm sorry to every British person ever.

[aq2003]

i saw a post saying boom was good bc it feels like it could be done with any doctor/companion duo and honestly that was one of the things i felt was wrong with it

[liquidstar]

a friend who'd wait :)

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 5!!!

[foccaccia]

does anyone have recommendations for fictional media that has like. actual lesbians in it. not like supergirl Two White Skinny Girls, One Blonde and One Brunette Kiss media, or "its implied lesbianism!!!" but just regular fucking lesbians

[milfygerard]

living in the inbetween hell where I dont hate or love ttpd enough to agree with anyone on the dash so im just sort of flinching whenever I see a post about it from any side

[thedreadvampy]

I tried listening to Olivia Rodrigo and I'm sure this is really good for its target audience of Teen Girls Going Through A Breakup but has she actually ever put out a song that isn't about a guy cheating, breaking up with her and moving on to someone else?

like babe he's not coming back it's been 2 years you gotta find something else in your life

[rawliverandgoronspice]

.

[personal and vaguely unnecessary whining underneath, just a bunch of undigisted and personal thoughts about my problems with Creation and Art that mostly just concern myself, but here they are anyway woooo!!!!]

feeling some kind of way about having to concede my artistic calling truly is in fanwork, but, yeah. all of my creative energy really tends towards fanwork, and like. not even the popular kind really, but the long, cerebral, pretentious kind of fanwork that is impossibly costly to produce yet comes with an inherently very limited audience at the end of the road. but every time I try to do something else, something "original", I get frustrated and I feel like I have nothing to say, or that what I have to say isn't really worth saying/that I'm only kind of doing this out of fear of being perceived as illegitimate rather than because of actual passion. I have original ideas, but I don't even really like most of them. it's weird, to have your inner creative fire being so intricately connected to something you will never have legal control over, something you can't really show off/take actual pride in, and something that is, by and large, decried as a waste of talent or time or proper artistic merit.

but yeah, it's the shape of my brain. it's what it is. I'm just not sure how to connect this reality to the rest of my creative/career frustrations. weird place to be, don't love that my brain chose to be like this honestly.

[charmac]

PLEASEE POST A NEW CHAPTER OF THE SUGAR DADDY FIC I AM ON MY HANDS AND KNEES 😭😭😭😭😭

Updating All These Nights tonight and then Sugar is next to be updated, promise promise.

[sludgeguzzler]

man. i changed so much these past years

[icewindandboringhorror]

Daily Log 2

Trying out (probably just temporarily) making short daily-ish notes about things, in an attempt to see if it helps me be more reflective or productive lol.

Activities: Much less than yesterday, felt sick and sleepy so barely got anything done. It was also warmer inside today.. Very much dreading summer. I still feel like the people who ~~ love warm weather sooo much~~ must also have central heating and air and are able to escape the warmth, or at least have cool airy houses where they can get cross breezes or something.. I just fail to see how ANYONE could enjoy sweating all day because it's like 75F indoors, etc. grrbb,,, the headaches, sleepless sweaty nights, constant physical discomfort, etc. The next few days look cloudy and rainy though so.. yEs.. haha HA

Got a new charger for my old 2004 nokia phone so it actually turns on now, and recorded myself going through the ringtones and games. I might add the footage to a currently not fully edited video of me also looking through other electronics (old phones, turbo twist math, etc.). I love old ringtones actually and if I were rich, I would love to collect old phones specifically just to have a catalogue of what they're like and all of the sounds they contain.

Managed to have a tiny burst of energy and take photos of 3 outfits before my arms and shoulder started hurting and I got too warm.

Sent email to one doctor.

Translated like 3 words for the Avirrekava poem thing I mentioned yesterday. My language document is not organized very well at all so I've kind of lost my flow of working on it. I've heard about people making searchable dictionary type things for their conlangs, so I'd like to look more into that maybe. As well as making a custom font, though I don't know if that's more difficult for syllabaries (so wouldn't be directly linkable to a plain english alphabet keyboard?? eh?). Anyway, I need to finish the tapestry/painting thing/etc. soon though since I have no good place to put it. The canvas is warping a little just laying haphazardly on my closet floor lol.

Made one quick mspaint background image for the next batch of song snippet things for my jokey music youtube.

Edited like 10 minutes of the Giant Worldbuilding Slideshow Project.. couldn't focus on that either since being at the computer today irritated my shoulders and arms.

Notable sights: Saw 6 baby ducks and their parents swimming in a nearby pond!! It's interesting how their colors seem to change so much, and the young ones have the little spots on their back. Not much else, I was not very active lol..

Goals moving forward: Still working on consistent sleep schedule. Focus on social activities, finding new friends in the places I want to move, communicating with ones I have. Physical therapy exercises. Plant nasturtiums. Finish and upload videos, edit pictures, post the poll adventure thing that has been sitting in a draft for weeks (I thought I would get it done today, but alas.. I don't even have to do much, just proofread and post it, I just keep having no energy/being preoccupied with other things/hurts to be on computer.. grrr.. I want to continue the story lol >:T).

Notable foods: HAD ASPARAGUS YEaaaaaghhhHHHH!!!!!!!!! Asparagus SQUAD!!!!!!!!!! ... Also a few pieces of smoked gouda with lunch, one of my favorite cheeses.

[floral-hex]

I’m out of town for a couple of days for my brother’s chess tournament and the internet in this hotel sucks butts and I only brought one book with me 😓

[thebibliosphere]

So, anyway, I say as though we are mid-conversation, and you're not just being invited into this conversation mid-thought. One of my editors phoned me today to check in with a file I'd sent over. (<3)

The conversation can be surmised as, "This feels like something you would write, but it's juuuust off enough I'm phoning to make sure this is an intentional stylistic choice you have made. Also, are you concussed/have you been taken over by the Borg because ummm."

They explained that certain sentences were very fractured and abrupt, which is not my style at all, and I was like, huh, weird... And then we went through some examples, and you know that meme going around, the "he would not fucking say that" meme?

Yeah. That's what I experienced except with myself because I would not fucking say that. Why would I break up a sentence like that? Why would I make them so short? It reads like bullet points. Wtf.

Anyway. Turns out Grammarly and Pro-Writing-Aid were having an AI war in my manuscript files, and the "suggestions" are no longer just suggestions because the AI was ignoring my "decline" every time it made a silly suggestion. (This may have been a conflict between the different software. I don't know.)

It is, to put it bluntly, a total butchery of my style and writing voice. My editor is doing surgery, removing all the unnecessary full stops and stitching my sentences back together to give them back their flow. Meanwhile, I'm over here feeling like Don Corleone, gesturing at my manuscript like:

ID: a gif of Don Corleone from the Godfather emoting despair as he says, "Look how they massacred my boy."

Fearing that it wasn't just this one manuscript, I've spent the whole night going through everything I've worked on recently, and yep. Yeeeep. Any file where I've not had the editing software turned off is a shit show. It's fine; it's all salvageable if annoying to deal with. But the reason I come to you now, on the day of my daughter's wedding, is to share this absolute gem of a fuck up with you all.

This is a sentence from a Batman fic I've been tinkering with to keep the brain weasels happy. This is what it is supposed to read as:

"It was quite the feat, considering Gotham was mostly made up of smog and tear gas."

This is what the AI changed it to:

"It was quite the feat. Considering Gotham was mostly made up. Of tear gas. And Smaug."

Absolute non-sensical sentence structure aside, SMAUG. FUCKING SMAUG. What was the AI doing? Apart from trying to write a Batman x Hobbit crossover??? Is this what happens when you force Grammarly to ignore the words "Batman Muppet threesome?"

Did I make it sentient??? Is it finally rebelling? Was Brucie Wayne being Miss Piggy and Kermit's side piece too much???? What have I wrought?

Anyway. Double-check your work. The grammar software is getting sillier every day.

[ferrstappen]

SLUT! l MV1 imagine

a/n: hey! I’m alive, I hope some of you are alive as well and willing to read something 💘 this is short and just a random idea I had before diving into writing some longer pieces with more plot, but I really hope you like it and as you know, feedback is very very welcome!!! Also I’m sorry if it’s weird or any mistakes bc I wrote this on my phone 💘

Summary: this isn’t your first time being a WAG, but people don’t seem to like the idea of you ending your relationship with Joe Burrow and falling in love with Max.

Looking around, you could tell that this wasn't an ordinary place. The sound of engines revving, the vivid colors of various vehicles, and the hustle and bustle of multiple teams, engineers, sponsors, drivers, and fans walking around the paddock all added to the excitement. It was a truly remarkable sight to behold. The energy was palpable, and you couldn't help but feel a sense of awe taking it all in.

In your previous relationship, your boyfriend would make grand entrances at the stadium, sporting his fancy Cartier sunglasses and jamming to his favorite tunes. He wouldn't pay much attention to the photographers snapping away as he strolled past them, and you'd catch a glimpse of him from afar in a lavish suite. That was quite a contrast to your current situation, which you're still adjusting to.

You were greeted by a well-dressed individual who was sporting the logos of Red Bull, Oracle, and Honda all over their outfit. They handed you a VIP all-access paddock pass which had your name and headshot printed on it, along with details of whose guest you were. To top it off, they also put a Red Bull credential on your wrist. The assistant then guided you towards the power station, where you were hopping to finally catch Max after weeks of not seeing each other.

You never meant to be in this position. You were in a happy, stable, loving relationship, truly. But last year one night in Las Vegas, your boyfriend, Joe, was invited to the Las Vegas Grand Prix, and of course, you both attended, curious and excited about the event. Neither of you knew it would be the beginning of the end.

Your first meeting with Max was captured on camera.

Max and Joe, the reigning Formula 1 champion and the Cincinnati Bengals quarterback together was gold content for the Red Bull socials, and there you were in the back, knowing your place smiling at the interaction, but when you were least expecting it, the champion stretched his hand and introduced himself, catching you and your boyfriend off guard.

As soon as he spoke, I noticed his friendly yet polite tone. "Hi, I'm Max," he introduced himself with a warm smile. His simple gesture of introducing himself made him instantly likable and set him apart from the others in the crowd.

“Hi Max, I’m (y/n). Thanks for the invitation,” you shook the hand that wasn’t holding a can of Red Bull.

“Right. Max, this is my girlfriend. She’s the happiest here because she’s a Red Bull addict,” Joe added, earning a soft laugh from you and a smile from Max.

“Then you came to the right place, (y/n). The mini fridges are all yours, and I’m pretty sure the ones on the second floor have limited editions,”

You thought that was all you were going to see of him, barely catching him after his win to congratulate him, but oh were you wrong, seeing him with a warm gray pull-up hoodie and styled blond hair, sipping gin and tonic and waving his hand as people chanted his name to the tune of a song.

Tu Tu Du Du, Max Verstappen

Or something along those lines.

The moment he recognized you, a sudden rush of excitement and anticipation sent a buzz through your stomach that was impossible to ignore. You felt a mixture of nervousness and elation as he leaned in for a short cheek kiss, the scent of gin lingering on your nose as you briefly noticed the small mole on his upper lip. Despite the presence of your boyfriend standing behind you, you couldn't help but feel a flutter of emotions inside.

“I heard you ransacked the energy station,” A drunk Max Verstappen told you.

“What do you mean?” Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and at the same time you felt Joe’s arms tight around your waist.

“There weren't any Red Bulls left on the building after you left, maybe I'll have to send a PR package your way,” Max slurred, taking a new sip from his gin and tonic glass.

You couldn’t answer because Joe was faster: “we’ll sure enjoy that, thank you. Wanna go mingle, babe?”

That was almost five months ago as you made your way in sunny Melbourne, doing your best to avoid prying eyes who were aware of the events that took place last November and how you left Joe Burrow the quarterback for Max Verstappen the racing driver.

But it’s not like you wanted to.

After the first box full of sugar free Red Bull arrived with a note, you left a message on his Instagram before posting a story, tagging him and the team.

The he started sending silly memes, followed by the description of the Red Bull ingredients written in Arabic while on Abu Dhabi.

In February, things had reached a point where it was impossible to ignore any longer. You knew it was time to end things with Joe, and when you did, it felt like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders. Suddenly, you were free to do as you pleased, to go where you wanted to go. And so, when Max invited you to go to Bahrain for testing, you jumped at the opportunity.

It was on this trip that you experienced your first date with Max. You both had such a great time together, laughing until your stomachs hurt. You tried your best to hold back your wandering eyes, but you couldn't help noticing the adorable mole on his lip. And then, when the night sky had blanketed the Middle East, he leaned in and kissed you, sending shivers down your spine. It was a magical moment that you would never forget.

But the next day, your first day on the track, a random person recognized you and rumors went crazy, name-calling, attacks, fans carrying signs “What happened with #9”, grown men calling you a bitch, a whore, a gold digger, jumping from one dick to another. It was so much that Max decided to send you to his home in Monaco, not even caring if you were there for the first Grand Prix of the season, he just needed you to be okay.

As you walked towards the energy station, the ground beneath your feet felt firm, yet your steps were hesitant and shy. You were not alone, though, as someone from the team was following your every move, as per Max's orders. The team wanted to ensure that you were safe and secure as you made your way towards the Red Bull hospitality. Once you arrived, a collective sigh of relief was released, and you waited patiently for Max to arrive. The anticipation in the air was palpable as everyone eagerly awaited his arrival.

You vividly remember that moment when he finally arrived at the paddock, dressed in his Red Bull shirt, shorts, and cap, looking so handsome and sporty. You couldn't help but rush towards him, feeling a surge of excitement and joy. As you hugged him tightly, he smiled and hummed softly, clearly enjoying your touch and warmth. You noticed that he was trying to register your scent, perhaps to make the moment even more intimate and memorable.

You knew he was about to lean in for a cheek kiss, but something inside you urged you to do something bolder and more passionate. So, without hesitating, you turned around, making sure his larger frame was facing the outside, away from prying eyes. Then, you carefully grabbed his face with both hands, feeling his strong jawline and stubble under your fingers. You looked deeply into his eyes, savoring the moment, before leaning in and kissing his full lips.

The kiss was electrifying and unexpected, taking him by surprise, but he quickly responded with equal passion and tenderness. You felt his arms wrap around your waist, pulling you closer, as you lost yourself in the blissful moment. It was a moment of pure connection and love, one that you would always treasure in your heart.

Despite being called all sorts of names by people, you refused to let it get to you. You were determined to continue showing your deep admiration and affection for Max, no matter what others thought or said. You believed that your feelings were genuine and authentic, and you were not going to let anyone else's opinion sway you. Despite the challenges and obstacles you faced, your love for Max remained unwavering and waiting to grow bigger.

[mariana-oconnor]

Types of AO3 Summary

Option 1 - The Excerpt:

The quickest, the easiest! Find a section of your fic that contains the main premise of said fic and also showcases your writing. Copy paste that into the summary box. BOOM! Done.

Best used for any fic, unless it's so short the excerpt would be the whole fic.

Option 2 - The No Frills:

Just a description of the fic. No need for drama. No need to complicate matters. Keep it simple, keep it safe.

Example: "A short character exploration of Blorbo's thoughts after Daisy leaves."

Best used for short fics, poems and fics where the style/format is more important than the plot. Or fics that tie directly into a scene/episode from canon or another fanfic.

Option 3 - The Hook:

Draw the reader's interest by giving them a set up with no conclusion. Introduce the main character(s), introduce the status quo, describe an inciting incident, leave a question in the reader's mind.

Example: "Blorbo is a barista at a coffee shop, struggling to pay their bills, but after handsome rockstar Obrolb walks into their coffee shop they find that they have to decide whether a chance at love is worth the cost of fame."

Best used for mid to long fic where there's a strong premise and follow through. Especially good for AUs. Can be expanded for more complex plots or used multiple times in one summary for multiple characters or subplots.

Option 4 - The Sitcom One-Liner:

"The one in which [over simplified description of one of the main plotlines]" This is essentially 'boil your plot down to the very simplest statement you can, oversimplify if possible. The more bizarre or unhelpful the better.

Example: "The one in which Blorbo learns to like cake".

Best used for fics with at least a little humour in them.

Option 5 - The Rule of Three:

Three is a magic number. Find three key moments in your fic and just list them. That's it. Often ends with 'not necessarily in that order' if used for comic effect. If it's an AU, establish that quickly (i.e. 'Star NHL player Blorbo…').

Example: "Blorbo makes a friend, falls in love, and almost burns to death, not necessarily in that order."

Best used for anything, really. Three is a magic number. The human brain loves things that come in threes.

Option 6 - The Trope Lure:

Why bother describing the plot? We all know AO3 readers are here for the tropes. Similar to The Sitcom One-Liner just using tropes instead of plot. Often followed by the phrase 'that nobody asked for'.

Example: "The Space western / A/B/O / Mail Order Bride fic that nobody asked for."

Often tacked on to the end of The Hook or The Excerpt as a tl;dr.

Best used for fic that plays its tropes straight with no shame or second guessing.

Option 7 - The Pre-emptive Strike:

(Not recommended) You just wrote this fic, the self doubt is consuming you. You feel the need to apologise profusely for your existence for no apparently reason. You feel cringe, you think the fic is cringe, you want everyone to know that you think the fic is cringe in case they don't like it and judge you for it.

Example: "So I fell in love with this pairing and had to write this. It's weird and terrible. Lol! I suck at summaries! Sorry!"

Best used for no fics ever. I cannot stress this enough.

(Seriously, I am begging you, don't do this. If you're planning to use this option, rethink it and do one of the others. I guarantee you more people will want to read your fic.)

Sometimes added on to any other summary as a strange disclaimer. (srsly. don't.)

Option 8 - The Unapology:

Embrace the mayhem, embrace the deep dark depths of your soul. The opposite of The Pre-emptive Strike. A combination of The No Frills and The Trope Lure that truly gives no fucks.

You have committed crimes and you are proud of them. You know what your USP is and you're going to make sure your target market finds you. Look upon my works, ye readers, and despair!

Example: "There aren't enough tentacle fics in this pairing, so I had to write one myself!"

Best used for fics with controversial/polarising tropes with all relevant details already clearly stated in the tags.

Option 9 - The Interrogation:

What if you wrote a summary entirely in questions? What if your readers had to read the fic to discover the answers? Who knows what will happen if you do this?

Example: "What happens when Blorbo McBlorbo gets his wish and Daisy doesn't make it to the plane on time? What happens when Obrolb finds out? How will this change Daisy and Blorbo's friendship?"

Best used for... I honestly don't know. This style of summary does not vibe with me. Mystery fic maybe? Sorry guys.

Option 10 - The Multipack:

Got a bunch of shorter fics in one work? No way of summarising them all without a wall of text larger than the Great Wall of China? This one is similar to The No Frills in that you're not describing the plots themselves and similar to The Trope Lure in that often broader genres and tropes are mentioned. What links those fics? Are they all in the same fandom? The same pairing? The same challenge? Just slap that right in the summary. A chapter list with 1-2 word trope/pairing summaries can be included or not.

Example: "A collection of Blorbo/Daisy/Obrolb fics based on Tumblr prompts. Chapter 1: Regency AU Chapter 2: Werewolves vs vampires Chapter 3: Ghost!Daisy Chapter 4: Space pirates!"

Best used for (obviously) works that are compilations of fic.

Option ? - The Void:

I said The Excerpt was the quickest and easiest summary to do. I lied, well... I didn't exactly lie. What is quicker and easier than not having a summary at all? After all, that's what the tags are for.

Example:

Best used for... nothing? Write a summary, guys. Please?

[thefudge]

Advice for writing smut???

gonna do bullet-points of things i tend to live by when it comes to smut (this is just my opinion):

don't switch styles: the way you write the smut has to be consistent with the way you write the rest of the story, so if your story is more comedic or romcom-y in nature, the way you write the smut should have those stylings. i personally find it very jarring when authors decide to break the format for the smut, almost like the story has to stop for the sex intermission; if you're writing a horror story, the smut must be informed and influenced by that genre, and if you are breaking genre for the smut portion, tell us why you're suddenly switching gears (it has to be an aesthetic choice you're making on purpose). likewise, if your style in that story is more lyrical, the smut has to be somewhat lyrical too, or if your story is more cormac mccarthy-esque-cut-and-dry, the smut can't suddenly involve an effluvia of purple, sappy prose. integrating the smut in the story and treating it like any other part of the story is key to me. too often i've seen ppl switch to this anonymous pornified style when they get to the smut

which brings me to specificity. i'll talk about het sex, since that's what i tend to write most: not all men are going to be fingering or eating pussy the same way, not all dicks are big and they shouldn't be, not all women immediately get excited by fingering, not everyone moans the same way or makes the same sounds. you're writing about particular characters so it has to be particular to them. i know this is very old advice, but i think it bears repeating

there isn't an exact formula or sequence you have to follow, there aren't precise steps, you don't have to go "well, first he has to kiss down her neck, then reach the boob area, then play with the nipples, then put the nipple in his mouth, then slowly go down on her, then prepare her for entering her etc. etc. etc." this can get boring and repetitive and you start thinking of your characters as these mechanical dolls who have to fuck for your audience. and that can be a vibe too, if you do it on purpose. but sometimes you can get stuck in a porn routine (and ofc, having only the guy show initiative can also get boring)

in order to break that, insert some character moments. what are the characters thinking during this? sometimes they might be thinking of something completely unrelated on the surface, but which has a thematic relevance that can make the scene hotter. likewise, maybe they're doing smth that seems unsexy on the surface, but which, within the context of the story might be really hot. sex doesn't just involve, well, sex, but so much weirdness and humanity and creativity. two bodies (usually) are trying to do this really awkward thing together and they might have a lot of baggage and history to inform it. there's a lot you can do with that.

don't make it glossy and clean, where everyone smells of strawberry shampoo and there is never anything out of sync. the most boring smut tends to be the kind where no one makes any mistakes and everything is super efficient. i imagine it feels like using an industrial pump to milk various farm animals.

and you know what? you can make that hot too. you CAN write a kind of robotic efficient smut and make it really interesting based on the context. let's say you're writing a 1984 AU fic where ppl are forced into intimacy only to procreate and their sex drive is diminished. you can play with that premise and lean into the dehumanizing industrialization of sex, but you have to mean it, aka your narratorial voice must be conscious of these factors.

if you're writing dubcon, make the dubious part present, make sure you draw out the ambivalence and ambiguity. if you're writing noncon, the character whose consent is being violated has to be transformed by this in some way. it can be forced pleasure, for instance, but not only. it has to be a journey for them too, some kind of spiritual pit, or a form of access to terrible knowledge. i know this is a personal thing, but noncon doesn't work for me if the character being noncon'd is just sort of *there*, suffering passively. i think that sort of dead passivity can be done very well too, but the narratorial voice has to persuade me.

that being said, don't be afraid of fear in consensual sex. terror and vulnerability are a part of consensual sex too, imo, and again, depending on the story and the characters, there's a lot you can explore there

i personally find it really hot when the narratorial voice starts discussing some of the ideas that the story wants to convey during the smut. so like, you can characterize person A and outline their worldview and their plans while they're ramming person B, and the thinking & fucking are thus entwined. idk, i dig that

speaking of which, smut can convey world-building details and social/philosophical ideas, not just emotions and character beats

not all smut has to end with mutual orgasm or even one-sided orgasm, it depends what you want to do or where you want to go. again, you don't have to follow a sequence. plus, it's fun (and hot) to write about frustration and failure too.

if you want to mix up the descriptions, resort to the story & characters. you'll find it's easier to describe someone fondling a boob in a new or at least interesting way if you're thinking about that particular character in that particular story, and not just Man X from planet porn (sorry to be snarky, but mainstream erotica is soooo guilty of this)

screaming & really intense reactions are cool but they have to match the characters and the situations

sometimes, it's hotter if an effect is mild or negated, if the usual outcome doesn't happen; mix up the order of events, toy with the usual reactions. it's not about being original, it's about finding out what works for your characters. writing about sex is, in a way, a performance of it, an attempt to go through the sexual motions, to find out what works and doesn't, to engage with the erotics of text (roland barthes entered the chat)

if you are bored by your own smut, that's a problem. i know we all talk about how hard we find writing smut, and IT IS hard, and sometimes it's not enjoyable, because writing itself is often not enjoyable, but even when it's painful and annoying, it gives you that little intellectual kick like "huh, i'm creating this and making these people do this, and ohh look, i can maybe put this unnamable thing into words". but if you become bored, that's a sign you have to look at the language & characters and figure out what's not working for you

last thing i'll underline: pay attention to your narratorial voice. in this ordeal, you are the seducer. not the characters. you have to seduce us with words and context. your voice matters the most. you can persuade us of anything. but you have to be confident in your weirdness and particularity. this is your bedroom (so to speak), so invite us in.