#fic: eyeteeth

[naivesilver]

omg hi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 💗 🎲 and 7 ? and maybe a moodboard or a web weaving?

MMMMMMMMMH you're still a worm, but how can I resist the call of a web weaving :^)

Send me  🎲 + a number and I will put ALL my OCs into a randomizer

🎲+ 7: (Thousand Problems) Pinocchio

(One Last Stop, Casey McQuinston // Big Bird, AJJ // Ghosts, The Head and the Heart // Taint, Paul Tran // The War of Vaslav Nijinsky, Frank Bidart // The Adventures of Pinocchio, Carlo Collodi)

[artsarasp]

"The demon trapped beneath the mountain chuckled, his breath trailing off in a choked wheeze."

Howdy Howdy, I'm gonna be quietly insane about @mira-eyeteeth fic "Ouroboros" Where Shen Yuan transmigrated into Zhuzhi-Lang.

It's gonna be GREAT.

[leiascully]

what about… a short msr bathtub fic, but only if you feel like it.

It got a little out of hand, so have 1300 words of bathtub fic. TW: infertility mention/IVF arc.

She answers the door wearing a robe. He steps in quietly and she locks the door behind him. She looks soft and small despite the bulk of the terrycloth, her bare feet silent on the floor. She takes his hand without speaking and leads him across her apartment.

The bathroom is full of steam; it swirls out when she opens the door. She draws him in. With the door shut, it’s as if they’re sealed away in another world. Water thunders into the tub, capped with a thick layer of quivering bubbles. He can see particles of mist in the air. Sounds seem muffled. She turns away, lets the robe slip off her shoulders. He turns his back hastily, but he can see a sliver of her side in the mirror: pale skin, a compact curve from rib to hip, an arc of lurid ink. He closes his eyes and unbuttons his shirt.

She called him earlier, an exchange of mostly breath. It wasn’t out of character; they’d both picked up the phone before just to know the other one was on the other end. At last, she said, “Please come over”, and the smallness of the request broke something in him. She should have known he’d do anything for her. He’d been to Antarctica and the graveyard and the IVF clinic for her, sat in filthy rooms and sterile ones, waiting for news.

Now he stands in her bathroom undressing. He can hear the taps creak off and the water swirl as she gets into the tub. There is an air of unreality to it: the steam, the heavy scent of bergamot, the unaccustomed glimpses of skin. He’s seen her naked before, but those moments were dictated by circumstance. This is her choice.

He toes off his shoes, folds his shirt and his jeans over them, drops his socks and his boxers on the top of the pile. When he turns, she’s tucked herself into the end of the tub, sitting with her knees drawn up. He climbs into the other end, hands braced on the sides. The water rises according to the principles of Archimedes, brimming toward her knees. Their toes touch in the center of the tub. He loops his arms around his bent knees, holding himself together, giving her space.

They sit like that in silence, quarantined at their separate ends. Together but not. She lets out a long shaky breath.

The water is hot enough to prickle at his skin. Scully is already flushed, tendrils of hair curling around her face. He’s trying not to look, he swears he’s trying not to look, but he’s always been transfixed by her.

“I’m tired,” she says at last.

“I know.” He studies her, keeping his eyes above her neck.

“I wanted….” Her voice breaks. She swallows. “Mulder, I really wanted it to work.”

“I know.” He rests his hand on the side of the tub, there if she’s ready to reach for it. She tangles her fingers with his.

“Did you?” Her eyes search his face. This is the moment, he understands. This is what could make or break them, after everything they’ve endured. Total honesty or nothing.

“Yeah,” he says, nearly choking on the word. “Yeah, I did.” He closes his eyes against the swell of emotion that makes his chest ache. A child. With her. He wanted that. He wanted it so badly he never allowed himself to know how much it meant until it wasn’t plausible anymore. He wondered about it from the moment he found her ova, wanted it badly from the first time he saw her with Emily.

In a way, he’s ashamed he feels this way. It’s such a cliché, to want to see her bear his child. It feels old-fashioned, even chauvinistic. There’s something primal about how territorial he felt about her during the IVF process. He felt larger, heavier, sensitive to her relative delicacy. He prowled at her side, showing his eyeteeth to Skinner, sensitive to any attempt to invade their pride of two.

He had some secret knowledge of her then, despite the fact they’d never made love. His seed inside her made her his woman. He hates that he enjoyed the thought: she belongs to herself first. But a baby would be a shared responsibility, immutable in a way their assignment to the X-Files isn’t. It would change both of their lives irreversibly. It would link them forever. He wants it so badly he can’t breathe.

The water ripples. He opens his eyes. She’s kneeling now in front of him, a supplicant. She puts her hands on his knees, her hot palms cupped over his skin. Scully has touched him everywhere, maybe, but not here.

“Will you kiss me?” she asks, and his heart breaks all over again.

“Anything,” he says, the way he should have years ago, the way he should have months ago when she first asked him. “Scully, I’d give you anything.”

He’d been terrified then. He’s terrified now. They have been standing on a precipice for so long, their backs to the abyss. The road has been steep and rocky; at times they’ve had to blaze their own trail. There are higher peaks, perhaps, higher truths, but they’re weary of climbing to the pinnacle to find more mountains beyond. He thinks that a paradise might await, if only they can take a leap of faith. She’s the only thing he has faith in, these days.

He leans forward, takes her face in his hands, studies her. Her eyes gleam. She’s got that little crease between her brows that bespeaks great internal turmoil. She studies his face.

“Scully,” he says tenderly. He strokes her hair back. His fingertips find her jaw and gently draw her forward. She leans closer, her weight supported on her hands on his splayed knees. He angles to meet her halfway. His lips brush hers. A butterfly’s wing, the lightest breathless touch.

The world shifts. In his heart, a hurricane forms.

How could he have been afraid of this? How could he not have been?

He can count the number of times they’ve kissed on one hand before tonight and not even use all his fingers. It’s magic every time. This time, it transforms them. The leaden tension that’s hung heavy between them since Diana’s return is transmuted into gold, pure and soft and shining. Her mouth opens in sudden hunger, asking urgent questions, and he answers, pulling her close.

It all feels like a dream. Their hands slide smoothly over slick skin, leaving trails of bubbles. He stretches out his legs and it seems she floats into his lap. Everything is easy. Everything is simple. He touches her breasts, her hips. She balances herself with a hand on his chest as she sinks onto him. They draw pleasure out of each other with lips and fingers, with hot breath and sweet words. She rests her forehead against his as she comes and pants against his mouth. The water sloshes as his body shudders under hers.

They towel each other off, after, moving slowly and gently. Scully’s towels are warm and soft as a Downy commercial, or maybe it’s just that everything feels like a miracle. Her mattress yields to their combined weight as comfortably as if they’ve slept together every night for years. Her bare skin against his is heaven. She exceeds his expectations, always. He knew she would. Still, this kind of solace seemed unimaginable. Fictional. They had written themselves out of happy endings. Now here it is, some blissful twist to their story. He can give up his holy quest: the Grail is in his arms.

“One more round,” he says. It’s a question and a promise. His fingers are splayed over her belly. He tries to ignore the softness of her, tries not to imagine a fecund swell instead. His imagination has always run wild.

“I’ve exhausted my resources,” she says in a small distant voice.

“I sold my father’s house,” he tells her. “Let me do this for you.”

“For me?” she asks.

His heart swells. He pulls her closer, nuzzling into her hair. “For us.”

“For us,” she whispers. She clutches his hands to her breast.

“I love you,” he says, and the once-bitter words are honey on his tongue.

[swifty-fox]

for the WIP ask game, "vincent lima you bitch" because what IS that??

haha vincent lima you bitch is a mostly abandoned wip based off his song Orpheus

(fun fact he follows me on tiktok)

The concept is that John was killed on the March by the SS guards for Gale's escape and somewhere in the 1950's the locate and repatriate his remains. The fic is basically Gale going to the funeral and then returning home and having a conversation with John's ghost over a couple of whiskeys while Marge sleeps upstairs.

They bring John’s body home in 1957. 

Body.

 As if a few scraps of cloth, shattered bone, and rusted dog tags were enough to claim the name John Clarence Egan. Buried in a shallow grave in the outskirts of some German town Gale doesn’t remember the name of. Gale doesn’t care. 

He wears glasses now, his hair is longer. The scars on his cheeks have faded to near-gone; sometimes, on very cold nights especially, his knees ache. He’s looking forty in the eyeteeth. John will be thirty forever.

He flies out to Arlington alone. Greets men he has not seen in a decade. Faces lined with joy, bodies rounder with middle-age and good lives. Wives and children and fiances to greet. He’d begged Marge to stay home, didn’t know how to bring her over the barrier of his two lives. 

“We begged them to let us bury the body,” Hambone says, trading cigarettes with DeMarco. “So we knew where to find-ah fuck, find him later. They dragged him off while we all slept.”

“Ain’t your fault Buck.” Benny adds, “You didn’t pull the trigger.”

“I know.” Gale says.

John had no family left. His Father had passed the week before they shipped out and his Mother in ‘52. It’s a unanimous vote by the boys that Buck is presented with the flag draped over the coffin, given his dog tags. 

Maj. John C. Egan

O-399510

Manitowoc, WI

[rosieofcorona]

It's WIP Wednesday

help help i've fallen into the rolan trap and i can't get out (jk it's far too late to help me)!!! sharing a little snippet of my rolan x tav fic bc why not:

Once their breathing has evened, she runs her hand from the base of his tail up the long, ridged line of his spine. It's a lovely, shivery feeling, light compared to the crushing, coursing pleasure of being inside her, and Rolan can't help but arch his back a little, pulling his head from her shoulder to look at her. With both hands, he pushes the sweat-stuck hair out of her face, away from her cheeks, away from her eyes, her pretty mouth. He studies her features in the blue gloom of morning, wanting to etch every detail of her delicious, delirious expression in his memory, on his eyelids, wanting to be able to call it to mind again and again once she leaves. 

Rolan traces the sharp point of her ear down to her jaw, her throat, her shoulder, to the space above her collarbone where his mouth had been. He can see it even in the lowlight– a fresh bruise darkening in the place he’d pressed his eyeteeth to the flesh, and bit down hard.

He knew she’d liked it, in the moment– her little sounds still in his ear– but the rush of their passion is wearing off and now he worries he's gone too far.

“Does this hurt?” he asks her quietly, his touch whispering over the skin. 

She gives a curious little hum, then covers his fingers with her own. She presses them down, into the bruise, gasping softly again. It makes his own breath catch in his throat, stokes the cooling embers of his arousal. 

“Only a little,” she smiles softly, releasing the pressure but not his hand. “Your teeth are sharper than I thought.”

This draws a low laugh from his throat. “You’re not accustomed to tieflings, I take it.” She shakes her head. “As lovers? No.”  Would you like to be? He almost says, but she catches him lightly by the jaw, taking his chin between her fingers before he can speak. 

She starts to trace his lower lip and Rolan opens his mouth out of instinct, his tongue flicking once over the soft pad of her thumb. He knows she’s studying him, like an oddity– no, like a rarity, he can hear her protesting– but it doesn’t annoy him the way he thinks it should, and he does nothing to push her away. 

“Quite sharp,” she breathes, looking into his eyes. It almost feels like an invitation.

[birchbow]

i love that you write trolls as having nictitating membranes (my most-wished-for physical feature)! are there any other fun bits of xenobiology that you've not got a chance to mention in the fic itself?

As astute followers may have noticed from my art on here, the amount of xeno I apply to trolls changes wildly depending on what's fun and convenient lol. I like drawing trolls with chitinous claws that take up the whole last knuckles but also I like writing people getting fingered so like, practicality is always going to win out there. The fact that if Gamzee or Kurloz (or a variety of other purplebloods) got under saltwater about half of their freckles are actually DON'T FUCK WITH ME glowy seadweller bio-luminescence is unlikely to come up in fic! I enjoy the idea that trolls can see UV, but since that's something everybody in an all-trolls fic could do, it's never going to be mentioned. Trolls usually being able to completely regrow lost fangs--Kurloz can't regrow the top left one of his eyeteeth because the hit he took was so bad it actually fucked up the bone and the socket where the tooth would go. That's everything that comes to mind right now!

[doyouknowhowtowaltz]

What would a child of autumn and winter look like? As much as I love cutsy little fawn/kitten sapling looking things the idea of them making an absolute abomination is very funny. A thing (calling it a creature would be generous) that never was supposed to happen that simply appeared due to how close the seasons have come to each other, that’s far more mindless monster then either parent

I've been meaning to put all my thoughts on something like this somewhere, so I'll make a list.

"Ours" By A Technicality: This is an honorable mentions category for children that aren't actually from a union of the Beast and Enoch, but are the progeny of one of the two, generally I'd say produced asexually. Lorna from The Sins of the Father and Fiona from @faerytri's The Story Teller's Tales are good examples. (And everyone should read A Horrid Birth because I have never ever read accidental baby acquisition done so right. It has horror it has humor! But most importantly, it has little Fiona!)

Audrey II Electric Boogalloo: AKA the Weird Terrible Plant that we have joint custody over. I'm not sure you would technically count this as offspring, but I do! I think the most likely outcome is a terrible pumpkin-edel fusion. Mira-eyeteeth's Plunge is my absolute favorite example (I just spent half an hour tracking it down because I would be remiss not to include it). The flowering edelwoods in my Lotus Gardener AU are another, and I'm working on an even better version of the concept right now.

V'GER Fusion: Again, we're really playing with the concept of "offspring", but a true merger of the Beast and Enoch, would be its own entity in and of itself. The Maypole in A Great and Terrible Union is a proto-v'ger style fusion, though there are definitely a lot of fics that flirt with this concept, I don't know if I've ever seen it fully played out. I think a Beast!Enoch (I swear I'm going to write it) or a Mayor!Beast (now there's an idea) would fall in this category.

Neither Sentient Nor Sapient Nor Alive in Any Conventional Sense: A lot of things fall in this category, but Miss Inky once mentioned miniature blackholes and tears in reality. Miniature Blackholes I think are my favorite, little hungry things that can't sustain themselves and evaporate, or maybe even more permanent tiny things that either don't emit, or consume their own hawking radiation and are perfectly stable... until they're fed. To beat a metaphor of a horse to death, I like the idea that instead of sparks flying when they kiss, it's a bunch of primordial blackholes that immediately vanish, maybe they emit flashes of radiation as the go.

Little Abomination: This is I think more in the spirit of what you were asking about, kittens with big ears and budding antlers, or horrible amalgams of fabric and wood and fur that look like strange little puppets of... something vaguely animal like, presumably these are born, but I rather like the idea that they grow on trees or perhaps hatch out of pumpkins like eggs. I think we're definitely in negative heterosis hybrid territory here. And I'm not sure they would be particularly long lived, as similar as the Beast and Enoch are in a lot of ways, they're also actively destructive to each other in others.

[sylphidine]

I came THIS CLOSE to deleting all my works on Archive Of My Own.

My account on Archive Of Our Own has now been locked to only registered AO3 accounts, and that only AO3 account-holders can reply.

Within the last 24 hours, I came very, very, VERY close to deleting CALL SIGNS, the Swatchton story I have been working on for the last year and a half, into which I've been pouring my heart, sweat, and soul. I also considered deleting my body of work entirely... 83 pieces, eight years' worth of fanfiction brain power.

The reason why? AI story-scrapers.

The technology testing has gotten to the point that the bots can scrape AO3 for people's AO3 handles *and* leave comments on AO3 fics that sound like a human wrote them.

A post on Tumblr alerted me to the fact that two comments on CALL SIGNS were quite likely AI-generated.  The important bullet points from the post:

No mentions whatsoever of character names, settings, situations, or anything that could be tied to the story.

The usernames may be identical to people who exist on ao3, but the name is not clickable, and no profile is associated with it EXCEPT when you directly search for that name. What this means: the comments come from an unregistered (not logged in) reader, bots scrape the site for real usernames, attach that to the comment, and post.

And since I always reply to any comments I get on my fics, even if it takes a while, I fell for this scam.

[I edited out the names the the bots "borrowed". I can assure you that neither of the writers whose pseuds got stolen were involved; they write for VERY different fandoms than the ones I write for.]

I was so bloody happy to hear that someone thought I was handling really raw and angsty topics well, since CALL SIGNS is the first fic I've written that comes even close to such heavy subject matter, that I didn't even notice the warning signs.

More fool me.

So I went to bed in tears, after venting to friends on various platforms. I thought hard about deleting CALL SIGNS.

I'm not going to delete CALL SIGNS,

I'm not going to delete any of my other stories, either.

I did delete the comments.

But...

To quote a certain Tom Petty, I'm gonna stand my ground, and I won't back down.

The next story chapter of CALL SIGNS, titled "Trash Landing", is 80% done. 

It's damn heavy.

It's dark.  It's painful.

It's necessary for the healing. 

There ***will*** be so much comfort after the hurt, if you can bear with me, dear readers.

Art of "Sylph Addison", with her tasque Phinneas, done for me by Miss_Archivist @missarchivistdoodles

I'm also working on fics for RISE OF THE GUARDIANS, several crossover fics involving classic DOCTOR WHO and THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES, and various bits and bobs for Nightmare Dork University.

I will not give up on writing.

I will fight against AI.

Tagging some of the people who've influenced my writing here on Tumblr in the various fandoms I write for:

@ksclaw

@penbwl

@mira-eyeteeth

@thisbluespirit

[naivesilver]

also PLEASE any mention about what Eugene, Twinkle and/or Pierrot were up to when everyone else was in Camelot?

Uuuuh Camelot days you say? WELL

Send me an episode/chapter/scene/ect. and I'll tell you what my OC was doing during it

So the good thing about all that shit going down on Christmas is that all the kids were home to witness it right off the bat. Before he panicked Marco probably got in touch with ANYONE who could have seen Pinocchio and Lampwick - he called Nova, he called Leroy, he called Sylvester, he called Eugene's house, he touched ALL the bases just to check. He also most likely contacted Blue, but she doesn't strike me as someone who'd inform Pierrot directly, so there's a chance he found out from his friends or other external sources.

After that, things got uh...pretty dire? Normal parents would already have closed ranks after learning two boys had disappeared, but Eugene's mom and dad, who want to shield him from the world? Igor, who spent the whole curse afraid someone would take his daughter? No siree, they were WATCHING their kids 100%. Not a very merry Christmas, tbh.

Besides, they were worried sick about their friends, obviously. Eugene pretended he only cared about Pinocchio vanishing, but he was lying to himself, and also, he was the only one to realize something was OFF when those two got back. He's got keen eyes for that sort of stuff.

[sylphmacabre]

Motivation Monday 13 March 2023

For this week, giving credit where credit is due... the writers of the first fanfics I ever read. Tumblr and AO3 handles where applicable.

First and foremost, the fact that I started READING fanfiction in the first place [as opposed to writing it, which is another story to be told another time] can be laid directly at the feet of Snacky back in the LiveJournal days.

For my main fandoms, here are my "first reads" as I recall them:

BLAKES 7 - "Vila Restal's Emails" by Vilakins, first on Hermit.org, then on Breaking Orbit

DOCTOR WHO - for Classic Who, too long ago to remember, but it was on Geocities. For NuWho, it was "The Politesse of Love and Flight" by Kaffyrutsky

RISE OF THE GUARDIANS - my first Pitch-centric fic read was "Shadowplay" by @windlion; my first Blackice fic read was "Child Of The Moon" by Keinna; my first Blacksand read was "Not Quite A Total Eclipse Of The Heart" by @lithefider

NIGHTMARE DORK UNIVERSITY - my first fic read was "When Fairy-tales End" by @emeraldembers

OVER THE GARDEN WALL - my first fic was Blutrunst by @incurablenecromantic

GOOD OMENS - my first Ineffable Spouses fic was "Because I missed you (and I like it when you bite)" by megzseattle

THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES - the first fic I read there was "Patchwork" by @mira-eyeteeth

DELTARUNE - the first fic I ever read was a gen-rated platonic Spamton X reader fic that I somehow forgot to bookmark, but it was sweet and adorable. The first Swatchton fic I read was "Two Toned Glasses" by TheEarlOfTophats.

[jerzwriter]

What's your dream surprise songs combo? 2 songs (1 piano and 1 guitar) if you could you would pick for your eras tour show

Hey Nonny,

It's so funny you ask because my daughter is driving me insane. Every day is "OMG, SHE SANG (insert song here) LAST NIGHT! I WANT TO DIE! NOW I WON'T HEAR IT! SHE BETTER NOT SING (insert song here) UNTIL WE SEE HER!!!"

Next day: "OMG, SHE SANG IT! I CAN'T BELIEVE SHE FREAKING SANT IT!!! IF SHE SINGS (insert song here) I'M FLIPPING OUT!!!" (Like she's not flipping out already...🙄)

Today, I told her I didn't want to hear it anymore. I don't care. We're going. We're so lucky to be going. She sings 44 freaking songs! Be happy and STFU about this. lol

My house is CHAOS right now. I have 2 of her friends coming in from out of town to stay with us and everyone is totally hysterical. This isn't a concert... it's an event.

As for me, I really am open, and I'm not going to get my top 2 picks. Why? I'd give my eyeteeth to see her perform Exile or Evermore live. Those two songs have my heart. But unless Bon Iver is a surprise guest, it's not happening.

Death by a Thousand Cuts, This Is Me Trying, You're on Your Own Kid, Mean, The Best Day, and (I've just learned... and OK, a little pissed) she did Better Man last night... and I would have loved any of them. Just as well. I prob would have cried.

On an up note, since Phoebe Bridgers is opening, we'll be hearing Nothing New, and I am totally pumped for that. (And even more pumped to learn it's worked into the set and doesn't "take away" a surprise song.)

OK - now I'm getting super excited. Thanks, Nonny. I'm telling everyone else to calm down, and now I'm going to be blasting Taylor in my room (and not finishing my Ethan fic) and acting like a freaking teenager again. lmao

[swordsoul2000]

I would give my eyeteeth for a Jason and Huntress fic set after Jason's attack on Titian's Tower.

see, in my HC Red Hood and Huntress are nodding aquaintences. yeah she's not thrilled about Jason inserting himself into the mob, but sometimes you do what you gotta do and he's actively trying to clean up Gotham in a way she can apprieciate.

and then Titian's Tower happens. Red Hood just attacked ROBIN. that's HER little brother- that and beyond that he's the bat who believed in her the longest, who hid her identiy from Batman, who vouched for her to Oracle, who believed in her when no one else would.

you know those fics where Cass's Batgirl takes Vengance upon Red Hood for Titian's Tower? that but with Huntress

Anytime Jason calls Tim replacement or pretender, Tim should call him Huntress-wannabe

Tim: I love my older siblings and sibling figures, Dick, Cass, Helena-

Jason: aren’t you forgetting someone

Tim: I was getting to Babs jeez let me finish

[eyesteeth]

i see you often mention fics, do you publish them anywhere? id be interested in reading your writing!

i use ao3. the name of my account? well... that's a secret ;]

to overly disclosure, i experienced far too much fandom drama far too young and i am Very Paranoid of a repeat. is that an overreaction? probably. but paranoia's not logical and i don't want to get doxxed again. again, not logical, but so it goes.

but also "eyeteeth" is technically my Official Writer Person name and the idea of someone linking my ao3 to a (hopefully) future published novel would be a little mortifying, especially since i have fic from high school running around there. though maybe i'll mellow out in a few years and say "fuck it" and let the masses see my secret pleasures.

all this being said though, thank you for your interest!! i'm Around. and i'll probably have something up in the next two days if you're REALLY dedicated to figuring it out. or i'm lying. smiles. but seriously thank you for the interest and if you know me on discord i can send you the file if u want xx

[marypsue]

mira-eyeteeth said:

Hm. Tooth and banshee?

Pitch Black isn’t the only terror turning up in children’s nightmares. But not all the old terrors have forgotten their part in the delicate dance keeping the globe with its tiny golden lights spinning.

Tooth meets her perched on the eaves of a house the fairies had refused to go near. She sees why when she arrives. The banshee is withered, back warped, her long pale hair luminous in the moonlight.

She wails, haunting, heartbreaking, when she sees Tooth. A lament. A warning.

Tooth nods. but she flies on. She has a gift to leave.

This child will need it.

[kaesaaurelia]

for the record while whining about the lack of research and bad research this fucker and his coauthor did I put together, for the poor discord people I was ranting at, a partial bibliography of books I read SPECIFICALLY TO WRITE ONE FANFIC. this does not include all the articles, videos, podcasts, music, and physical places I went to for research, nor does it include the stuff I'd read/watched/listened to/done previously that helped me form a base knowledge of the era and setting, or the other books I ended up using stuff from incidentally.

my point is not that I'm a great researcher or anything, my point is that there are people who FUCKING LOVE RESEARCH and I would give my eyeteeth to be able to make half the money doing that than James Somerton made shittily regurgitating other people's opinions and taking their experiences for his own, and like, I'm not even writing anything people will be relying on to provide them with factual information. I am, I want to emphasize, writing WHUMP WITH A SIDE OF GAY ANGEL/DEMON PORN AND ALSO A SIDE OF MY DUMB OCS WHOM I LOVE.

Anyway, the books:

Twenty Years at Hull House by Jane Addams

The Outfit: The Role of Chicago's Underworld in the Shaping of Modern America by Gus Russo *

The Gangs of Chicago: An Informal History of Chicago's Underworld by Herbert Asbury **

Chicago Transformed: World War I and the Windy City by Joseph Gustaitis

A Wild Kind of Boldness: The Chicago History Reader edited by Rosemary K. Adams

Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned by John A. Farrell

Guns and Roses: The Untold Story of Dean O'Banion, Chicago's Big Shot Before Al Capone by Rose Keefe ***

Studs Lonigan by James T. Farrell ****

-----

* I genuinely don't know how solid the research in this is, I just wanted to get a better idea of the shape of the specific incidents I was writing about, but nothing pinged me as immediately stupid, unlike ONE of the books on this list.

** My note on Discord was "fuck this guy in particular he's my archnemesis actually," but I did read this book specifically for fic research and regretfully I am using a couple things from it, so on the list it goes. I then went on a whole rant on Discord, taking up our #youtube channel entirely with historic Chicago true crime drama, but like. They did ask. They did ask and I can rant a lot. Anyway fuck Herbert Asbury. He also wrote Gangs of New York and a number of other sensationalistic mid-century historical true crime books. Anyway he was a racist misogynist homophobic antisemitic piece of shit but now he's dead and I am going to give him a cameo the next time I set a fic in Hell because if Dante and Michelangelo could do that so can I. Fuck him in particular.

*** I find some of the research questionable but definitely a valuable source for my fic, on a niche topic (O'Banion's gang and cronies) so.

**** My note on Discord was to the effect that this is a fictional trilogy and that I didn't really recommend it to read for fun. It's meant to be a realistic portrait of an Irish-American boy/young man growing up and coming of age in early 20th century Chicago, and I specifically wanted to get a better grasp of that milieu, particularly with regards to racial and sexual attitudes, since that's the background of one of my OCs. If you do choose to read it, heavy content warnings for racism and sexual assault. Like, the protag commits hate crimes on-page and I learned like, three new antisemitic slurs -- and I am Jewish so I thought I knew them all. If you do want to read a fictional account of a shitty guy coming to a bad end in Chicago, I would instead recommend The Man With the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren. That one's about a Polish-American WWII veteran suffering from a heroin addiction. He is definitely still shitty and definitely still racist and antisemitic and all that, but it's less of a slog to me because Algren's prose fascinates me. I didn't read this book for fic research but it really spoke to me to the point where I do think it affected my writing for the better.

Help I'm still watching the Todd in the Shadows James Somerton video because I keep having to pause to rant about history, research, incredibly offensive statements about the survivors of the AIDS crisis, and making fun of his weird Bob Iger stanning and his Nazi fetish. I think maybe he actually should have stuck to plagiarism?

[naivesilver]

oh also. gawain/ardena/bertilak perhaps?

Beloveds 💞 no angst, no pain, they're my babies