>Lovecraftian backdrop for the setting than Ruinous Attraction would have had on its own.

The plot of both stories is pretty simple. Lbr, Oviposition is barely more that PWP, and most of the story in Ruinous Attraction comes from the interplay of the characters - the plot itself is pretty basic: they're trapped in an enchanted room that's making them increasingly horny and they do it. It's the characters histories, personal circumstances, and initial animosity that makes it interesting. 

 >But Oviposition, threadbare as it is, had given me this setting with the ruins of an ancient subterranean civilisation, dead gods, and a bunch of hapless archaeologists.

The angst my characters needed required me to work into that setting a complex and subtle magic system that embedded political complexities in the world and in the characters very bodies and personalities. What I needed for the characters shaped the world I created, but that world needed to be full and rich to support> 

 >characters with the kind of complex issues I wanted them to have.

And all so they could bone and feel angsty about it 😅