defmaybe is obsessed with holly humberstone

Okay, so, it’s defmaybe’s chapter here.

I don’t have much to say. If so, it will be astoundingly confusing, perhaps contributed by the fact that I’m writing directly onto Fanprose’s draft system and not Ellipsus. Still, I’ll try to be informative for other writers and sidetrack occasionally for some humorous moments. I hope you guys can understand a thing or two about my work process and my literature psyche here.

Let’s start!

Simply, and perhaps fundamentally, my stories can be described as a string of four words: hype moments and aura.

From others’ perspectives, they might not seem as bad as I make them, but from my view, hype moments and aura have been core parts of my writing process since the beginning of my lust-addled, borderline-illegal career. There’s an idea of me being my harshest critic, and I constantly remind myself of that fact and try to view my stories with fewer nitpicks and criticisms. Regardless, there remains the side of me that obsesses over perfection I will never find for my works.

Despite all the self-deprecation, why don’t we delve into how these hype moments and aura shape my writing? I mean, in my view, this might open up some new perspectives!

For most of my longer fics, say: 5000 words and more, they usually start with an idea. It could be an idol. It could be my current situation — the games I’m playing, my academic timeline, the people I meet. It could be a carnal need to get fucked in the ass.

After I got the initial spark, the fics will follow the flimsiest and intellectually nastiest framework of: character introductions, they meet, they fuck.

Yes, it’s that simple!

To expand, I find this process already tight enough for me to give a sense of purpose for the fic. It’s also sufficient at keeping me from losing interest in the draft too quickly to finish the story. On the other side, this gives me a rather large space to write any bullshit I can think of, and that loops back to the starting point: hype moments and aura in my fics.

I have stolen a lot of things from the media I’ve watched, read, listened to. There was the yolk exchange scene in Sparks (2024, defmaybe) from Tampopo (1985, Juzo Itami). There was Real Betis in Ball Winning Midfielder (2025, defmaybe). There’s going to be a smoke shotgunning and a lot of cigarettes lit in my upcoming fic from The Worst Person in the World (2021, Joachim Trier). To express it simply, these are my hype moments and aura that I build upon.

I structure my fic around these moments, and I write like my life depends on it, really. No matter how wobbly these ideas might be, I keep writing and spewing out more things just to make the world feel immersive enough and the characters feel three-dimensional enough for a reader-insert fic. Essentially, my works are hype moments and aura being stringed together with its character doing shits I find cool. And for now, as a senior year engineering student, that’s enough for me.

That’s probably the end of the first part regarding my creative process, and thank you for reading up to this point. I hope you’d learn a lot from this series, kudos to Prael for being the one who came up with this idea. Hope to see you in my next chapter!