hi and no worries - not bothersome at all! i do feel awkward for putting it on hold but it's more of a bittersweet than uncomfortable topic for me :'>

i do feel more inclined to work on longer works right now and a few days ago i finally got my arc4 draft out of the chapter-planning stalemate it's been in for half a year or so. i even transferred the local doc online for the comfort of drafting from my phone, which i've been doing when writing the latest shorter orv/umi fics and that one very hazukashii kannao one-shot. but when it comes to actually putting words down for ER adashu, i do sense some sort of a wall blocking me somehow and am being pulled toward other ideas that feel more in tune with my current mindset.

i'm not sure if it's me being rusty with the fandom's characters after this long. me thinking that it's a story that needs an open ending after all. or me feeling disconnected from the message aka the hope & belief in love as an unstoppable force that can overcome any barriers. i can't say i've become fully cynical toward romance but my dumb brain's initial reaction to any written line on mutual & comfy established relationship is "what the hell is that? that would never happen, lol". and as dumb as it is, i'm the type of person who needs to believe in what i write - anyone reading will notice if i don't bc the process of writing won't be fun and pleasurable for me.

tldr: arc4 draft does exist and it's more of a 'wip' than 'haven't even started yet'. but while people out there are fighting for and against 'fiction affects reality', i'm pathetically facing the fact that reality affects fiction, haha :'> i do want to think that it's a passing phase though and i'll pull through somehow (i was in a similar state after writing RtD and putting IL draft on pause for a ~year bc of personal drama). but i don't want to force things bc i want to enjoy the process of writing this story's end - hence making it more enjoyable to read it for the few people (that would still maybe be interested to read it, haha).

thank you so much for letting me know that there actually are people who still want to read the ending! i hope that once i recover the bits of hope and ideals i used to hold on to i'll be back on track :>

bold of you, anon, to assume that i wouldn't be hanging out with the normies now if i had many more conventional views on interests and hobbies, haha :>
if we unite "watching anime + playing games (VNs, JRPGs, rhythm, mahjong) + writing fic + reading manga/manhwa/japanese novels" under the 'weeb stuff' umbrella, then these really are my go-to past-times. besides that, let's see..

• grooming & playing with my cats
• learning/improving foreign languages
• daydreaming story ideas to music
• conversing with the people who i care for and who care for me in return
• doing maintenance/repairs for tech and appliances
• reading nonfiction (history, witchcraft, psychology, writing)
• taking lone walks outside, with my headphones on
• doing hair care routines
• looking for and choosing presents for loved ones
• making attempts at drawing (..kinda weeb-related though)
• shopping at stationary, books, and plushies stores (best when in company)
• combining weird clothes and jewelry into looks/outfits
• sleeping and watching my brain go haywire (lol)
• drinking my 40+ sorts of tea with sweets or buns
• reading tarot cards (mostly when distraught, as a sort of therapy)

i think that's it? some of these are more frequent than others due to the relevant need/occasion or sheer lack of time to do everything, considering the 40h/week job hours. but that doesn't make any of these activities less enjoyable for me.

..tough question, anon. i realize i've been giving off the vibes of someone who definitely does but outright agreeing with the idea feels somehow wrong? it's weird..

perhaps the reason for the weirdness is that since long ago, i was veeery much against the fate or 'meant/not meant to be' concept. especially in terms of people. i was very moved by all the portrayals of misunderstandings in fiction, so every time i had a falling out with someone, i'd think "it must be one of those exasperating 'if only they talked more-' situations. we aren't 'destined to part', it's just a trial. i need to do something!". and then i'd go reach out/apologize/try talking things through etc... but honestly, it never worked in the end. i just prolonged things a little. :'>

my latest encounter felt like the kind of a blessing fate in all senses. but the blessing still ended in me being not enough. not "can you work on--" or "i'd love things to be more--" but simply me not having to offer what they need at the moment. i'll leave out the specifics (i regret sharing too much as is..) and i still wish the person all the best in the world. but this situation was and is too tough for me. i don't know how to change myself to be genuine and enough for the people i love. i don't know why and how to stay in their lives in any capacity after i unwillingly ended up being the reason for their hurt & darkness. i don't know if any of my attempts to adapt make any sense at all because i'm a just an all-round 'meh' person.

so, it's either accepting that i'm some sort of a monster or that there's some invisible force that has long decided that intimate relationships shouldn't be a part of my life. and in this dilemma, i think choice #2 can be seen as a weird coping mechanism (even if, perhaps, it's choice #1 that is the objective truth of the world). it's not even 'fate' but.. me trying to assemble the pieces of evidence i have? and the idea that i'm not made for human relationships and that the universe is steering me into a loner route is at least some sort comfort in all the discomfort i experience now.

to answer this assuming you've read my 'backstory' of the past few months: i think 'life' has finally made it indisputably clear for me that i'm not made to have or enjoy it to begin with, dear anon. and i think that's fine. i can't be 'normal' in too many ways. i can't try changing my weird self without appearing fake. and i can't have intimate long-term connections that don't eventually rip me apart (usually with one-sided decisions which don't allow for any second chances).

close human relationships have been my biggest life challenge since forever. and while continuously fighting against life's challenges is considered a virtue - because 'persistence' - i think there's a fine line between 'persistence' and 'stubbornness'. at this point, trying to tackle my challenge is just being idiotically stubborn on my part. because it's just not what i can achieve, regardless of my inherent wish for a deep 'special' connection. i'm old and damaged enough to finally accept the point my life's been trying to make for decades.

that point being: my existence should just keep revolving around consuming art in different forms, discussing it with like-minded people at times, and spewing out some silly writing in the process. it's always been like that and it should stay that way. trying to build and sustain intimate, 'specia', real-life bonds has never done me any good and probably even brought confusion or disappointment to other people, due to the abnormal way i am. there's no point in knocking on the door that won't ever open and disturbing those on the other side.

tl;dr and "omg, what the hell's she talking about?? i just asked how she's doing, wtf...": my life's been treating me like the luckless garbage i am and i feel burnt beyond repair after getting too close to the feel-good and alluring fire. but i have my books, anime, and vn games. and fiction. i can afford taking days off this week to read a good lengthy novel while drinking a smoothie and petting my dumbass cat - all because i no longer need to save days off for a proper vacation, which i would've so craved to spend traveling with a certain dear person. i can love characters without fearing that i'll directly hurt them with the broken way i am - or that i'll get hurt myself. i hope i'll survive this way, somehow.

really sorry for the loaded answer, anon, but that's how things have been, i guess - very-very 'loaded'. and thank you for the interest. i sincerely hope that your life has and will be treating you well 🍀

this twitter has been needlessly too personal lately and full of pathetic tmi stuff anyway, haha.. so i don't mind answering. (it's a surprising ask, though)

actual sexual attraction is something, i'm afraid, i've never felt toward anyone at all. the idea that some people just look at someone and go 'wow, i'd do them' or start mentally undressing them simply blows my mind. not in the victorian 'how indecent!'-kind of way but in the genuine 'how does that work for you, guys??' kind of way. so, while i did identify as gay/pan in my teens due to simple lack of self-awareness, i'm pretty sure i've been on the ace spectrum since forever.

i'd casually drop the term 'romantic attraction' next but unlike other types of attraction, this, i feel, is a very subjective term. different people understand different things under 'romance'. for some it's butterflies in the stomach, for others - it's the rare sense of peace and quiet. the 'desire to date', often used to determine romance, is also very vague.

in my personal interpretation, 'romantic attraction' is a wish to build and support each other in going through life together, to often elicit pleasant emotions, to ignore the differences/negatives and focus on the similarities/positives (or even bridge any existing gaps with effort), to trust and sometime understand each other without words, to forgive because you can't not forgive, to share critical life views and big life goals, and try working on your shared relationship comfort through deep respectful talks. the "we're each other's #1 person"-kind of relationship that implies healthy emotional independence and inherent sense of self-worth with mutual respect and motivated work together.

now that i've (messily) defined romantic attraction, the simple truth is that i've only ever felt this toward women or feminine-aligned non-binary people.

in case of the romantic attraction being present, i'm not averse to sexual intimacy. it's not a physical need/drive of mine per se, but more of a conscious motivation to give a person comfort and pleasure (if they wish for it) or get closer to them for a more intense emotional intimacy.
whether i'd enjoy being on the receiving end of this intimacy in such a bond, is something, i guess, i'll never know. many of my romantic bonds either are (from the start) or end up being one-sided before i feel relaxed/safe enough and figure out anything that i'd even want.

the other thing i'm also unable to conclusively "figure out" is my potential for sensual attraction. i don't get touch-starved and don't require physical affection to feel and know i'm loved. but sense is important for many people and "emotional" component is only enough for the 'in-the-head' weirdos. being out of touch with your senses can get you dumped. but most of my relationships in the so-called ~formative teen years~ were one-sided, and learned to restrain my then-present touchy-feely reflexes. whether they're 'dormant' or 'not there at all' seems like the unattainable knowledge for me, hah.

thanks for the question, anon! i hope this wasn't an awkward read and i answered what you were interested in. wish you a less messy and less hurtful self-discovery if you're still on your way to figuring things out for yourself!

thanks a lot, sweetest anon ❤️‍🩹🫂 i'm trying to trust in the universe for now and hope to be okay again someday. long distance bonds are tough indeed. and because of where i'm from and what relationships need to be sustained, it was probably obvious that ours wouldn't work out from the very beginning...
i now often regret agreeing to try it at all due to the level of pain i'm currently in. but.. i know i wouldn't have been able to ever turn that amazing person down, even if i went back in time. it was a pleasure to be her girlfriend, even if for a while. and hopefully, in the future, i'll be able to calmly cherish this relationship as a heart-warming memory..

thank you again for the care. and i'm glad if my twitter hasn't actually turned into a breakup-vent mess so far :'>

i think it'd be easier to list the ones i like - not because there are only a few but because i rarely think about the ones i dislike :'> but let's see, hmm..

• i'm not sure it's a 'trope', more of an entire genre, but i tru-uly don't get the whole a/b/o thing. i think people's animalistic nature hasn't evolved as much as it should have, so introducing even more primal physicality aspects is an idea that is quite confusing to me, to say the least.

• as much as i love angst, i also don't really like the tropes of conscious and explicit cheating and/or polygamy involved. it can be very IC for some characters and/or written very well but i know it'd just hurt my ship feelings, hah, so i tend to avoid this.

• 'there was only one bed' is more of a crack than a trope at this point. but any similar petty circumstantial reasons to make your ship confess/make out is something that'd earn a roll-eye from me. i want to see actual work put into forcing the 2 become a couple, not a gay deus ex machina do its job.

• again, not sure it's a trope but seeing a stoic "i don't have feelings!"-character get "broken" with too little build up is something that can make me close the tab. my brain is very picky&demanding and genuinely doesn't enjoy anything pwp-style - it needs to see, co-experience, and believe the emotions behind actions in order to let me feel something from any rated scene. so 'a lack of buildup' - if it can be considered a trope - isn't something i'm particularly fond of.

mm, i think that's mostly it? i can't come up with a long list of tropes to assess them in my head, haha, so if you had some specific ones in mind - do share!

that's a tough one, anon, hah..

honestly, i feel kind of disappointed in myself after that latest fem!adashu fic i posted. despite getting a couple of very kind comments recently (that i plan to respond to, naturally), during the first week after sharing i ended up convincing myself that i made a fool out of myself with it.

'why' is what i keep asking myself. i don't think it has anything to do with the fic being niche: my previous work on another fandom got a whopping number of 2 likes and 0 comments but i'm pretty much satisfied with it regardless. (although, maybe it's because i was genuinely prepared for that?..) i do acknowledge 2 modest personal factors for this reaction, but i'd rather not share them here.

anyway, this confusing feeling of 'falling short' is exactly what i didn't want to happen with IL. it's why i paused it in the first place. bc despite enjoying the process of writing itself, after sharing i end up feeling like i 'write worse than before' or 'write soulless stuff'. maybe knowing that i used to be more passionate about the ship from the inside convinces me that the end result of my writing is objectively different now. maybe it actually is objectively different, lackluster and soulless, haha. idk...

but from the looks of it, my passion is what compensates for my perpetual lack of confidence when sharing stuff with others. when my passion somewhat dies down, i might rely on others' passion instead. but relying on it is always risky bc others' interest and time is never a given. and when there's no component 1 or 2, i end up in this "why did i even post it" state that i dislike.

ANYWAY, what i mean is, i actually did hope (note to self and other creators: never have any hopes when posting stuff online!!) to feel an impetus and enough motivation after sharing TF to get back to In Limbo. my job's more or less chill and i have zero wips at the moment, so it's a comfy time for some spike, too. but.. yeah, for some reason the fact of TF being out there just makes me feel like a "previously okayish writer still needlessly trying to share stuff that sucks". and right now i feel too ashamed to even contemplate contributing to the tag, heh. but who knows what future holds.

thanks a LOT for the kind words of support and sorry for whining so much in this answer! i hope to someday write something that i'll be more or less comfortable sharing and that'd interest my previous adashu connoisseurs as well~

it's tough to say, honestly. especially for me, who's always on the sidelines of fandom groups. i can mostly judge the popularity of a certain ship or ship-name by the type of art/fiction that i see on the web. more precisely - by the way people themselves tag their creative works. and, to be fair, the tag doesn't always tell you the whole picture. when characters are as complex as these two, their relationship can't be simple either. so i can see lots of scenarios where elements of both shuada and adashu dynamics can organically coexist. and these are pretty neat scenarios, in my opinion.

but yeah, just from the tags, i'd say that i've personally spotted more shuada than adashu (or even # adashuada/shuadashu, the unfortunately rare tags) in the past few years. i definetely didn't make any sort of statistical research and don't stand by this claim, haha.
at the same time, if you look at the fandom's collective creativity over the years.. who knows, maybe adashu would win? i definitely remember seeing 'adashu' as a prevalent tag on pixiv in ~2017, for instance. and most of the ao3 "heritage" from early 2010s is "adasou" as well. so i guess the two would balance each other out, time-wise.

thanks for asking and glad if i'm providing at least any sort of entertainment with my thoughts here :'>

i promised myself to only answer this ask after finishing the draft of TDI pt2, so i'm sorry for the delay (and also thank you for helping me create a fake deadline!)

it all kind of worked out intuitively, to be honest. when you think about original Adachi, you see lots of common 'male anti-success' struggles there: undervalued at work (success = power), underpaid (success = money), lonely (success = sex). so it made sense to recreate the struggles for fem!Adachi but with typical female values. and even though some men would argue that sexual harassment equals attention and ~popularity~, it's definitely on the opposite side of the positive values for most women. so that's where fem!Adachi's backstory and attitude to men came from.

making her gay was a prerequisite because i wanted the ship to stay same-sex. but simply making fem!Adachi a SA victim and lesbian didn't really convey the original problematic nature of the character. what could do the trick, in my opinion, was making her a sort of a radfem, who almost indiscriminately hates men and hates women who don't hate men. i had a radfem twitter-acquaintance in the past and it did seem to me that this movement sadly spends more time aggressively attacking fellow women than helping them overcome whatever struggles or offer protection/education.

there's also a layer of my own sentiment in there. i come from a place where you won't see a bisexual-identifying woman dating a girl, because same-sex relationships are illegal and heavily criticized by literally everyone. by identifying as 'bisexuals', local girls mostly imply that they 'kissed a girl once while drunk' (and that's somehow sensational..), 'wouldn't mind to play around~' or 'would agree to a threesome'. they don't even allow themselves to think about girls seriously because it's too dangerous and they have the room for safety (=they're still attracted to men). because of this local sociocultural situation, i - as an ace homoromantic ciswoman - would have lots of trust issues dating a bi-woman, bc it'd make me worried if she takes it seriously and sees as long-term.
while i'm not sure how things are in this regard in Japan, i do hope they're doing better than this. but for the sake of a fictional story, i thought that similar-yet-aggravated trust issues in Adachi can be sort of in-character given the original Adachi being very critical of Yamano's affair and "betraying his opinion of her".

if there's anything specific in Adachi's lines that you're curious about and i didn't explain - feel free to ask! and thanks for wondering about my thought process for this in general :>

as much as i sound like i'm dissatisfied with fandom status quo, i don't think my own preferences are that peculiar or odd? :'> basically, i love anything that tries to explore characters' personalities. if there's a dive into their thoughts/feelings/past/complexes with a creator's spin - that's an amazing bonus and a 'must-consume' sign for me.

i also love it when adachi and yu are given the chances to interact and when their interactions are treated with care. (i've been reading for a specific different fandom recently and.. empty and people-don't-talk-like-this dialogs are a huge joy breaker for me...). wanting characters to discuss all kinds of stuff at length is something that has always driven my own writing. adachi x yu communication in canon is very limited but the established dynamic has an immense potential for all types of fanworks~.

as much as i'm always blabbering about wanting characters to ~be true to their canon selves~, i do love creative liberties with age, genders, role reversal, AUs, etc. there's a fine line between what feels like an interesting and fresh interpretation of a character and what's too OOC for me to emotionally connect with, though. everything boils down to everyone's own tastes, i guess. i'd say that i personally appreciate it when a new spin on a character (or even a setting) is 1. crafted with a specific intention or theme 2. plays with the character's key original traits in some way, and 3. maintains character complexity. regarding point 3 - like i've said a few times before, seeing adachi and yu being repeatedly reduced to the same old memes or simply bodies in a pwp isn't something i tend to enjoy.
with all the experiments, i'm also partial to keeping adashuada as a same-sex pair - simply because there's enough of het ships out there available in fandoms as is and because i personally find exploration of queer topics relatable.

..did i say i love angst? i love angst. i feel like i've been mostly talking about writing-related creativity but atmosphere & mood is something that can be powerfully conveyed in any type of media. be it fics or art or playlists or moodboards or whatnot, angsty stuff that's emotionally charged with intense and dark or complex emotions is what i absolutely adore~
one of the reasons why many of the works i love classify as 'adashu' is because i love this darker mood in the ship-centered and rated stuff as well. (and i know lots of shuada fans insist that 'shuada doesn't mean it's vanilla!', bu-ut i rest my case that it's the specific power dynamic of adashu that makes it almost sinister at times.) i wouldn't call myself a DDDNE enjoyer but i'm not repelled by most of the dark, angsty warnings. well-crafted stuff that can be categorized as 'hurt/comfort' or 'angst with happy ending' are one of the best treats for me. these are also the tags i would love to hope to create more for~.

(in all fairness, i absolutely do not see adashuada fandom en masse returning to the darker stuff that characterized it in the 2010s, haha. not any time soon, at least. times and sentiments have changed irreversibly...)

thank you for the question and i hope i've answered it coherently! ultimately, i think it's important for every creator to listen to their own voice and create whatever they would love to see in the fandom space. so everything above is just a glimpse at what i'd love to contribute, if i had more time and energy :'>

i don't have that many and i haven't read much during the times when i was working on a long fic of my own, but here's my humble top-5 in no particular order:

Iterative - https://archiveofourown.org/works/4337213 - T | Gen, M/M.
the very fic that initially got me invested in the ship. after i finished it, i couldn't stop thinking of why the finale made me feel so hollowed, and me delving into the writing of my own was the result of this constant "why??"-thinking. in many ways, i felt like i couldn't contribute anything original or anywhere as good as this. and i vividly remember once getting a positive comment on RtD, where the author almost leveled it with Iterative: i ran hoppingly back home from work while mentally chanting "RtD got compared to Iterative! RtD got compared to Iterative!!". needless to say, it was the best praise ever.

Tidal Force - https://archiveofourown.org/works/196365 - M | M/M
Shadow Yu x Shadow Adachi. an interesting spin with very high quality prose (the author is getting published, so that level of mastery makes sense.. or so i would've said if a lot of published literature didn't suck nowadays, haha. anyway, this author's craft is superb!). i don't usually store metaphors from fics or any writing at all for a long in my memory, but the 'surprised dandelion puff' in regards to Adachi's hair is something that's forever stuck in my head for some reason.
(i also rarely like 2nd POV fics but it fits the Player character and is very well executed here.)

This Time I Won't Miss - https://archiveofourown.org/works/41430021 - M | M/M.
one of the scenarios i often contemplated about but never dared to explore in a fic because it's a very tough and excruciating process. so i was happy to see a similar idea brought to life and in such a well-done way, with a proper build-up and a great, in-depth character analysis. an emotionally intense, titillating, and devastating read.

One More, Partner? - https://archiveofourown.org/works/3876559 - E, M/M (with an easily skippable F/M bit if you're not a fan, like me).
one of those old-time, accomplice-ending, dubcon-adashu works where Yu still reads as a guy and not a 'babygirl'. the smut might be a bit too extreme to my tastes at times, since it's an E (while i prefer Ms), but the mesmerizing atmosphere of despair and an absolutely fucked-up abusive co-dependent relationship hits really hard.

The Court Jester - https://archiveofourown.org/works/41428860 - T | M/M.
a short but great spin on role reversal with a fresh taste of familiar (but, this time, sincerely) goofy Adachi and a very unfamiliar reserved and distant Yu. intriguing, heart-warming, and mentally stimulating in a way. i feel like this fic offers a lot of room for reader's interpretation of both Yu as a character and the adashu bond in this new context, so my gears started actively working, imagining this sort of dynamic with a darker Yu, upon the read.

i.. don't even think i've ever interacted with the fandom in its classical sense, haha. i just passively created content and responded to people who either were leaving comments or were kindly making the first steps to talk to me on twitter or RS. that's how i've met the most of the adashuada people i know, tbh :'>
(i tried interacting with fandom as a group on discord but felt ve-e-ery out of place in a real-time group setting.)

basically, i don't really have much first-hand experience of the fandom in the first place. but that said, i have been hearing about the adashuada fandom spaces lately leaving a bad taste in the mouths of the several people i know and trust. apparently, some folks are outright rude, others are narcissistically attention-seeking, others are very dismissive of creative endeavors of fellow fandom-dwellers... i would say that this is a 'decline' but honestly - that's the result of any sort of group growing bigger and attracting enough people for there to be assholes too. a natural order of things, i guess.

speaking of interacting with fandom content rather than people: something i already brought up once is the current focus on shuada compared to adashu. now, i don't think that "roles" are something that should ever spark conflict in fandom spaces. and frankly, my understanding of my favorite m/m ships has always been along the lines of "these are 2 guys. no one has to be a 'man' or a 'woman'. their bond should be its own thing. and it's my job as a fan to figure out what exactly their relationship would look like in these X thousands of words". this mindset applied to adashuada for me as well bc the pre-2020 fics with massively feminized Yu didn't really feel.. right to me. no idea if i succeeded at all but what i wanted to create for these 2 in my head was a more or less equal relationship between 2 guys, with both Yu and Adachi having room to be gentle, detached, independent, needy, horny, bashful, persistent, inert, etecetera. after all, emotions and behaviors are universal and, imo, should be tied to context and situations rather than "roles". otherwise, it's simply gender-stereotypes.

but getting back to the point, what i want to say is: i feel like the gears shifted 180 degrees in the past ~3 years or so, and now it's Adachi's turn to be a 'babygirl' in the relationship. i hate the word 'fetishize' and heck, i do love everything related to femininity, so all sorts of fem-related kinks don't necessarily rub me the wrong way. but i also do want my m/m ships to stay more or less true to their canon selves and not "play" a forced heterosexual couple. seeing Adachi now constantly and widely bear the brunt of delivering 'sexy fem kinks' is just kinda.. sad to me, i guess.

it's all about personal preferences to having and not having fun, though. and of course, everyone has the right to have fun the way they like. so simply in the scope of this answer: i do feel like 'babygirlifying' Adachi is something that has been a more recent trend and i, personally, am not a fan of it. still, the times of babygirlified Yu's weren't perfect either. i just wish we maintained some balance :'>

thanks so much for the question and thanks for enjoying my adashuada fics~