Love Game Or How Lorenz Learned How To Stop Being A Pretentious Dick And Pretend To Love Bad PLAP-PLAP-SPLURT Fanfiction

Author's Notes: written for FE Rally for Gaza, specifically for Slotumn. Inspired by Slotumn's FE3H Fandom AU, specifically "sperm-launching meatsnake fuckrod (and other struggles in collaborative writing)". this is utterly incomprehensible to anyone not following the both of us.

It was a long day. A fun one but definitely a long one. It was the last day of Ai-Kon, a convention dedicated to various Hoshidan properties and other interests that came from around the area. The closing ceremony had gone ignored to the group of Infernal Insignia—with a few Anima— fans to have overpriced mimosas and breakfast at the restaurant attached to the hotel the convention was being hosted. Breakfast turned into lunch and then eventually dinner as the group moved from location to location after check out came and went.

Lorenz hung off the shoulder of his beloved wife-to-be—well, they weren’t engaged yet but he had promised her time and time again that he was going to make her his wife and she’d blush and look away—as they made their way to the car. They were once students at the local university who had their rich daddies pay for their apartment and technically didn’t need to stay at the hotel. They could just go to their shared apartment. However, Ai-Kon was special. This particular Ai-Kon was special.

They officially met Shahid, the older brother of Claude and the third member of their relationship. Shahid lived in Almyra and didn’t like Fodlan and its people, supposedly. Of course, that made the beginning of their relationship awkward. There were plenty of awkward moments after casual slurs and offensive jokes made about them, their culture and country were thrown about. Still, Shahid had a charisma that was inexpiable. Plus, it wasn’t as if his stereotypical comments weren’t completely baseless. He and Marianne did struggle to learn any language that wasn’t Fodlani. He also had a horrible spice tolerance—or had difficulty with intensely flavoured foods in general, if he was being horrifically honest.

The one joke Shahid continued to make, however, was completely baseless and inaccurate. There was no way that Marianne, or most women in Fodlan, had... relations with animals.

At least, Lorenz hoped so.

(Regardless, they were all trust fund babies with rich daddies.)

Shahid was a newcomer to fandom according to Claude and Lysithea. He had little to no regard for fandom etiquette but made attempts to learn after being told that suicide-baiting people into complying with his ass-hattery would not work. Really, he and Marianne should have hated Shahid. They didn’t. They learned to adore him. He was mostly into sports—soccer, sorry, football specifically—and a mecha anime with a small cult following in Almyra. He wasn’t really into Infernal Insignia (“Aside from the waifus” was a direct quote from him. (He proceeded to get into internet slap fights with Lene waifuists.)). However, he had gotten into an actual HRPG, Anima 5.

This was how he and the couple bonded.

Or rather, it was how Marianne and Shahid bonded. Lorenz was just around for the ride. He didn’t mind that Marianne fell for a fandom newcomer, his love for her shone brighter than any initial jealousy he may have felt. Lorenz wrote his own Anima fic—he was a tried and true KitaShuHaru fan for 5 and even went so far as to write fic for the first Anima game. Marianne did also and even had their friend Ignatz illustrate a few. Shahid was just getting into fic himself. He even collaborated with Lysithea and Claude on it. Though the former insisted that Lorenz never read it and judging by the tags of said fic on AO3, it wouldn’t have been something he liked to begin with (Really? Another Hearts Trio fic?). Still, over time he grew to appreciate Shahid all the same and welcomed the man into their relationship when Marianne brought up her growing crush on him. If it made Marianne happy, it’d make him happy.

With their merchandise—both purchased and leftovers from Marianne and Ignatz’s shared table—in tow, the throuple made their way to their apartment. Both Lysithea and Claude wished Marianne and him luck.

Whatever that meant.

The group of friends and Shahid piled into Lorenz’s apartment. The merchandise was thrown across their bed hours ago for con haul pictures. Lorenz was too clumsy to arrange his new prints and charms of Haru in an aesthetically pleasing manner and would sorely regret getting ‘piss-shit-wasted’ all day when he would later flop into bed and dent his sketch commissions of Haru and Hifumi. Snacks littered the coffee table as drinks, some fancy some not-so-fancy, were passed around.

“Did you see that one Buzzsaw Guy cosplayer in the Dealer’s Hall?” Raphael asked in between bites of chips. “It was pretty cool.”

“No, but I paid that bunny girl Makima cosplayer to step on me,” Claude chimed. “She didn’t do it hard enough.”

“You’re the worst.” Lysithea took a long sip of her drink.

“No, you fucking did not,” Shez sighed.

“Shut the fuck up, Khalid!” Shahid said as he reached over to shove his cackling brother in the arm.

Marianne snickered as she leaned into Lorenz’s side. A faint dusting of pink blossomed across her delicate features and contrasted prettily against the pale blue of her hair. It made his heart stir. Gently, he stroked a loose curl out of her face before pulling her into a tight hug.

“Honestly, Claude,” Lorenz joined in as he squeezed Marianne against his side. “I don’t see why you’d waste money on such a trivial thing.”

“You know we were at a convention, right? Like, that’s what you’re supposed to do. Waste money on trivial things.”

“He has you there, Lorenz.”

He sputtered. “Y-yes, but, wasting money on something as... uncouth as that? When you’re in a relationship...”

Lysithea shrugged.

“It’s strange.”

“Not as weird as the fic I’ve seen you write in exchanges.”

Marianne snorted as Lorenz fumed!

“Glass houses, my dear Claude,” Lorenz shot back. “Don’t think I don’t see what you get up to on your alts.”

Cackles filled the living room as the two argued. It wasn’t a serious argument. The two were long past that one-sided rivalry—thankfully it didn’t end in a relationship like Lysithea and Claude’s did but the thought may have crossed the Gloucester heir’s mind from time to time. It was just sick banter at this point. However, the banter between Claude and his girlfriend’s boyfriend was anything but ‘sick sweet banter’. There was real vitriol laced in Shahid’s words even when he wasn’t telling his brother to kill himself.

“Anyway...” Lorenz said with a cough once the not-so-fun argument between Claude and Shahid ended. “Have you all read anything interesting lately?”

“Well... I’ve... I’ve started reading for Creatures In My Pocket again.” Lysithea’s head snapped towards Marianne for a moment. Her big, rose-coloured eyes widened so much that Lorenz was afraid that they might burst from her head. “...Bede and Hattrene’s relationship is so sweet. I came across one that dealt with Hatterene worrying about Gloria hurting her trainer. It was heartwarming.”

For some reason, Lysithea relaxed.

“Gimme a link to that sometime, Marianne!” Hilda said with a soft clap of her hands.

Marianne nodded. “Otherwise... I’ve just... been rereading the same ShuOhya—”

“Boooooo! Anima 5!”

“Shut the fuck up, Khalid!”

Lorenz rolled his eyes. Ohya was hardly his favourite Anima waifu. He couldn’t understand how someone as sweet as Marianne adored her. Of course, he still wrote plenty of fic for her to fill out the woefully empty tag—as a YusuHaru shipper, Lorenz understood the struggle especially when most of the tag was full of unfinished harem fics. He didn’t know if he preferred that scenario to the Anima: Revelations tag situation where there was nothing. Both were terrible. Awful. He wouldn’t wish either fate upon his worst of enemies.

“I reread a Pilot Moon fic where the white cat has sex with Felicia from NightFollowers and some bad intersex OC.”

“Don’t you dare bring up goddamn Oscar—”

“Who is Oscar?” Marianne asked as she leaned forward with sparkling eyes.

“Nooooo, why did you have to ask?!”

“Okay, so—”

The apartment was filled with screams as Claude described some once infamous but now mostly forgotten fanfiction author from the late nineties who had a penchant for cats and cat-themed characters. Lorenz chuckled as he got up to pour himself another glass of wine and Shahid laid against Marianne on the now free couch. The topic had switched to badfic in general by the time he staggered back into the living room with the entire wine bottle in hand. He flopped onto the couch with his head in Marianne’s lap as she snuggled up to Shahid.

“Speaking of Pilot Moon, did you read ‘Mini-Rini’s Seventh Birthday’?”

“Please... no more Pretty Maiden Pilot Moon.”

“Fine, fine... How about the weird shit in GGST?”

“Yeah, but, if you’re not writing weird stuff for GioGio’s Strange Travels then are you even delivering GGST fic?”

“The weirdest thing about that fandom is the people not writing Giosuke getting triple nipple penetrated by Personas with weird echidna dicks and writing about his rival being a tax collector in New Orleans or something.”

A collective ‘What’ rang across the room.

As the night went on, more and more horrors of AO3 and the occasional RPF from Wattpad that Hilda wrote about her totally-not-a-Mary-Sue OCs and H-Rock artists when she was thirteen were shared. The more drinks were had, the more degenerate the fic discussion became. Everyone knew about Claude and his interests, so it wasn’t so much of a surprise that he read some pretty rancid stuff. The night became some sort of weird fanfic chicken. Links were shared in their server.

“I... I have one...” Lorenz drawled as he pulled up his AO3 history on his phone. “It’s... it’s pretty out there. One of the most... disgusting things I’ve read in a while. All the details in their stuff always worry me,”

“If it’s snuff, I’m tapping out,” Ignatz murmured as he flipped his phone over. “It’s... it’s just too much.”

Lorenz shook his head which might have been a mistake as his head spun. “No, no... Lemme just... here we go. A lot of PonutHole’s fic makes me feel... a certain way. Not in a good way.”

Marianne blinked before her eyes widened once she looked at her phone screen. Her face blanched as she squirmed underneath Lorenz’s head. Shahid pressed his lips into a hard line as he realized what she was looking at. “I, ah, I gotta go. I feel... ill.”

Lorenz lifted himself from her lap. “Oh, dearest, do you need me to—”

“No.” The woman looked over to Shahid who followed after her. “You can stay here. Don’t let me ruin your fun.”

Lysithea’s eyes widened once she finally got a look at the link Lorenz dropped and the AO3 bot embedded all the information about the fic. It was an Anima 5 fic starring Haru, Lorenz’s main girl, and a horse. Additional tags included rimming, smegma, scents and smells, impregnation, interspecies breeding, non-con/rape, blackmail, and mind break. “Oh, Goddess.”

“You can understand why I...” Lorenz mumbled as he flung his hand in the air. He brought the bottle to his lips and finished his sentence before taking a long sip. “All of that.”

Lysithea swallowed. “Lorenz, this is Marianne’s problematic alt. PonutHole is Marianne.”

He then proceeded to waste half a bottle of expensive wine as he spat out what was in his mouth and spilled the rest onto the fluffy white carpet.

“Dearest, I had no idea that you were into... such things. You never told me. Do you think that little of...”

“Have you considered that being a weird elitist about stories where fictional characters suck and fuck all the time might’ve put Mari off of telling you about her fucked up stuff?” Shahid said as he turned down the TV that currently had his childhood favourite anime playing on it. “It’s probably why she told me to not tell you about it.”

Lorenz shot a look at the older man. “Are you saying that she told you and Lysithea about your secret account and not me?!”

Marianne sighed. “Yes. Yes, I did for that exact reason.”

Lorenz blinked. “...I...”

“I don’t understand how you can argue with antis all day and then imply that I... I want to do such things with actual animals because of the fic I write!” Marianne shot back. “I-it’s not just that, Lorenz, you can be so... so cruel about stories that don’t fit your unrealistic ideals! Who cares if someone wrote inaccurate hyper double-cocked futanari Yukari/Mitsuru?! This is the same game where a robot with breasts can talk to a dog who fights with a dagger! It’s all unrealistic!”

Shahid snorted as Lorenz pinched his nose. “I... I suppose I can be caught up in details that don’t matter. Still, am I not allowed to dislike effortless PWP?”

“It isn’t effortless is the thing! Someone wrote that and put work in!”

“Oh please... It isn’t as if the drivel Gurgandahaka or whatever their name is—”

“That’s my account, asshole. Ten thousand words isn’t effortless and is a lot harder than the three hundred word cockteases you put out.”

Lorenz dragged his hands down his face. Goddess, save him from saying the wrong thing. “It actually isn’t—never mind. I... I apologize, Marianne and Shahid. I have been unfair. More than unfair. I can... be quite... pompous and...cruel and... Well, you can imagine. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t mean to embarrass you in front of our friends. That doesn’t change the fact that I already did.”

She sighed as she stepped towards him and pressed a kiss to the corner of his lips. “Thank you for apologizing.”

“I still don’t forgive him,” Shahid mumbled as he watched the protagonist’s family get obliterated by a large death ray.

“...I’ll... That’s alright, Shahid. I appreciate your honesty.”

“Whatever.”

Lorenz rolled his eyes as he looked towards Marianne’s. “Now... How about I... try to properly read one of your stories, my beloved? I may have let the content distract me from your wonderful prose.”

Marianne smiled.

The fics in question were still disgusting to Lorenz. He then got a callout post a week later after a minor saw his username in both the kudos list and the positive comments.

He did not leave a positive comment on Shahid’s plap-plap-plap-splurt PWP behemoths, however. He couldn’t pretend to be that nice.