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storytellerofuntoldlegends · 3 years ago

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an icarus and his sun: chapter 12

A/N: another shorter chapter here, a bit of an uneasy calm before the storm :)

Warnings: injury, fever, infection/corruption, unconsciousness, talk of possession, talk of death, crying

AO3 Link - Tumblr Masterpost

The last few days had been horrendous. Jimmy hardly got any sleep, staying at Scott’s side and comforting him through the horrible fever and corruption. The few times Scott was awake, he wasn’t super coherent- the fact that he kept clinging to Jimmy and borderline whining whenever Jimmy wasn’t right beside him proved that. Everyone was trying their best to come up with solutions for Scott. While Joel, Lizzie, and Pixl hadn’t seemed too keen on helping Scott at first, they quickly changed their tune when they heard about what Fwhip had said about Scott, how he had really cared about Jimmy, and left the Wither Rose Alliance because of it. Joel and Pixl tried offering golden apples and health potions, but Gem and Shelby sadly explained that they hadn’t been doing much good, only somewhat combating the fever and doing absolutely nothing to the corruption. Then they tried to remove the corruption- but Scott woke up screaming in pain, and that was a sound that would haunt Jimmy forever. They stopped trying to remove the corruption pretty much instantly, as it was clear that it was far too intertwined with Scott. They would just find another way, there had to be another way.

With Gem’s magic, they had managed to get the corruption to stop spreading across his skin- and it seemed like it had worked. Even Shelby seemed optimistic- her people were never able to stop the corruption from spreading. Scott’s fever went down, and he woke up, seeming far more coherent than he had been in the past few days. Well, maybe not super coherent, he looked extremely baffled and wondered if he was dead. But he wasn’t, he was awake and for once his icy blue eyes weren’t glazed over with fever or pain… but then just like that, everything went wrong again. Scott started shaking and hyperventilating, babbling out apologies- then he tensed, eyes turning red before they fluttered shut and he went limp.

“What happened?!” Gem asked as she burst in, followed by Pearl, Shelby, Katherine, Pixl, Joel, and Lizzie. Jimmy was still standing at Scott’s side, hand tightly gripping Scott’s.

“I don’t know, he seemed fine and then he wasn’t- and his eyes went red, the same red as the corruption,” Jimmy explained, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

“Oh no,” Shelby gasped, eyes going wide as she scrambled back from Scott’s bed. Jimmy looked at her in confusion.

“Shelby, what’s wrong?” Jimmy asked. Shelby swallowed nervously.

“There- there was something else that could happen to people because of the corruption- but it was rare, not many people lived long enough for it to happen.. but we got it to stop spreading, so why would his eyes…” Shelby’s rambling trailed off as she continued backing away from Scott’s bed, eyes wide with horror.

“Shelby, what aren’t you telling us?” Pixl asked, voice gentle yet firm.

“They would become like puppets, the corruption would control them so it could spread- but Scott shouldn’t just be lying there, if his eyes really went red then he should have killed us all by now,” Shelby explained shakily. Various gasps and shouts of alarm filled the room.

“You knew what the corruption did this whole time and didn’t tell us?!” Jimmy demanded.

“Jimmy, yelling isn’t going to solve anything,” Katherine reprimanded, but it was lost on Jimmy as he glared at Shelby instead.

“Becoming a puppet to the corruption was rare! And I didn’t think it was happening to Scott- most times, before someone got under the corruption’s control, they were in a much better state than Scott. But it was like that was what the corruption wanted sometimes. It would weed out the weak ones and keep the strong ones to spread it. And… well, with how Scott was doing, it seemed like the corruption saw him as weak. But then you said his eyes went red, and that was a surefire sign that the corruption took over someone- but he should have started killing people or trying to spread the corruption… it doesn’t make sense,” Shelby rambled, her terrified expression completely directed at Jimmy now. Jimmy’s shoulders sagged, and he dropped his glare to instead sheepishly grimace at Shelby.

“I… yeah, okay. That- that makes sense. Sort of. Sorry for yelling,” he said, giving her a weak smile. Shelby gave a trembling smile back.

“It’s okay. And who knows! Maybe Scott passing out means that he’s still fighting off the corruption,” Shelby said hopefully.

“I don’t think we can afford to be that optimistic,” Pearl said with a wary glance to Scott’s still form.

“Maybe we should lock him away somewhere, until we find a cure,” Joel pondered.

“I have a secret meeting room- Fwhip and Sausage know about it, but it’s probably the most fortified spot in my empire,” Gem offered.

“We could always set up a guard rotation, maybe have someone stay in the meeting room with Scott as a last resort,” Pixl pointed out.

“I’m staying with Scott,” Jimmy blurted. Everyone’s gazes snapped to Jimmy with varying expressions of fear and concern.

“Jimmy, that’s suicide,” Lizzie said softly, eyes slightly glassy. Jimmy felt his eyes watering as well.

“I don’t care, I’m not abandoning him. Not again. Besides, maybe Shelby’s right, maybe he’s still trying to fight it off. And if anyone can beat it, it’s Scott,” Jimmy said firmly.

“Jimmy, this isn’t your fault,” Lizzie said softly. Jimmy gave her a grim trembling smile.

“If I hadn’t pushed him away, then he wouldn’t have had to deal with Fwhip and Sausage on his own. Then maybe none of this would have happened,” he replied, guilt laced throughout his tone. Lizzie let out a frustrated scoff.

“Then you both would have ended up like this! Jimmy, we can’t lose you either!” she exclaimed, hands gesturing wildly as she began to cry. Jimmy let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob as he reached out to take Lizzie’s hands.

“Lizzie, what if it was Joel in this situation?” he asked softly. A look of understanding came over Lizzie’s face, but she shook her head, still looking like she wanted to protest.

“I- but-”

“So you know why I have to do this. I can’t just… give up on him again,” Jimmy continued. Lizzie let out a sigh of defeat, nodding at Jimmy.

“I told you these land boys were trouble,” she teased weakly.

“Didn’t think it would be this much trouble,” Jimmy said with a nervous laugh. Lizzie gave a watery laugh in response, and hesitated for only half a second before letting go of Jimmy’s hands to hug him tightly.

“You’re not allowed to die,” Lizzie murmured into his shoulder. Jimmy chuckled.

“Understood, Ocean Queen,” he said solemnly, swallowing the lump in his throat before letting go of her to look at the others.

“So you’re sure about this?” Gem asked. Jimmy nodded firmly.

“We should still keep a guard rotation outside too, that way Jimmy can call for help if he needs it,” Pearl added. The others nodded in agreement, and Gem fiddled with something around her neck before taking it off and holding it out to Jimmy. It was one of her amethyst shards on a chain, gently glowing with her magic.

“This should protect you from the corruption. The crystals are what helped me slow the spread of it in Scott, maybe it will help it from spreading to you. I’m sorry I don’t have a more definite solution,” Gem explained, pressing it into Jimmy’s hand. The crystal shimmered in his hand, glowing a bit before going back to its usual purple hue.

“Thank you- it’s better than nothing,” Jimmy replied with a smile as he put on the necklace.

“At the very least it looks nice on you!” Shelby chirped, relieving the tension in the room slightly as the group laughed. But the laughs dissipated quickly, and they began preparations to move Scott to the secret meeting room.

The wall closing in front of Jimmy felt like a finality. Realistically he could open it whenever he wanted, but that was only if the situation got dire enough, or if it turned out that Scott was okay. He had hugged each of his friends- even Gem, Pearl and Shelby, even though their friendships were relatively new- and it felt too much like a goodbye. But it wouldn’t be, surely Scott would be alright.

Jimmy looked over to the bed they had set up in the room, where Scott was still peacefully asleep. That was a good sign, right? Unless it wasn’t, and Scott would just… never wake up. Forever trapped in the clutches of the corruption, eternally fighting its control. Jimmy shook his head. He couldn’t think like that. Scott would wake up, eventually. But whether or not Scott would be himself when he woke up was another issue. Would Jimmy really be able to fight him off? Would he even have enough time to call for help? And even if he did, would he want to? If he asked his friends for help, they would have to kill Scott in order to keep the lands safe from corruption. He just had to hope that Gem could figure out a cure before it got to that point. And maybe this worrying was for nothing! Maybe Scott’s willpower was strong enough to fight it… but there was no way of knowing that. Instead, all Jimmy could do was sit at Scott’s side, holding his hand and praying to whoever was listening that Scott would be alright.

Taglists below! Let me know if you want to be added/removed!

MCYT General Fic Taglist: @corazon10000 @damiensaidno @franticfandomfanatic @gattonero17 @hetapeep41 @space-ace123 @vyeoh

AIAHS Taglist: @anty-kreatywna @beepa99 @devilwoodkitty18 @riobug

#empires smp #scott smajor #jimmy solidarity #geminitay #pearlescentmoon #shubble #pixlriffs #smallishbeans #ldshadowlady #flower husbands #seablings #mcyt #aiahs #sage writes

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stubbornjerk · 3 years ago

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Why people keep telling you to block them if you support Pholo (Penumbra Edition)

Or: why jitterbug-juno really deactivated

I love when people categorize this as fandom wank. Really makes you feel like you’re putting the onus on either side of the conversation.

I’m making this post not because I want to stir up spoiled milk, but because I want it out there that this wasn’t a purity culture war.

The TL;DR version of this is that fans of color tried to tell Rab (prev. jitterbug-juno) not to post her Omegaverse (or A/B/O) fic. And instead of taking the L, she posted it on Ao3 and deactivated.

But, if you want context, well, buckle in. CW for mentions of racism and transphobia.

What did jitterbug-juno do?

Before I get into this I do want it out there that I will not be linking Rab’s fic, but I will show you this screenshot of the summary of it.

[ID: It is a screenshot of a fic, “As You Are” by Pholo.

Summary: Peter can hide his scent glands behind cologne; makeup; concealer pads. He can quash his heats with suppressants. He can divert the urge to nest and fawn.

But he can’t feign another gender’s subvocals. He lacks the anatomical capacity. Mag taught him to distract from his silence with fast, flashy words. For longer heists he relies on social convention. Traumatic mutism is uncommon, but remarked upon by enough war vets and soap operas to be widely recognized. Peter’s marks assume he’s been harmed long before they assume he’s a closeted omega. It would take quite the backwater brute to ask why he doesn’t murmur or chuff or growl.

On the 'Blanche there are the usual furtive glances. Juno makes clear to Peter that should he ever want “to talk about what happened,” he’ll be there to listen. The gesture annoys Peter more than comforts him.

‘Nothing happened,’ he wants to scream. ‘There’s nothing to talk about!’

There are 14 comments, 85 kudos, and 11 bookmarks /end]

You decide what you’re doing with that information, but honestly, I’d rather you don’t give it anymore engagement than it deserves.

There was a period earlier this June (yes, even though it’s only the 10th, at time of writing) when Rab was posting snippets of the aforementioned fic on her blog and tagging it appropriately, putting it in the attention of pretty much the entire Penumbra fandom.

What’s Omegaverse or a/b/o and why is everyone so against Rab for it

If you know what Omegaverse is, I don’t have to tell you why it’s controversial. If you don’t know what Omegaverse is, well, Fanlore said it best:

a kink trope wherein some or all people have defined biological roles based on a hierarchical system, with the terms originating from animal behaviour research. There may be werewolf, knotting, or other animalistic elements involved, or the characters may be otherwise purely human.

The term is generally written with slashes (a/b/o). Many fans, particularly ones from Australia and New Zealand, are uncomfortable seeing the term without slashes because it is also an Australian slur for aboriginal people.

I won’t get into the history or the heaps and tons of other discourses (mostly about fictional male pregnancy, homophobia, transphobia, sexual assault, etc.) that go on within that. We’re here specifically on Rab v. Penumbra fans of color and we’re staying there.

Anyone who’s been in Penumbra enough to realize that everyone draws the Junoverse characters in a certain way knows that a) Juno is black, b) Nureyev is Asian, and c) as a fan you have to be aware of what you’re subjecting or saying about either of them because of the political repercussions that come with it.

And despite that, Rab proceeded to write Peter Nureyev, a gender nonconforming gay Asian male character that is widely headcanon’d as trans, into a fic using a kink trope that relies heavily on animal behavior.

Unlike most people new to fandom, Rab is aware of what Omegaverse is and is very much white. She is (and if she isn’t, should be) aware of the racist undertones that writing him in would get.

I couldn’t get a screenshot of what snippets Rab was sending out into the ether, seeing as a majority of my friends would rather not have seen any at all (I have all of the usual tags blocked so I wouldn’t have seen it either way), but needless to say, Rab got attention for it. Both positive and negative.

Anne (@hopeless-eccentric) even posted a satirical fic, in the odds that Rab was just writing this thing to be “the first” to write Omegaverse fic in the Penumbra tags.

But, I’m assuming more than one fan of color came into Rab’s inbox and messaged her about it, but someone I know (who would like to remain anonymous) was gracious enough to take a screenshot before he sent his in and let me use it for this post:

[ID: A message to jitterbug-juno about to be sent by a sender whose name is censored with a black bar. His messages says:

“as someone who is a person of color i think the nature of the fic you are writing right now is extremely racist and attributing animal characteristics to lgbt people of color is not at all appropriate, especially when you are someone who is white. i have to ask you to not publish this fic and to reflect as to why you would want to write this in the first place, these tropes are extremely harmful and”

There are 33 characters left to write into the message. /end]

I can’t speak for whoever else sent asks about the fic she was writing. If anyone was actually not-so-gentle with her, well, minorities don’t really owe it to you to be gentle about what they can tell is bigotry-tinged behavior.

But, the message was clear: this is different from your garden variety, lily white straight male character m/m kink fantasy. This is an actual queer Asian character that a lot of queer Asian people feel attached do. Do not post the fic.

What happened next: the beginning of the end

The next morning, I woke up to most of my friends being frustrated by this post on Rab’s account:

[ID: Dated 5 June, a post by jitterbug-juno:

“Gonna leave the fandom for a while. Wishing you all well.”

The tags say the following: not sure if i’ll be back, thank you so much to everybody who’s read my fics, and who’s sent asks or engaged with my art or any of that, you’re amazing and I’m sending love /end]

That... was not what fans of color wanted, but it was definitely an action they took. Some celebrated, as they were very much wary of Rab for having caused much of the same category of drama in fandoms like Voltron: Legendary Defenders and Warrior Cats. This also meant that she was probably not going to post the fic either.

Some, myself included, were relatively pissed, as they’d wanted even just the measly bit of accountability. An apology or an acknowledgement of having been called out in private and that they’ll take time to consider why. But instead we got Rab leaving in the face of fans of color telling her not to post her Omegaverse fic.

Well. The next day...

[ID: Dated 6 June. A post by jitterbug-juno titled, “Well... that was short-lived”

“I gave the situation a lot of thought yesterday. The reaction to my omegaverse previews made me figure I should leave the fandom. It seemed like the safest option.

But you know what?

Hell.

I don’t want to leave. The fic discusses the tropes of omegaverse and I spoke to several POC on Twitter, and I’m going to post it with plenty of tags so people can avoid it if they wish. I’m not going to be chased out of this space.

Thank you to everyone who sent messages yesterday. I shouldn’t have made that post about leaving. It was really reactionary. I’m okay and I appreciate your support so much.

(bolded on the post) To those who are angry and uncomfortable with me: Please block me. If you’re going to talk about this fic on Tumblr and Twitter– and this may sound odd– PLEASE NAME ME as Jitterbug-juno or Pholo. Don’t vague me. That way people who don’t want to see this discourse can add my name to their block lists.“ /end]

That certainly was short-lived, she wasn’t kidding.

This got a lot of outrage. Again, the fic is up on Ao3 and she has not taken it down. A lot of POC were pissed and I didn’t see a single fan of color actively support what she was doing, at least, not in my friend group. Everyone started making those posts to block them if you liked the fic or Rab’s content in general, in accordance to what Rab wanted.

Perseus (@mraudiodrama) noticed/pointed out that Rab deleted the part where she said she spoke to several POC about releasing her fic, as well as the part where she said she refused to be chased out of the fandom. This was an incredibly pointed detail to edit out, according to some.

[ID: A screenshot of jitterbug-juno's last post taken 11:00PM. Much of it is the same except the following bolded words are removed: "The fic discusses the tropes of omegaverse and I spoke to several POC on Twitter, and I’m going to post it with plenty of tags so people can avoid it if they wish. I’m not going to be chased out of this space." /end]

That same day, Rab deleted her blog. I actually caught this one on tape, believe it or not.

[ID: A screen recording taken at 12:01 PM of someone scrolling down jitterbug-juno's account. The posts and asks about Omegaverse and her post about leaving and coming back are conspicuously absent. /end]

Initially, I thought she deleted all mentions of it. I wanted to see firsthand if the rumors about her deleting portions of it were true. If she added things where she was saying that she wanted to write it because she was autistic and wanted Nureyev to be autistic too, regardless of the numerous QPOC telling her not to do it.

Instead, it turned out, she deleted her blog.

And now, we're here. The fic is still up. Her blog is down. Rab's public Twitter account @nataclinn is quiet about this. Her @cushfuddled Twitter account is on private after her run-in with the Warrior Cats fandom, according to a friend. And her Tumblr @cushfuddled account has nothing but memes.

Again, I didn't make this post to stir up drama. I wasn't even obsessively making this post as a call-out because she isn't in the fandom anymore. I just want it out there that this isn't a purity culture thing that got out of hand in a fandom as niche as Penumbra. This was a case of someone being called out and failing to acknowledge it before running away. And I want all that out of the way before I say:

If you are on Rab's side of this debacle, I, a queer person of color, want nothing to do with you either.

#the penumbra fandom #jitterbug-juno #pholo #racism #white drama #im not tagging this as fandom drama or fandom wank because that erases the fact #that this was legitimate criticism of a white person #the penumbra podcast #junoverse #i put it in a readmore so its not gonna clog up much #but if anyone doesnt want me to tag this w the fandom tags i'll remove it #once again though this is the furthest thing from anti/proship discourse

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troped-fanfic-challenge · 3 years ago

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*This event has ended! Click the links in the Timeline to see individual rounds, prompts, fics, voting, and results!*

Hey, Tropesters! It’s time for another TROPED event, but this time the prompts will be in the form of MOODBOARDS! Made by yours truly, the moodboards function as the inspiration for the fics written for this event! We've got four exciting themes picked out, and the boards are already looking great, so we hope you're excited! This event will be a little different from the others that we have put on, so keep reading for more info!

How It Works:

Firstly, this is our first ever TROPED Multi-Fandom event, so share this around! We would love to get fics from fandoms we've never had for TROPED before! All Fandoms are welcome and there is in no minimum participation required for this event!Because this is a Multi-Fandom event, the voting process and the overall event structure will be a little different!

No Sign-Ups Required! We will release the prompts right here on the TROPED tumblr and you will submit your fics to the AO3 Collection! The Writing Periods will be on a rolling basis, with a moodboard dropping every ten (10) days, but fear not! If you are inspired for a round later in the event, you can still submit a fic to be included in Voting! We will simply drop the next board, but nothing will officially close or end until the end of the full Writing Period, on August 25th! Fics will be accepted into the official collection for the entirety of the event! **You will write four or more (4+) separate fanfics inspired by each round, but you do not have to participate in each and every round.**

Moodboard Prompts! As we said, the prompts for this event will be in the form of MOODBOARDS!!! Because photos are open to such a wide range of interpretations, and inspiration from a moodboard can come in all shapes and sizes, this event is much less strict in terms of 'sticking to the prompt'! We will be releasing the moodboards with a little blurb about what it is we envisioned when putting them together, but if inspiration strikes and takes you in another direction, go for it! Pretty much anything goes, as long as it fits with our standard rules! As a general rule, we'd like you to take each of the nine (9) photos and find a way to include that imagery in your fic in some way. Try to find a way to incorporate the concepts and inspirations you get from each photo into your story! Similar to the tropes used in our traditional TROPED format, the photos in the moodboards should matter to your story. You should try to have the photos not be inconsequential moments within your fic, but rather make the moments in the moodboard plot relevant!

All Pairings Allowed! TROPED is always a neutral space for any and all ships! We encourage [and sometimes require ;)] rare pairs, platonic pairings, and other out of the box dynamics within our fics! TROPED is, by design, a positive fandom space for everyone, and focusing on allowing and celebrating any and all pairings (that are allowed within the rules) is a big part of that! **Please feel free to write any pairing (within our rules) from the Fandom of your choosing. You do not have to write the same Fandom/Pairing for each round!**

**As a note, the photos in the moodboards are not definitive! A lot of stock photos are white, and straight, but we chose photos simply for the ✨vibes✨ of the photo, not the pairings themselves!! You can implement those scenes into your fics with any characters or combos, as long as it complies with our relationship rules!!**

This event will be Optionally Anonymous! Because the voting for this event is much more chill, and the writing period will be open for over a month, we will not require this event to be anonymous! However, if you would like to have your fic be anonymous, we will be sharing a small tutorial on how to make your fics anonymous and how to remove them from being anonymous sometime before the event starts, so keep your eyes peeled!

Voting! The voting for this event will be pretty simple! We will keep a list of all fics submitted for each event, and then at the end there will be a "best overall" poll for each round, along with some bonus polls! The voting will be based on the fics as a whole, and will include all fandoms together! If you do not want your fic included in the voting, you can let us know, or you can simply upload your fic to our non-anon collection instead! We will still share it along with the other fics and it will be included in all masterlists! We will provide a link to SurveyMonkey when voting begins.

For the OG Tropesters: As an added bonus for our long time The 100 fandom writers, we've cooked up an extra special little challenge for you! We will be including a special tenth (10th!!) photo, just for you! The 10th photo will be of a character of our choosing from The 100 (obviously) for you to include in your fic! We will be releasing the character we've chosen for each round when we drop the moodboard, so keep your eyes peeled!

Timeline:

Writing Period Dates: July 15th - August 25th!

Moodboard for R1 : July 15th at 12:00am

Moodboard for R2 : July 25th at 12:00am

Moodboard for R3 : August 4th at 12:00am

Moodboard for R4 : August 14th at 12:00am

End of Visual Writing Period: August 25th at 3:00am PST/6:00am EST [EXTENSION UNTIL SATURDAY, AUGUST 28TH AT 8:00 AM EST!]

Voting: August 28th at 12:00pm - August 30th at 11:59pm

Winners: August 31st!

*All times are in Eastern Standard Time (EST) unless otherwise specified!

Rules:

If you are a veteran to our TROPED Challenges, the rules below are mostly the same as before, but any newbies joining the fun should definitely take a look below!

This competition was created to get creative and put out different fics into the world, and to create a fun, positive fandom experience for everyone! In order to ensure that we achieve that goal of a positive experience, here are a few rules and guidelines that must be followed!The requirements for the fics entered into the competition will be:

Must include Characters from your specific chosen Fandom

Must try to fit the Theme of each round! While this event is a lot looser, each board will have a clear concept or theme for you to use in your fics!

Must try to use ALL of the pictures selected for the round. Each of the 9 photos are meant to be taken and turned into scenes, images, or themes within your story! This isn't hard and fast, but we encourage you to try to utilize the boards in a specific way, beyond just the general ✨vibes✨ of the board!

All fics must be 10,000 words or less! (We have allowed a 500 word buffer to allow for fics that are not quite finished at the 10k mark to get wrapped up!) There is no minimum word count.

All ratings G through M are welcome, but E Rated fics are not allowed. Please be aware that some fics may not be everyone’s thing! Write what you like, but the voting is public so just keep that in mind!

Multiple Entries Allowed. We love when authors are able to pump out multiple fics for a single prompt! If you would like them to be considered seperately for voting, please be sure they are standalone fics! If you end up writing multiple chapters or parts of one fic, let us know! We will only include one for voting but we will be sure to share all the parts!

Collaborations! We've had some people ask about collaborations, and we're all for it! If you and a friend would like to write a fic together, go for it! Just let us know who to credit when we share the fics on our masterlists and we will be sure to tag anyone involved!

You will be disqualified if you include:

Smut! Due to the chance that some fandoms might include a cast of all underage characters, we have decided to exclude smut. All ratings G-M are allowed!

Rape!

Underage! This means no High School AU with sex, no teacher/student if the student is underage, zero adult/under 18 romantic relationships!

Incest! Incest includes adopted siblings, foster siblings, parent/child, step siblings, biological siblings, or any familial relationship, blood related or not!

Negativity towards any character or ship! This includes any sort of abuse perpetrated by a character intending to paint them in a negative light, negative statements about a character intended purely to express your dislike of a character, or things of that nature. You MAY write characters as villains! Writing a character as a villain asks the audience to disagree with the characters motivations and choices, not to dislike the character on principle. The basis of this rule is that your fic should not be written as a way to simply express your dislike of a character.

Plagiarism! While the tropes we use in our challenges are common and communal, the stories and words you create must be your own! Fanfiction is about transformative work, and taking concepts from other writers is natural! Inspiration can come from lots of places, but rewriting someone else’s fic is unacceptable. *Following our own rules, we want to let you know that all photos used in the TROPED: VISUAL Moodboards are from Unsplash.com —a source for freely-usable images.*

This is meant to be a fun and positive experience for everyone. We reserve the right to disqualify anyone if we are reading their fic and we think it violates any of our rules!

Because this challenge is NOT completely anonymous, feel free to share your fics and post about them to your hearts content! If you wish to remain anonymous until after voting, you can, of course, wait and post about your fics then! The non-anon only applies to this event, though, so if you come back to write for us in the future be sure to keep those lips zipped!

Follow along here on Tumblr, the TROPED Twitter, the TROPED Instagram, or our Discord Server for more information on the event! We will release our prompts in these places and then everyone is free to start writing!!! We are super excited to see what you guys create!!

If you have any questions about this event, fandoms or pairings, or any other concerns please send them to our Ask Box or DM a Mod (@dylanobrienisbatman or @thelittlefanpire)!

#TROPED: VISUAL #troped visual #Multi Fandom Event #multi fandom fanfiction #troped: multifandom #multifandom #long post

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caecilius-est-pater · 4 years ago

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Really now, anti's? Did the meaning change or something because I'm very sure anti means anti-pedo shipping, anti-incest shipping.

To quote that one meme: well yes, but actually no. Antis are to “let’s stop pedophilia in fandom!” as TERFs are to “let’s support women’s rights!” - sounds good in theory, but in practice ineffectual and mostly just an excuse to bully people. I’m going to choose to be optimistic and take this as a good faith question from someone who genuinely doesn’t know, so I’m going to explain why.

The ideology sounds great at the surface level, like hell yeah, let’s get rid of pedo shit! Who wouldn’t agree with that? But once you go past the absolute shallowest surface level and say, OK, now what steps do we take to accomplish that? then you start to hit snags. Legally, the only stuff that’s banned is images/videos/etc of real life children being abused. Things like ship art or explicit fics of underage fictional characters are perfectly fine. Therefore, legally, anyone making that content is not breaking any rules.

If you say, well, I don’t agree with that, I want more things to be banned, then you have to come up with new rules of what should and shouldn’t be allowed. Who gets to decide that? Is there a committee? How are committee members chosen? How do you account for biases in the committee, such as race or age or gender? Once the committee has come to a decision about the new rules, how do you enforce them? What do you do about people or groups who refuse to follow the new rules? How do you spread the news to all of fandom that there are new rules in the first place?

And what about the rules themselves? How do you define “pedo content” beyond the legal definition of featuring real children? Maybe you say, that’s easy, let’s just go with all sexual content featuring people under 18. OK, cool, you’ve now made it illegal for minors to talk about their own experiences. Minors have sex, minors fantasize about sex, minors masturbate, minors experience rape and abuse, and now you’ve just put a gag order on all those millions of people. I don’t know about you, but I think letting people draw/write fictional characters having sex (even gross, weird sex) is the lesser of two evils compared to hurting millions of real, living children.

And anyway, how do you define “sexual content” in the first place? Is it OK if there’s no graphic detail? Is masturbation OK? What about sexual fantasies? How about making out? At which base do you draw the line between “acceptable expression of sexuality” and “pedophilia”? Or is any expression of sexuality not OK? Kissing? Holding hands?

At this point you’re probably saying, gee tumblr user caecilius-est-pater, that sounds both untenable (how are we going to get all of the internet to agree to unite under One Committee To Determine the Rules?) and like an insane unending rabbit hole! Nobody could ever do that! Yep. For better or for worse, we as a bunch of randos on the internet just do not have the power to change the broad planet-wide rules of what does and does not count as pedophilia.

You can probably see how this is a problem for the anti movement, which is all about enforcing those new, stricter rules. The ones that don’t exist and realistically can’t exist. How do you enforce nonexistent rules? The answer antis have landed on is to just make them up, every man for themselves. As you can probably imagine, this... doesn’t work too well, to put it lightly.

Some people think it’s OK to write about CSA as long as the author actually experienced it, other people think it’s never OK and even real life CSA survivors are pedophiles if they write about it. Some people think aging up teenage characters is OK, other people think if they’re underage in canon then depicting them in sexual situations at any age counts as pedophilia. Some people think sexual depictions of characters who look young (art styles with big eyes, short characters, characters with high voices, etc) is pedophilia, even if the characters are canonically adults. Etc ad infinitum.

Which brings us to the two things I said antis are: ineffectual and and a front for bullying. It should be obvious how the movement is ineffectual - you’re never going to get anywhere with removing bad people from your community if nobody can agree what a bad person actually is.

The bullying comes in because it’s very hard to get people to bully someone, but very easy to get people to join a witch hunt. “Let’s all harass and doxx this person because they’re a jerk” isn’t gonna get me very far, but “Let’s all harass and doxx this person because they’re a pedophile” is going to bring out a mob with torches and pitchforks if I can convince everyone I’m telling the truth. And by the antis’ mutable definition of pedophilia that can include anything from teenagers kissing to consenting adults who knew each other as kids, I’ve got a lot of tools in my arsenal to convince people.

And the insidious part is that nobody can defend you without immediately opening themselves up to the same accusations, because if you're being called out as a pedophile for supporting a ship with a height difference, anyone who says, “hey, I don’t think that’s pedophilia” is now also supporting ships with a height difference, ergo supporting pedophilia. (And if anyone is thinking “you’re making all these strawman examples up, nobody actually believes that”, I envy your blissful ignorance but let me assure you, I am not.)

And that kind of situation leads to an atmosphere where everyone is terrified of doing anything wrong or they’ll be the next one viciously attacked, and the only way to keep good social standing is by continously attacking other people whether you agree with the extreme ideology or not, and that’s how you get bullying, harassment campaigns, and anti groups that have become genuine, legitimate cults. I’ve lost the links but there are some truly chilling twitter threads about that if you’re interested.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, whether it was a case of the proverbial road to hell being paved with good intentions or whether the movement was co-opted by people who didn’t actually care about stopping pedophilia and really just wanted an excuse to cyberbully people, the movement has evolved to a point where it’s mainly a harassment campaign with only the thinnest veneer of actually trying to prevent pedophilia. Nobody is out here running charity drives to donate to help abused children or making their own safe spaces where people can view art and fic without worrying about encountering triggering content - in fact, antis have been offered multiple sites to use as replacements for AO3 where they can set whatever TOS they want and have always refused. The only thing most antis do to combat pedophilia in fandom is callouts and harassment.

Not to mention the irony in the fact that so many of the people targeted are, in fact, minors. In their quest to avoid people potentially getting hurt by fictional content, they’re doing real, tangible hurt to actual, living people, including kids.

So that’s how we got here. Being anti-pedo and being an anti are not the same thing, and if you see a reference to the latter, it means a member of a specific pro-censorship movement focused on hurting (mainly young, marginalized) people as “activism”.

#(gets out my bat and takes a crack at the hornets nest)#long post #caecilius dixit #Anonymous

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sweetiepie08 · 4 years ago

Text

Rebel Z (Chapter 10 Final)

nvader Zim fanfic

While analyzing Zim’s PAK for weaknesses, Tak discovers strange coding that sends her on a search for answers. The clues lead her to uncover a conspiracy that governs all of Irken society. When the truth sends her on the run, she has no choice but to return to the one place the Tallest would never willingly go: Urth.

Meanwhile, Dib has noticed odd changes in Zim’s behavior. Has the invader simply grown bored of his mission over the last few years, or is there something more interesting going on?

People who asked to be tagged: @incorrect-invader-zim , @messinwitheddie, @reblogstupids, @cate-r-gunn

If anyone else would like to be added to the tag list please let me know.

Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Chapter 10.

Thank you for reading! I do plan to continue the story in a sequel fic, but I may take a short hiatus first. I hope you enjoyed this!

Be on the lookout for the next book in the series, RevolutionZ! In which Zim and Tak attempt to join the Resisty and gain new companions! Dib fills his gap year by joining an alien rebellion! Gaz gets dragged in too! And what happened to Zim in Death Melee is explained!

However, I will most likely only be posting links to Ao3 than full chapters to Tumblr. Again, Thank you everyone for reading!

[-]

“So, what exactly the fuck was all that stuff with the punch about?” Dib asked once they were a comfortable distance away form the Massive.

Zim glared straight ahead at the stars. “It’s nothing that concerns you, human.”

“Bullshit!” Dib slammed his hand down on the control panel. “Your little stunt could have gotten us killed. Out with it!”

Zim gritted his teeth and gripped the steering mechanism until his knuckles quaked. Dib braced himself for the inevitable screaming denial. Instead, Zim let out a pained sigh. “Fine, if you must know, I figured out three Urth years ago that my mission was a sham and my leaders were trying to have me killed, so I took revenge. Happy?”

“We know all that,” Tak snapped. “And anyway, I told you your mission was a lie a long time ago. What I want to know is how you managed to betray the Tallest without your treasonous thoughts setting of your life clock.”

“Yeah, and who’s Spek?” Dib added.

“You wish to hear Zim’s tale of woe?” He clenched his fist and heaved out another sigh. “Fine. Three Urth years ago, the Tallest contacted me, telling me they selected me to participate in Death Melee, an inter-galactic event that all would be watching.”

“The one where they throw criminals on a planet together to fight to the death?” Tak deadpanned. “That was your first clue?”

“They told me the rules had changed and it was now a contest of elite warriors. For my partner, they gave me a Spek, a smeet just shy of his cadet years. He hadn’t even seen his first cycle yet…” Zim’s fists shook as he cut himself off.

“Since you’re still alive, I’m assuming you won,” Dib said.

“Yes, but…” his gaze fell to the floor. “Yes. Anyway, throughout the Melee, it became clear to me that the Tallest lied. This was still a game for criminals, but Spek…” Zim narrowed his haunted eyes, “he was only there to lessen my chances.”

Dib watched, mesmerized. He thought he’d seen the many moods of Zim. He’d seen everything from proud boasting, to spiteful rage, to pathetic schmooping. But this, this was something else entirely, something he never expected to see from the alien. True remorse.

“On my journey back to Urth,” he continued, “I had too much time to think and when made it back to m base, I was done with all of it.” Rage grew in his voice with every word. “I knew they lied. I knew they’d been lying. For a moment, I thought, if they didn’t want my genius, maybe someone else would. And that thought was enough to set off my life clock. Instead of simply ripping out my feedback chip, I infected it with a virus that sends the Control Brains a loop of my Urth memories, preventing it from receiving new thoughts and experiences.” A bitter, satisfied smile came to his face. “As far as I can tell, it hadn’t noticed anything was off until now.”

“And the machines I saw you building?” Dib pressed.

Zim drew himself up. “I have a contract with the Resisity. I build them machines, they appreciate my genius and send me monies.”

“And that’s what you’ve been doing for three years?” Dib asked, voice sripping with skepticism.

Zim nodded and said nothing more.

Dib stared at him, trying to get a read on this whole tale. He wasn’t sure what to believe. Zim’s reason for existence seamed to be pleasing his Tallest. The little green monster talked of nothing else since arriving on Urth. He couldn’t imagine Zim wanting anything else and he’d fallen for the schmoopy act before. But this was not schmoop. It was too subtle, too quiet. And that betrayal of his Tallest couldn’t be denied. Something had truly changed.

Dib looked to Tak to gauge her opinion, but her face revealed nothing except careful calculation.

“I’d heard the Resisty had been growing and gaining power,” she mused. “New technology granted them upsetting victories and made them more of a problem than they once were. They could be the key. We need to fight if we ever want a chance of defeating the Control Brains and freeing our people, and for that, we’ll need an army. With your connection and my information, we could pose a real threat to the Empire.”

Dib expected Zim to launch into another tirade about how he wasn’t in it for the politics. That this was all a personal mission and he had no interest in going rogue. That did not happen.

Instead, Zim said nothing for a long time. He simply stared through the windshield in tense silence. But then, a grin grew slowly on his face. “I’m in.”

[-]

When they made it back to Earth, they found that Gaz made use of MiMi and Mini Mouse as gaming companions, Dad bought her excuse that Dib was hanging out at Zim’s house, and that he hadn’t even stopped home long enough to notice the two additional robots in the living room.

Dib went straight to his room and laid out all of his recording devices. He had the notes he took the night Zim and Tak rambled drunkenly on the couch. He had the audio recording of the old man Irken that he couldn’t wait to translate. And he had the spy camera he’d been wearing to capture the whole experience. He never got so much undeniable proof on one mission before, and no one, to his knowledge, had this much evidence of this quality ever. He’d be king of the Swollen Eyeball network if he showed even a fraction of…

His eyes drifted to the Swollen Eyeball emblem pinned to his bulletin board and he let out a sigh. The Swollen Eyeball… what a joke. They’d been reduced to a bunch of anti-science conspiracy nuts. The organization became a competition to see who could shout their wildest theory the loudest. What were they compared to a real evil alien empire, a real soul-sucking, Lovecraftian horror, and a real space alien rebellion?

No. This was bigger than some crack-pot conspiracy group. This rebellion universe-shattering consequences. And he was going to be part of it.

[-]

Out in his ship, Zim stared at his PAK connector with warry eyes. He wasn’t sure what held him back now. His stunt on the Massive already solidified his traitor status, but this felt different, more official. It was one thing to enact vengeance on those who betrayed him. It was quite another to completely detach himself from society.

He’d been unwaveringly loyal to the Empire since his conception, but they didn’t want him. He’d seen that years ago. So what was he waiting for?

He disconnected the PAK from his back and ignored the lifeclock in the corner of his eye as he plugged it in. He opened the hatch, clicked a pair of tweezers in his fingers, then reached them toward his feedback chip.

At a light tug, his computer’s voice gave an automated warning.

You are attempting to remove the feedback chip. Doing so is an act of treason against the Irken Empire. Are you sure you want to proceed?

Zim closed his eyes and pulled the chip free.

[-]

Tak’s footsteps echoed as she walked across the concrete garage floor. MiMi’s metallic feet clacked beside her. Apart from that, the room was silent. She was used to silence. One grows accustomed to it when traveling alone through space. But these last few days had been anything but. And with Zim as her dubious ally, silent moments like this were certain to be few and far between.

And yet, this moment, she felt the need to fill it with something.

She popped open the windshield of her ship and hopped inside. “MiMi, my disc please.” Mimi reached into her head and took out the Urth data storage disc. Zim wasn’t the only one with a secret stash.

Tak took the disc from Mimi and placed it in a tray on the ship’s control panel. “Ship, track six please.” As she hopped out, music began to play. Smooth, jazzy horns filled the air and the singer began crooning.

Maybe this time, I’ll be lucky. Maybe this time he’ll stay…

The song was from an Urth performance art piece. The vocalist sang about some male mate. That part didn’t interest Tak in the slightest. Still, there was something about it...

Not a loser anymore, like the last time and the time before…

The song continued to play as Tak opened the engine access panel and began her work. While manipulating the many gears and wires, she found a few interesting repair methods that the human implemented over the years. Many employed the use of an Urth bonding strip called “duct tape”, which she had to admit came in handy. The human didn’t do a bad job, even if it was pretty slap-dash.

All the odds are in my favor, something’s bound to begin…

She finally untangled a mess of wires and reconnected them.

It’s gotta happen, happen sometime…

She fused together the final wire and the ship hummed to life. Fuel Regulation Systems online.

Tak smiled, “Okay Mimi, looks like we’re finally getting somewhere.” She ducked back into the access panel as the song his its crescendo.

Maybe this time I’ll win.

#invader zim fanfiction #invader zim #iz fanfiction #iz fanfic #zim #dib #tak #gaz #gir #rebel zim #rebel leader tak #zadf #sweetiepie08 #sweetiepie fanfic #sweetiepie writes #invader zim fandom

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keenmarvellover · 3 years ago

Text

I posted 5,095 times in 2021

72 posts created (1%)

5023 posts reblogged (99%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 69.8 posts.

I added 1,271 tags in 2021

#fic rec - 269 posts

#i'm w h e e z i n g - 183 posts

#my favorites - 149 posts

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#evan buckley - 84 posts

#legendary posts - 76 posts

#yes - 72 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

My Top Posts in 2021

“tell me you’re homophobic without telling me you’re homophobic”

25 notes • Posted 2021-08-02 03:19:13 GMT

“50 SHADES OF GRACE”

36 notes • Posted 2021-02-09 12:00:17 GMT

POSTS FOR YOU - 3

Some links to posts with valuable content you want in one place.(BASICALLY EVERYTHING IS THERE)

Suggestions and Recommendations are appreciated and accepted.

Last Updated : 31/03/2021

NOTE: Some of these post are written in a crude and unruly fashion. But they contain valuable tips, guidance and information. If you can't/don't want to read such posts, then don't read.

Mental Health

If you need distractions

If you are bored or just need to distract yourself, here are a few cool things that may help you.

How to check for Hallucinations

Either it is a auditory or visual hallucination.

Coping 101

A masterpost of down to earth resources.

Dealing with Executive Dysfunction

A Masterpost

In case anyone is having a bad night

A few sites recommended by users.

Health

How to identify a stroke?

For both men and women: the obvious and subtle signs.

Health care PSA for Americans

Bills and Hospitals is USA.

Endometriosis

A small masterpost of articles/resources related to endometriosis

How to do a Push-up

Some eaiser variations of push ups to help you build the strength to do a traditional one!

Beauty Tips

A method to remove pimples and pimple scars from the face.

Postpartum Bleeds and Postpartum Pads

What are postpartum bleeds. Read and reblog.

Checking for testicular Cancer

What to-do.

Artists

Calculate your commision prices

A tool which helps artists to see what should they really recieve for their hardwork

How to draw Manual Wheelchairs properly

If you're drawing it, draw it properly

Sound Effects

Released by BBC and Yellowstone and more.

Top 12 alternatives to Photoshop for Digital painters and Illustrators

Free alternatives

Writers

How does being punched in the face feel like?

A great reference for writers.

Resources For Writing Sketchy Topics

Now you can get straight to writing.

Reasons For Your Characters To Hate Each Other

Didn't know there were this many.

Writing Websites

Check it out and reblog to help other writers.

Resources for Writers

Short list but very useful.

Writing a summary

What should be included and how should it be written.

Tag your fics and give a wordcount.

List of triggers given.

Alternatives for 25 overused words in writing

Short but useful list.

Attention New Tumblr Writers

Some tips and instructions that will help you post your stories on tumblr easier..

Readers

PSA for people who use AO3

This for BOTH writers and reader.

Legal sites to download Literature

Classics, textbooks and more

List of Fantasy Books

Let's imagine again!!!

Skins on AO3

How to use it? Instructions here

Essays

Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of essays

A list of Online Libraries

Movies, Books, Audio Books and Music

Books

Of all types to read in 2021

Books with Gay Representation

A list of them

Books by Asian Authors

Some books written by asian authors that you should support because they’re really really good and overshadowed by their white counterparts.

Students

Chrome Extensions for Nurodivergent students

What should be included and how should it be written.

How to Practise Practically

Some basics on how to practice! FOR WRITERS AND ARTISTS too.

Video Essays on Random Stuff

By people of colour

Shorthand Writing

The shorthand which doctors and pharmacists use.

Vaguely academic things to do to keep yourself entertained

From Research binges to reading free books

Study Music Masterlist

Background sounds and music for studying.

Miscellaneous/Life Hacks

Tumblr Survival Guide

Everything I wish I knew when I joined Tumblr. Basically this is a collection of things that will make Tumblr easier to use :D

Abbreviation Cheat List

Abbreviations used on Tumblr and other sites

This Indie Designer Uses Her Online Shop To Showcase Looks on All Body Types.

Check it out and share.

How to get hired

Simple tips and rules to follow to increase your chances of getting hired.

How to fit a Day's clothes into a Compact Sock Ball

Try this for trips you only bring a carry-on to

Playlists to help pass the time

Listen to some music when you are bored

How to recognize Nazi and White Supremacist Symbols & Signs

Please learn and share.

What Fruits are in Season?

A Chart which shows the same.

Donating to a Food Bank

Wisdom from a Food Bank Employee

Where to find free Movies and Series Online

Lots of sites. Lots and Lots of sites. I am not Kidding. Now go and chill without netflix.

Save your Money

How to make detergent, Washing Soda and Wool Dryer Balls.

Save your Money (Part II)

The How-tos of Basic household chores. (They can be found online too)

How to darn holes and tears

A tumblr lesson

Safety

How do you protect yourself from being stalked online

By parents, exes and whoever you are trying to throw off.

Boeing 737 Max and its Dangers

Read on to know why it is a Dangerous aircraft and why it should be avoided.

The Cold Shock Response

What to do if you fall in ice/ice water in cold waterbodies.

How to keep warm during a power outage

Please reblog this and share for those stuck in cold or frezing places.(PART II)

Signs of a Abusive and/or Manipulative Partner

Every gender should read this. (Yes males too.) [ Part II)

How to stay warm during a Cold Storm

How to get out of hand binds of ANY kind

How to get out of a Coffin

What to do if your nudes are leaked

What to do if your nudes are leaked (Part II)

Signs your are in a Cult

How to check if it is a two way mirror

51 notes • Posted 2021-02-06 07:53:14 GMT

195 notes • Posted 2021-05-08 14:46:41 GMT

no one is meaner to tumblr than tumblr users

212 notes • Posted 2021-04-30 12:07:56 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

Tagging: @depth-of-a-wandering-mind

@gulaabjamoon

@chris-evans-indian-fanfic

@resanoona

@secret-eden

@sleepyzzzzdreamerzzzz

@that-damn-girl

@avengerhollows

@cattfeine

@silvermyfanwy

@more-like-reyna

@allthebrazilianpolitics

@futurebound-vertigo

@mermaidxatxheart

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

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i-will-physically-fight-you · 3 years ago

Text

Crescent Chapter 3 Revision Notes

Revised Chapter 3 is out baby, view it on tumblr dont talk to me about the links not working on that post its broken for some reason or ao3! Since this chapter feels like the one most heavily updated, here’s some notes on what was reworked

Removed Roman’s pov from the very beginning and replaced it with Patton’s pov. I made this decision because it felt like it made for a stronger opening. Some of Roman’s beginning inner monologue in the original is reused at the end of the revised chapter

Patton tearing that mugger apart is now 40% more gruesome and descriptive.

Patton’s character is now more rounded out and thoroughly explored imho

Roman, Patton and Logan are now 20% more werewolf in their behavior

Instead of Logan conveniently arriving home for that Dramatic Entrance when Patton finishes telling Roman what’s up, he’s just there and ready to silently disapprove Patton’s choices in life

The Argument at the end between the three is a bit more expanded upon and Patton has a bit more agency in it.

Original Word-Count was 2557, Updated Word-Count is 4574, little over 2k more than the original.

Included below is the original chapter 3 so you can see the differences if you’d like

To be fair, Roman wasn’t surprised when Patton came home a stray in tow. Patton had a heart of gold—there wasn’t a mean bone in his body. He cried easily. He cried when a girl and her dog got separated in a movie, and he cried again when the two were reunited. He couldn’t bear passing by a downed bird, injured and all alone. It was why they now had a flock of ravens that took shelter within the confines of their yard.

Roman knew it was always hard for Patton to let go of the strays after he nursed them back to health. He grew attached to their presences, loved them like they were his own children. But he also knew that they couldn’t really care for pets with their type of lifestyle beyond the wild animals like the ravens that just wouldn’t leave. However, that was alright. A flock of ravens were considered good luck among werewolves.

So the ravens stayed, whilst the others were sent away. Logan always did his best to help situate the animals into loving homes. It made Patton feel better knowing that they went to owners who’d care for them just as much as he did.

What he was surprised about was the…species of the stray Patton brought home.

He heard the door click open, as he worked on his canvas. He didn’t bother glancing up. He didn’t need to use his nose to know it was Patton entering their humble yet magnificent dwelling. It couldn’t be anyone else, but Patton as Logan didn’t get off work this early, and there wasn’t anyone else who had a key to the house.

“Hey, padre!” He greeted, frowning as he redrew the eyes of his sketch, “Did you complete your quest to obtain the chocolate chip cookies with the extra chocolateyness?”

“Oh my goodness,” Patton gasped, “I left the cookies back in the city!”

“What happened? Did you get sidetracked by a baby squirrel again?” Roman chuckled.

He expected Patton to launch into some excited ramble about the cute poor animal he came across, or perhaps amazing scent trail that derailed him from his errand. But instead Patton seemed hesitant to share information.

“Not…exactly.” Patton admitted.

“What do you mean?” Roman finally looked up.

Instead of the kitten or baby bird that Roman expected to find, there was a stranger in Patton’s arms. Small and thin and pale in baggy black clothing. His first thought that must be another werewolf—Patton wouldn’t dare bring a human here, would he? But Roman took one sniff and knew immediately.

There was no mistake about it; Patton had brought a human into the home.

“Patton why is he here?” Roman growled, “He’s a human!”

The older man pressed his lips together, walking past Roman to lay the human on the couch before facing him once more.

“He was in trouble, Roman! He—he was all alone and I couldn’t just leave him—” Patton drew a breath, “Please, let me explain.”

To be fair, Patton did not mean to go sniffing out for trouble. He only meant to go sniffing out for cookies after another botched attempt at creating them. As much as he loved making food in the kitchen, baking was not his strong suit. Logan said it was because he wasn’t exact with his measurements. Patton didn’t see how adding more sugar could ruin the recipe that much. He only wanted to make the cookies sweeter, and what’s sweeter than sugar itself?

It was alright though, because that just gave himself an excuse to visit Thomas. He let his nose take all the way downtown to the Piece of Cake bakery. The bell jangled as he bounced in, grinning around at the pastel interior of the bakery. He took a deep breath in, letting the sweet scents of the desserts invade his nose.

“Hi Patton! What’ll it be today?” Thomas asked, giving a friendly wave from his place at the counter.

“Thomas! It’s so good to see you!” Patton squealed, reaching over the counter to give the man a hug.

The man let out a surprised yelp, but eagerly returned the hug just the same. He learned by now that Patton often to forgot to ask before he invaded people’s personal spaces in his rush to lavish them with affection.

“Opps sorry,” Patton gave a bashful grin as he withdrew from the hug, “I was just excited to see you! It’s been so long since I’ve seen you!”

“Patton, it’s only been like three days,” Thomas laughed.

“I know, but still.” Patton pouted.

The two made friendly conversation as Patton picked out his order. It wasn’t until another customer came into the bakery that the two exchanged their goodbyes, and Patton made his departure.

He hummed cheerfully, swinging the bag of cookies with each stride. Occasionally at intersections he took a moment to open the bag and smell the delicious sugary delights. Chocolate Chip, Snickerdoodles, Sugar Cookies—the scents tickled his nose with glee.

Patton loved scents—they often told the truth more often than someone else’s words or his own eyes could. He was happy he could always trust his nose when his other senses failed him. He couldn’t imagine not being able to smell! He’d rather give up his sight or his hearing than not being able to smell the comforting presences of his packmates.

Once, Logan revealed to him that humans couldn’t smell as well as their kind. Patton cried for fifteen minutes straight after that.

“Why are you crying?” Logan asked, awkwardly patting Patton’s back, “Humans’ sense of smell may be feeble compared to ours, but they have been able to survive just fine with it the way that it is. Besides, it is not as if they know the difference.”

“Exactly!” Patton sobbed harder, “They’ll never know how—how wonderful smell is.”

Logan sighed.

“Would it help any to say as a former human, that I now know how wonderful a heightened sense of smell can be?”

“A little.” Patton sniffled.

The crosswalk switched from an angry red hand to the cute walking stick figure that signaled it was the pedestrians turn to walk. The crowd surged forward, a few people bumping into Patton’s shoulder as they passed by him.

“Oh!” He looked up from the bag, spying the crosswalk signal. He covered up the bag once more and hurried across the crosswalk.

It was a long walk to the outskirts of the city where Roman, Logan and Patton lived, but he much preferred it over taking the car. As much as he enjoyed driving, he didn’t enjoy that thick traffic that left him antsy in the seat knowing he could walk faster than how fast the car was crawling across the interstate. When there wasn’t traffic clogging the streets, the car whipped by faster than Patton’s liking.

He took the idiom “stop and smell the roses” literally. Patton enjoyed walking because of the journey. He loved hearing the chatter out of the bustling city, the wind rustling his hair, seeing the various sights that the city had to offer. Not to mention the smells. While some scents like gasoline could be nauseating to smell, there was scents like—pizza. Greasy breading baked with tomato sauce and cheese with a variety of toppings. His stomach grumbled in agreement.

As if in a trance, Patton’s feet led him in the direction of a nearby pizzeria. It wasn’t until he was a block away from the restaurant that he realized how far off he deviated from the walk home. He needed to walk north, not inwards towards the heart of the city. As much as his mouth watered for pizza, he already prepared a delicious meal at home. He would have to save pizza for another day. Perhaps he could even make homemade pizza! He hadn’t tried that doing that yet.

It was hard to suppress his urge to chase after every wonderful scent that infiltrated his nose, however. The closer he came towards home, the more overwhelming it became. When Patton had been younger, it was harder for him to ignore the urges to chase after the scents. Flowers, perfume, the smell of Asian food wafting in the air from a nearby restaurant—it enticed and overwhelmed him.

He chased the scents, curious to see where they led. Often, he found himself in trouble from sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. After spending his childhood largely isolated from the human world, he had been ignorant of appropriate manners among humans. For example, humans often took offense if you smelled them. Whereas werewolves had very little sense of personal space. Something that could be found inherent in Patton by how he heaped affection on people within five seconds of meeting them.

Patton knew better now. He recognized he couldn’t gleefully chase each scent without abandon. He had a responsibility to look after the needs of the others. If Patton didn’t remind the two workaholics when to eat, he wasn’t sure who else would.

Gotta focus, gotta focus, gotta focus. The mantra ran through his mind repeatedly. He opened the bag of cookies once more, taking a deep whiff to remind himself of his mission. The rich chocolate, cinnamon goodness and fear reminded him that he can’t wait to share them with the others—wait.

Patton paused in the middle of the sidewalk, causing the person behind him to grumble in frustration. Fear? That can’t be right. That scent doesn’t belong with a cookie but rather—a living being. He scanned the bustling crowd who traveled down the sidewalk as usual. The scent of increased perspiration clung to the air, how could the humans just ignore it? Could they not smell it?

He didn’t stay put to find out. There’s no question in his mind whether if he should not follow this scent. His heart pounded, as he dashed after the scent. He trusted his nose to lead him to the source.

“Opps, Excuse me! Sorry!” He called out, apologizing to disgruntled pedestrians as he tore through the foot traffic. His large, hulking figure was perfect at plowing through the crowd—no one wanted to get trampled by a 6’2 man.

He skidded around a corner, the scent leading him to the entrance of a winding, dark alleyway. There lay a sight that angered him. A large burly human held a gun against a smaller one, who shook badly from terror.

Patton let out a low growl, too upset to say anything intelligible. His claws came out as he launched himself at the mugger, tearing him away from the small human. A shot rang out from his gun, and Patton could only hope it didn’t hit the human on the ground. The mugger attempted pointing his gun towards Patton, but he ripped the weapon out of his hand and onto the ground.

The mugger made a frantic scramble after it, but Patton pinned him to the ground. He sunk his claws into the man, and only let go when the man went limp.

He breathed in deeply, forcing himself to relax. His instincts screamed at him to remain on guard. But the danger had passed, and he needed to make sure the small human was okay. He was ignorant of a lot of things about humans, but he did know they could be easily frightened by his more wolfish appearance. The last thing he wanted was to scare the poor guy even further. As soon as he morphed back into a humanoid appearance, his focus went immediately to the small human—his eyes widening in concern at their collapsed figure.

“Are you alright?!” He called out as he rushed to their side. Their head lolled backwards, signaling that they had gone unconscious.

A surge of protectiveness took over him as he immediately gathered the human in his embrace. He can’t help but marvel over how small and fragile the human looked! He must have been the runt in his litter. The human wore a raggedy black hoodie and ripped jeans with scuffed up converse. His face was too thin to be healthy, and those circles underneath his eyes! If the poor thing didn’t faint from fright, he certainly fainted from exhaustion.

He gasped upon seeing the bandages wrapped around the human’s hands. The skin underneath looked red and swollen, indicating it was a fresh wound. The human’s hair was glistened with sweat. Patton pressed a hand against his forehead and nearly flinched at how warm it felt. He shouldn’t feel this warm…humans shouldn’t feel this warm, right?

Patton snuck a glance towards the mugger, and immediately withheld the urge to vomit. The wounds looked deeper than Patton had initially thought and although the mugger was still breathing, it might not be for long. Patton was a lover not a fighter. The thought that he could be this man’s cause of death was haunting. But as he looked back down at the runt, he didn’t regret it. The mugger had threatened an innocent life, and Patton wasn’t going to stand there and watch it happen.

That was also the reason why he couldn’t just leave the human, alone and unconscious, in the alley alone with the bleeding-out stranger that tried to kill him. If someone came across him, he’d be an easy meal. He had to take the human somewhere safe. The only thing is, Patton had no way of knowing where he lived. He had no way of tracking down his home. It was nearly impossible to distinguish a scent from the hundreds of millions of aromas existing in the city air.

A scream interrupted his thoughts. Patton looked up to see a woman staring from the entrance of the alleyway, covering up her mouth in horror. Patton’s mind came to a screeching halt as his instincts screamed a singular command at him. Run.

This was not a time to attempt explaining the situation. His nerves were shot, and he was afraid of what was going to befall on the human. Would the other humans see how sick and small he was and attempted to finish what the mugger started? He couldn’t let this small human go through any more pain than he already had. Not now he was here. He scooped up the human in his arms, sprinting into through the sidewalks of the city.

He ran as fast as his feet would carry him, afraid that police sirens would be after him at any moment. Patton was fast, but not fast enough to outrun a car. Especially while carrying the human, despite how worryingly light he was.

Patton, being paranoid, took detours—attempting to throw off any would-be pursuers off his trail. When he finally reached the porch of the house, he almost collapsed from exhaustion. The human let out a cry in his sleep, and Patton stroked his hair.

“Shhh,” He said, “You’re safe now.”

The human unconsciously leaned into the touch, completely relaxing in Patton’s hold. The werewolf’s heart melted even further. If Patton’s heart was a popsicle, it was now a puddle of sugary sweet liquid.

As he sat on the porch, the human lying draped across his lap, he started to realize that Logan and Roman probably wouldn’t be happy with this arrangement. But Patton wasn’t going to abandon him, even if he was a human!

Which was why, he was now pleading to let the human stay with them.

“Please Roman, he needs help, I couldn’t just leave him all like that!” Patton begged, “Please don’t tell Logan—not yet, at least.”

“Tell Logan, what?”

Logan stood in the door frame, arms crossed as he stared down at the unconscious form of the human on the couch. Patton gulped.

He did not look happy.

“Hi Logan,” Patton chuckled nervously.

“What is he doing here?” Logan gestured to the human, “He shouldn’t be here, Patton. Do you remember what happened last time we let a human in our house?”

“This—this is different,” Patton insisted, “He needs us!”

“He needs to go!” Roman burst, clenching his fists.

Logan turned to look at Patton.

“Explain.” He said, and Patton did.

He repeated the same story as he had with Roman, with a few occasional interruptions by Logan who reminded him to stick the facts and not stray off into tangents. Once he finished, Logan sighed and pinched his nose between his fingers.

“So, what I’m hearing is that you panicked and weren’t thinking straight.”

Roman snorted. “Patton doesn’t think straight—ever.”

“I couldn’t just leave him all alone like that! What if he got attacked again?” Patton huffed.

“You could’ve left him at a police station or taken him to the hospital if you were worried about his health.”

Now that he thought about it, those might’ve been better options. Logan had always been good at figuring out more rational solutions to problems than Patton. But it didn’t change the fact that the tiny human was here now and needed their help.

“He needs a pack, Logan. And I know you know how to care for sick humans!”

Logan raised an eyebrow, “Patton, humans are social creatures, I’m sure he has packmates of his own who are concerned by his disappearance. There’s also no telling how he would react once discovering our true nature. We should take him to the hospital.”

Patton frowned. He hadn’t taken in consideration that the small human might already have packmates. If he did, Patton didn’t think they were good packmates based on the human’s malnourished appearance.

“We don’t have to tell him about the pack. But we can’t just leave him alone in the hands of strangers, Logan! We should care for him until we find out where his packmates are.”

Roman glanced between the two like a child observing an argument between their parents unfold in front of them.

Logan said nothing, reaching downwards to feel the human’s forehead.

“His temperature is unusually warm,” He noted, “We should take his jacket off—to help cool down his temperature.”

Patton’s eyes widened.

“Does that mean—”

“Yes, he can stay,” Logan said before clarifying, “only until he’s no longer ill.”

Roman’s eyes flashed angrily.

“Wh—”

“Patton, can you go prepare the spare bedroom for the human?” Logan interrupted.

“Of course!” Patton beamed as he scurried out.

As soon as Patton left the room, Roman turned to face Logan.

“Do I have no say in this?” Roman spluttered indignantly, “Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea? It’s a human, Logan. A. Human.”

“A human who is physically weaker, underfed and feverish compared to us. While it would be optimal to take him to a hospital, you and I both know about how attached Patton gets to…strays. I theorize he’s able to pack-bond more easily with other species than us.”

“Look, I don’t want to hurt Patton’s feelings as much you do, but we should put the safety of the pack first.”

“I did consider the safety of the pack in my decision making. This is a compromise—we’ll look after the human for long as he’s sick in exchange for Patton promising to return him to his friends and family,” Logan explained, “Who knows? The human might even want to leave early.”

He walked towards his study before turning to glance back at Roman.

“Make no mistake. I know how dangerous humans can be; I was once one myself, Roman, and I have no intentions of harboring the delusion of keeping one in our home any longer than necessary.”

#kat talks #writing woes #werewolf au

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always-and-forever-a-killjoy · 4 years ago

Text

Building Home Chapter 5

Hey guys and welcome to another cool fucking chapter by yours truly /j. In all seriousness I am SO excited for this one because hell yeah newsie! Anyways the last chapter title was from S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W, kudos to @wishiwasthemoon-tonight for guessing that one!

Title: Building Home

Chapter Title: We lit the fire

Chapter Wordcount: 4188

Chapter Summary:

The mysterious new crew member arrives, swears a lot, and befriends Cherri Cola.

POV: NewsAGoGo

Warnings: violence, death mentions. (If you want to know what parts to skip, go to the end notes on AO3- I also put a brief summary of any important info in those parts. Stay safe!)

Taglist: @wishiwasthemoon-tonight @sleevesareforlosers@stressed-depressed-emo-mess @tasteofamnesia @dagger-queen @no-braincells-here @piratecherricola (message me, send an ask, or reblog/reply to one of my posts if you want to be added or removed)

AO3 Link

Chapter 1 AO3 Link

Chapter 1 Tumblr Post

Chapter 2 Tumblr Post

Chapter 3 Tumblr Post

Chapter 4 Tumblr Post

(Actual fic under the cut)

NewsAGoGo was hot. And tired. Who would have guessed that the desert was this fucking hot? Well, probably everyone, but it was even hotter than you would reasonably expect from a desert. It was all well and good to say that the desert could reach a hundred degrees or more, something entirely different to actually experience it. It was fucking broiling. NewsAGoGo was cooking in her skin, even in the white clothes she had taken from Battery City. Why in the name of fuck had she decided to do this again? Oh, right, because the other option was to be taken away and trained as an exterminator. Which, if Newsie was going to end up in this goddamn war, they were sure as hell not fighting for the corporation which seemed out to ruin everyone’s fucking lives.

So Newsie was tromping into the desert, tired and hot and did they mention tired? Their feet hurt from walking, and they were starting to think hitchhiking would have been a better idea. The Juvie hall rebels within the city had gotten them out, sure, but actually getting to other killjoys was a whole different story, and so far it was more of a horror story than a fairy tale.

It was about to be even more of a horror story, as Newsie discovered when a car of draculoids started bearing down on her.

“Fuck. Fucking fuck!” Newsie looked around quickly and spotted a handily placed tumbleweed not too far off the road. It probably wouldn’t hide her for long, but it was also sheltered by dunes, and it was by far her best bet. Maybe they could even take out some of the dracs from behind there. So Newsie hurried behind it, waiting for the car to pass by.

It appeared the car wasn’t actually here for them, as it passed by without incident, slowing slightly as it went by. Curious, Newsie hurried over to find that there was a supply truck stopped in the center of the road not a hundred feet off from where she had been, and a killjoy in a distinctive pink mask was standing by it, seemingly unafraid of the car bearing down on them.

Newsie almost shouted a warning before realizing that was one of the most damn stupid ideas they had ever had. It didn’t seem like the killjoy needed one either, as they let the car bear down on them until the last possible second, throwing themselves aside as the car sped past. It took a few minutes for the draculoid driving to be able to turn around, and by then, the killjoy had a ray gun out and pointed at the car. Newsie watched as they shot the draculoid driving, seemingly perfectly unafraid. The car screeched to a halt as another few shots hit the engine of the car, the other dracs hurrying to stop it and get out.

Now that they were outside the shelter of the car, the killjoy’s true skill was revealed. It hardly seemed like a fair fight at first, four dracs on one killjoy, but Newsie realized it was more than fair- it was unfair to the dracs. Two of them were dead within a second, and the third almost cowered in terror as they tried to duel with the killjoy. But whoever the joy was, they had forgotten to account for the fourth drac.

Newsie could hardly believe they were doing this, but they raised the ray gun a few juvie halls had given them and took aim, steadying their hand with their other one as they pulled the trigger.

Her shot didn’t kill the drac outright, but it hit the drac in the arm and made them scream. That was enough to alert the killjoy, who had just finished disarming and knocking out the third drac, and they turned and shot the forth point-blank. Newsie breathed a silent sigh of relief, although she didn’t exactly know why.

Meanwhile, the pink-masked killjoy was looking around. “Whoever fired the first shot on this, I’m not going to hurt you. In fact, you just saved my ass, so thank you!”

Newsie hurried down the slope, hoping this guy could bring them back to some form of civilization or at least somewhere with shade. They were sweltering. “Hey!”

“Hey there!” The killjoy nodded to her. “Thanks for having my back there, I was careless to let that fourth one slip by me.”

“Uh, no problem.”

“I’m Cherri Cola, he/him. Do you have a Zone name yet?”

Newsie thought about it for a second and gave him the name she had considered and debated many times over on the endless walk here. “NewsAGoGo. She/her, uh, and they/them.”

“Nice to meet you. You’re an undergrad, yeah?”

“I would literally be a freshman in high school.”

Cherri Cola stared at them for a second and then cracked up. “Sorry, Zone slang. You’re fresh out of Batt City is what I mean.”

“Oh. Yeah, I’m fresh out of Battery City, what’s it to you?” She eyed him suspiciously.

“I was wondering if you needed a place to stay, I didn’t have one when I got out here either.”

That was...kinder than they expected. They still didn’t trust this strange killjoy with fire in his eyes, but he was their best option for getting somewhere other than the side of a road in Zone whatever. “Yeah, I don’t have anywhere to go.”

“Well then I’ll bring you back to Autumn. They’ll take anyone.”

Newsie tried not to be insulted by that as Cherri Cola led her back to his motorcycle. “Fancy ride.”

“D helped me fix it up,” he said, as if she knew who ‘D’ was. “The sidecar’s all full, I hope you don’t mind riding on the back.”

They did mind a little, but it was better than being crammed in a sidecar even if the sidecar hadn’t been full. So they shook their head. “I don’t mind.”

“Great!” Cherri Cola climbed on and gestured her after. “Let’s go before the crows get here.”

Newsie hopped on the motorcycle reluctantly, cautiously hanging on to him. “You better not turn out to be a murderer or something.”

“Oh, I am.” Cherri’s voice was surprisingly calm. “But only of dracs and crows, not miscellaneous teenagers who saved my life.”

“Like you’re not a teenager.”

“I’m almost eighteen!”

“Old person,” Newsie snorted.

“And how old are you, then?”

“Fourteen.”

“Not the youngest ‘joy I’ve known.”

Cherri was a frankly terrible driver, by any sane person’s standard. He went far too fast and took curves at frankly irresponsible speeds, forcing Newsie to hang on tightly. The only good thing that could be said was that he did keep his eyes focused on the road, driving with a fierce intensity, like he was running from something she couldn’t see. So yes, by any sane judgement, Cherri Cola was a fucking terrible driver.

Newsie rather enjoyed his driving. Sure, they had to wrap their arms around his waist so they didn’t fall off the fucking bike, but the speed was exciting. Freeing. Of all the times Newsie had talked to random strangers over the course of her life, this had to be one of the best outcomes.

And so down the desert roads they went, kicking up dust behind them as Cherri Cola took them back to what appeared to be a small settlement. It had the look of a pre-Helium Wars era town, but as they got closer, Newsie could see that all the buildings were in varying states of destruction, and graffiti was everywhere. Color was the resounding theme of the area, and killjoys hollered back and forth to each other across the broken down streets. It was noisy and chaotic and eye-scorching, and Newsie loved it already.

“Welcome to our town.” Cherri’s voice had a hint of pride in it as he honked the horn at a few killjoys in their way.

“It’s fucking loud.” It was fucking perfect.

“The noise comes with having a bunch of kids in a town.” He pulled to a stop in front of a tall house with ‘House of Soup’ spray painted over the door.

Newise snorted and Cherri shot her a glare. “Care to help me unload?”

“Fine.”

She helped him carry in several large boxes of varying things, batteries and power pup mainly, and got quite a few stares.

“Hey, Cher!” That was a killjoy with bleached white streaks through their hair, bearing a wide smile as they leaned in to hug Cherri. “Who’s this?”

“NewsAGoGo, she’s new to the desert. She/they.” Cherri turned to Newsie. “This is White Lily, she/her and leader of the current rebellion, as much as we have any one leader.”

“Pleased to meet you.” White Lily’s smile seemed genuine, although her eyes blazed with a similar fire to Cherri’s.

Newsie shook her offered hand carefully. “Nice to meet you.”

“So you’re staying with us?” White Lily didn’t wait for a reply before turning back to Cherri. “Cher, you can take off your mask, you know.”

He sighed and pushed his pink mask up onto his forehead, revealing the dark circles under his eyes and the child-like softness of his face, a sharp contrast to his angular cheekbones.

“A literal child, that’s what you look like,” Newsie declared.

Cherri glared at her. “I know I look like I’m twelve, fuck off.” His face might have been young, but his eyes were old and frankly the only even vaguely intimidating thing about him. If Newsie hadn’t watched him face down a car full of dracs on his own, they would have thought he was nothing to be afraid of.

“You look younger than me.” It wasn’t quite the truth, but it was entertaining to watch Cherri’s face at that.

“Alright, I’m off to talk to D,” White Lily declared. “You can talk to Autumn Assassin about finding a room for them.” Her words were casual, but the tone made it clear it was an order.

“I will, tell D he needs to come in pretty soon if he doesn’t want to miss dinner.”

Newsie was starting to wonder if she was going to meet this mysterious D. “So...Autumn Assassin?”

“The person who runs this house. They should be out back.” Cherri led them through the house and out to the backyard area, where a short, red-haired killjoy appeared to be teaching a much taller one how to hold a ray gun. “Hey, Autumn!”

“Oh, hey, Cola.” They didn’t turn, busy adjusting the other killjoy’s grip.

“Do we have a spare room?”

“Not right now, we’re at capacity with that new crew of joys.”

“Fuck.”

“Why?”

Cherri gestured at Newsie.

“Oh, newbie.” Autumn Assassin looked Newsie up and down. “We’ve got an extra mattress, but not another room, do you think you and your crew can let them stay with you? Assuming you’re okay with that, kid.”

Cherri huffed a sigh. “D and Lil probably won’t mind. NewsAGoGo?”

“Guess I’ll stay with you.” They didn’t know what possessed them to do so, but after a second they add a small “Fucker.”

To their surprise, Cherri laughed. “You won’t be a bad roommate, I think.”

Newsie started her career as Cherri’s roommate by sticking to his side like a limpet, unwilling to leave the one person she actually knew. Cherri tolerated this with a surprising amount of grace, giving them a patient smile as he led them upstairs to put the spare mattress in the room they would now be sharing with Cherri, Lily, and whoever D was. He didn’t protest it, not even as they followed him outside.

“Where are we going?”

“You need killjoy clothes.”

Newsie frowned in annoyance that he just assumed they’d follow, but to be fair, they had followed him everywhere so far. “So where are we going?”

“Tommy Chow Mein’s.”

Cherri Cola took them to the store across the way, what looked to have once been a general store. Now it was still one, but a killjoy one, filled with everything from bubblegum to ray guns to miscellaneous bits of clothing, which were what Cherri headed for. “Here we go.”

“I have literally ten carbons.”

“Tommy knows me, I’ll get you a discount. Plus, D, Lil and I have some to spare.”

Newsie stared at the floor. “You better not be helping me because I’m pitiful and just ran away from home because fucking Better Living was going to turn me into one of their fucking soldiers so I ran and ran and walked so fucking far in that heat and now I look like a fucking mess.”

She didn’t have to look up to know his face was sympathetic, she could feel it in his gaze. “I’m not helping you because your life has been shit or I feel bad for you, I’m helping you because it’s a decent thing to do. Plus, I’ve been there,” he added after a second. “I came out to the desert with no one to help me or a single fucking person who cared.”

Newsie glanced up at that. “So now you just help random killjoys?”

Cherri shrugged. “Mostly I kill dracs. But sometimes, yeah.”

She was still somewhat reluctant, but she picked out a shiny-looking peach jacket, ripped black jeans, an utterly hideous purple, green and gold shirt, and sturdy boots with purple laces.

Cherri gave them a thumbs up of approval, grinning at the outfit. “You have style.”

“You don’t.” He was wearing a turquoise t-shirt, jeans that approximately resembled the ground in how dusty they were, and a black leather jacket which was clearly too small for him.

Cherri flipped them off and dropped a couple of carbons on the counter along with the clothes Newsie had grabbed.

“Swindler,” Tommy Chow Mein snorted. “Are you trying to cheat me out of all these clothes?”

“Who got you out of that clap the other week? And besides, a swindler is someone who sells overpriced goods.”

Tommy gave him a small glare but took the money. “You’re impudent.”

“And you’re a capitalist, your point?”

That earned them a sigh. “Say hi to D for me.”

“Will do.” Cherri gave Newsie a glance that said ‘follow me’ and hurried out of the store. They followed him back across the street and over to Autumn Assassin’s house, heading inside to find the living room just as chaotic as before and the short killjoy from earlier stirring a pot of...something in the kitchen.

"That'll be dinner," Cherri told her with a grin.

At dinner that night, Newsie finally got to meet the mysterious D, who turned out to be a rather tired looking killjoy in a deep brown leather jacket.

“D, this is NewsAGoGo, she/they. They’ll be staying with us because Autumn doesn’t have a spare room,” Cherri introduced. “NewsAGoGo- can I call you Newsie? Or is that not a good nickname- this is Dr. Death Defying, he/they. We all call him D.”

“You can call me Newsie, I guess. Fucker.” She shook D’s offered hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too, NewsAGoGo.” His smile was tired but friendly.

Newsie’s first night there was a little bit strange, trying to sleep in a strange room with three strangers asleep just across from her. Or, well, not asleep, in the case of the stranger who had brought her here. By virtue of not being able to sleep, they were the only one awake to see Cherri roll off the mattress with a muffled curse, climbing to his feet and rubbing his eyes as he wandered over to the window.

“Hey. Fucker,” Newsie hissed.

He turned, looking a little startled. “Yeah?”

“Whacha doing?”

“Can’t sleep. You?”

“Me too.” She climbed off her own mattress, coming over to join him by the window. “What do you do when that happens out here?”

“Look at the stars, mostly. There aren’t any stars in Battery City.”

“Smart.” Newsie looked out the window, staring up at what looked like hundreds, no, thousands of stars. “Holy shit.”

“There are a lot, yeah.”

“No shit.” It might have been the most beautiful thing they had ever seen, with the possible exception of the killjoy town by daytime. But that was beautiful in a different way, colors and noise and life that made you feel brave. The stars were beautiful in a quiet way that made you feel small and like everything was going to be okay. Newsie understood why Cherri liked to watch them at night. There was a strange sort of comfort in being reminded how truly tiny your place in the universe was.

They glanced over at him. “So…Cherri Cola, huh? You really like soda?”

“My sister did.”

Newsie didn’t know what to say to that. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Thankfully Cherri continued the conversation, keeping the silence from being crushing. “Why did you pick NewsAGoGo?”

“GoGo because I’m always going, I guess. News because of the old reporter droids who took care of me. So NewsAGoGo.”

“That makes sense.”

The silence that followed was a little awkward, but not crushingly so. Eventually, Newsie started yawning.

“You should sleep.”

“You should too, but I didn’t say anything,” Newsie shot back quietly.

“I’ll sleep if you will,” Cherri said dryly.

“Fine.” This time, she could actually fall asleep, Newsie found. The silence wasn’t so harsh, and it felt safer to sleep in a room with three others now that one wasn’t so much a stranger.

Conversations like that became common as Newsie settled into living with the other three. Neither they nor Cherri could sleep through the night, most nights. So when their nightmares overlapped, the two of them would stand by the window and talk about the past and Battery City and all the things you didn’t discuss when the sun was shining bright overhead.

Her bond with D and White Lily was nowhere near the same, even if it also tentatively grew stronger. D and Lily didn’t join them at night, even if it wasn’t uncommon for one of them to be awake either. Lily left the room, every time. Newsie suspected she didn’t want the others to hear her cry. D did…something. Newsie didn’t know. Maybe they just laid awake. Either way, it was only her and Cherri who stood by the window.

It was her and Cherri who tended to go out on missions, too. Cherri took her with him more often and more as the days went on. Newsie had continued her policy of sticking to him like a limpet, and he didn’t seem to mind that. So he took them on raids, bringing them to fight exterminators and on all sorts of dangerous things fourteen year olds were absolutely not supposed to do and Newsie rather enjoyed.

He also brought her to Autumn Assassin, who declared that it was absolutely their responsibility to teach Newsie how to shoot a ray gun properly, as well as a variety of other weapons and American Sign Language (useful for communicating silently in claps and with nonverbal or hard of hearing killjoys, Cherri explained). Newsie didn’t exactly object to that, although they did wish a little someone else could teach them. Autumn Assassin was a bit harsh, not exactly sharp but definitely straightforward. Cherri promised it would be okay, though, and Newsie trusted him more than the rest, at least.

Cherri was almost always there when they were doing lessons as well, taking his own shots at the target. Whether that was for his sake or Newsie’s was debatable, but they didn’t mind his presence. Autumn Assassin corrected him almost as much, and they also made him practice a variety of other weapons. Cherri turned out to be terrifyingly good at shooting, but not bad with the rest either. And Newsie wasn’t as good a shot- almost no one was, except maybe Autumn Assassin- but they enjoyed the other forms of combat

“Thank you,” D told her one day. He was standing next to Newsie and watching Cherri spar with Autumn Assassin, circling each other and fighting like their lives depended on it- they very well might, some day.

“For what?”

D gestured vaguely around. “Being here.”

They eyed the other somewhat suspiciously. “I haven’t done shit for you.”

“You have for Cherri.” D glanced over at where Autumn Assassin was tackling Cherri into the dust. “He really likes talking to you, and he’s a lot less resistant to taking you on missions than others.”

“Oh.”

“I’d rather he let me come along,” they continued, “but being willing to take you is a step in the right direction. No offense to you, but you’re inexperienced, and I would feel safer if he would let me help him.”

“He’s a stubborn bastard.”

“Yes, he is.”

“Fuck! Good one!” Autumn Assassin’s nose was bleeding as they and Cherri tromped over, both grinning.

“Got them,” Cherri said proudly. “D, you want to get your ass kicked by Autumn?”

“I’ll kick their ass,” D threatened, but he was smiling too.

“Try me, bitch boy,” Autumn Assassin deadpanned.

“I will and you know I will.”

“Shooting competition?”

“Don’t pick something you know you can beat me at, coward.”

“Then draw swords,” Autumn challenged.

Cherri laughed and came to stand next to Newsie as they watched the two older killjoys fight. “Those two have some sort of rivalry going on, I think.” “A friendly one or a ‘they want to stab each other’ one like you and Tommy Chow Mein?”

“Tommy doesn’t want to stab me, I’m his best customer,” Cherri said indigently. “And a friendly one, they’re friends but also enjoy fighting. Although that’s nothing compared to some others, you should see Lily and Autumn really get going, though.”

“Really? Do they hate each other?” Newsie hadn’t seen much of their dynamic, but it seemed more friendly than anything.

“Oh, no, they’re great friends, but they do enjoy trying to beat the shit out of each other.”

They nodded. She was still learning about the dynamics of the household, between the chaotic crews that called themselves the Brit Boys and the Tumbleweed Chasers and Autumn Assassin, between Autumn Assassin and each member of Cherri’s crew, which thus far had no name. Autumn Assassin was head of the household in a fairly clear way, but beyond that, the relationships were hard to pin down.

The dynamics between Cherri’s crew she thought she had down a little bit better. Cherri was very much the baby of the crew- at least he had been until she arrived- and D and Lily had a shared sort of solidarity of having fought in the wars. Both were ridiculously protective of Cherri, and Cherri was protective of them in turn. How intensely he fought was for many reasons, Newsie thought, but protecting his friends had to rank high on there. They hadn’t gone on many missions with more than one of the crew, but the one they had, they had watched Cherri jump between D and a scarecrow despite the older ‘joy’s protests.

So Cherri became more and more of her best friend, and D and Lily almost equally close. They learned things like that Cherri’s favorite color was pink and D liked old music and listened to Metallica and Lily had been a comic book nerd as a kid. And in return, they told their own stories, if quietly and for few ears. How they liked technology (D was very happy with that one, immediately asking if they would help with the radio station) and didn’t have the patience for chess but had learned how to play checkers better than anyone they knew.

While it might have been easy for other people to see only the personas the three (and now four) of them put on, Dr. Death Defying as the confident radio announcer and White Lily the inspiring rebellion leader, while Cherri Cola was a brave sharpshooter, Newsie was never not able to look past that. She hadn’t met Cherri as Cherri Cola, best sharpshooter of the killjoy’s forces, who would later go head to head with exterminators, she had met him as a dorky seventeen year old who drove too fast. Lily had never been White Lily, invincible leader of a rebellion doomed to fail, she had always been Cherri’s friendly roommate, while D had been that tired guy in a brown jacket. Utterly and completely human.

Although Newsie was nowhere as famous as those three yet, they had started to attract notice of their own. NewsAGoGo, radio assistant, that kid who rode with the Trio. Fighting shit with Cherri didn’t help that impression. Because as it turned out, there were consequences for being friends with the three most influential figures of a rebellion, and those consequences included a reputation and dracs constantly trying to get you ghosted. Newsie was getting very good at fighting them off and brushing off the occasional stare or whispered comment. Maybe it wasn’t right that she had to learn, maybe it wasn’t just that a fourteen-year-old had been put in this situation, but this was war. And Newsie learned quickly.

#newsagogo #cherri cola #dr. death defying #auri writes #ttlofk #white lily #building home tag #coming coming home tag

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unforth · 4 years ago

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Hi there! I absolutely loooove the destiel fic collection and think that it's a genius way to expose fans to fics that might not always get as much attention on fic recs and when searching on ao3. I was thinking of trying to create a similar collection for another fandom and was wondering if you have any tips? Or if there's anything that you wish you knew when you started it? Thank you!

Hi!! Just for openers, sorry I didn’t reply to this yesterday, my mom’s basement flooded and took with it all my writing time, sigh. ANYWAY. On to the topic at hand. How to make a “faves survey” for another fandom, and have it resemble what I’ve made for Destiel? Well, here’s what I’ve done, hopefully some of it will be applicable to you...

1. This is the most important part: Do NOT let it become or be perceived as a popularity contest. Never release the raw stats (except perhaps to a small number of people who you trust to help you). Never announce a “winner.” Never share a ranked list. Never act as if more votes equals better. Never ever suggest in anyway that your purpose to find “the best.” Treat people and fics who get one vote with just as much fanfare as people and fics who get 50 votes. I do release a “top 20″ list just because so many people asked, but even then, it’s in alphabetical order, and meant more as a snapshot. Encourage people to vote for their favorites that aren’t already in whatever collection you end up making, and encourage people to vote for things they don’t usually see on rec lists. Aim for an expansive range of types of fics being voted for, and make it clear - no ship shaming (or secondary ship shaming, if yours is ship-based like mine, rather than being general to a given fandom) or kink shaming.

2. Keep the survey super simple. People don’t read complex instructions, and they’re not going to want to rank lists or anything like that. You can see the one I use here. Feel free to emulate it, copy it, modify it for your own purposes. I used to just do boxes but people would routinely put in way more than 5/10, and while I didn’t really mind the extras, it greatly increased the amount of work I had to do, and since the survey routinely gets a couple hundred replies that I go through, I decided to make it a little harder for people to go over the limits. Don’t bother asking for people’s names or trying to validate the results. I’ve tried. People don’t want to put their names, and validation encourages people not to submit...AND doesn’t prevent cheating...so is really pointless. Just keep it anonymous, after four rounds I can say...that works best.

3. And, speaking of people going over the limits, and cheating...people will cheat. No matter how clear you are that number of votes don’t matter, no matter how much you insist that whatever data you’re collecting will only be used in so-and-so a way...you will spot people “cheating,” for various definitions of the word cheating. People who vote for their own works. People will submit multiple surveys. People will “ballot box stuff” for their favorite(s). People will list more than the maximums you’ve asked them to. People will submit works from other ships, and - though it’s never happened to me - if you make it fandom-general I’ll lay heavy odds at least one dumbass will submit for some other fandom entirely. It happens in different permutations every time, some more obvious than others, but it happens. And the conclusion I reached is...so fucking what? In the end, since the idea is to highlight as many different great works as possible...screw it. Let people vote for themselves. Let people ballot box stuff. Let people submit multiple surveys, or list more than whatever maximums you’ve set. In the end, since every work is treated as equal and one vote is worth as much as a hundred...if they’re cheating to up the vote count, it’s irrelevant, and if they’re cheating to vote for more works, then yay! more works to include! and basically the only thing I’ve found that reduces cheating is to make it absolutely clear to people that I’d really rather they not but ultimately I can’t stop them, so do their thing I guess? And it does help. I got less cheating each time I do it, or at least less that I’m able to catch lol. (as a side note - the one exceptions is the “works for others ships.” Those you can see listed on the “INELIGIBLE” sheet of the spreadsheet I link below, but I don’t add them to the AO3 collection.)

4. Spreadsheets are your best friend. You’re going to want some way to organize the data you’re collecting. I’ve got a public version of the sheet I use that you can see here. It’s pretty similar to my “private” version, except the private version includes actual vote counts, separated by which time(s) I did the survey that the work in question got votes. I mostly use that data so I can do comparisons over the years (“this year X works were added to the collection that were never in it before!”) and because I like numbers. However, depending on how exactly you plan to use the data, you may not even need to tally vote counts, and you could do one that’s more similar to my public version. Also, if you make an AO3 collection, you’re going to want some way to track which works you’ve invited, which have been added, etc., cause otherwise it’s just a nightmare to keep track of. (a little more on this later).

5. Decide how and where you’re going to share your data - as an AO3 collection? As a public spreadsheet? On social media? Maybe you want to make a side Tumblr just for it? Or a Discord server? etc. etc. Like, I’ve got a pillowfort group (though I hardly use it) and a channel in a Discord server (thanks again to the PB folks for making space for me!) with the AO3 collection being the main portal. You want to make sure that it’s advertised enough that people know it exists, and also be prepared that short term you’ll hear basically no feedback on whether people use it, and even long term it’ll be once in a blue moon and suddenly eight people will be like WAIT YOU’RE THE PERSON BEHIND THAT THING I LOVE THAT THING. In that respect it can feel a little thankless but I’ve definitely found that people do use it, it’s just that there’s no real way for people to let YOU know they’re using it (and, honestly...good? This isn’t really about us, after all, it’s about all these fic writers, the goal is to bring attention to them, not ourselves, we’re just a go-between for the writers and the readers.)

6. For making an AO3 collection, you’ll have to invite every single work individually. Some people have their accounts set to auto-accept invites, but otherwise whether the work actually gets added will depend on the authors. Some people will never accept the invite. Some people won’t know how to accept the invite. Some people will accept the invite and then subsequently remove their work. Some people have left these parts completely and will never even see the invite. That’s why it’s important to track who has added and who hasn’t, and periodically double check it (I double check every six months or so). For the people who don’t accept the invites for whatever reason, you can bookmark the item to the collection. HOWEVER, if you do this with your personal account, every single one of those bookmarks will be listed under your personal AO3, which is why I ultimately made the Faves survey its own account - it’s entirely to facilitate bookmarking. You can also use the “Bookmark External Work” feature to link to works that aren’t on AO3, and to tag them to whatever extent you want to. Here’s some examples of how I chose to bookmark external works.

7. Things will inevitably get complicated. Authors will change their names. People who do the survey will use shorthand you’ve never heard of for some fic you don’t know. People will misspell things and you’ll either recognize it even with the typo...or you won’t. People will vote for things that list eight different ships and you’ll have no idea which one is endgame. People will vote for things that have been deleted, or they’ll tell you it’s definitely on AO3 when it’s not, it’s on some other platform. The list of random things I’ve had to deal with is stupidly long and I’ve probably forgotten even more. Just...roll with it. Do your best. Ask for help (“Someone nominated a fic abbreviated as ABC to the collection and didn’t give the author and I have no idea what it is, help me Tumblr!”). And in the end, if you’ve done everything you can think of and you still don’t know...let it go. It’s just not that worth worrying about. And sometimes if you step away and look again in a few days you’ll figure out another way to search and it’ll pop up. But honestly I’ve got a handful of works I still haven’t been able to track down, and that one work that someone submitted that’s only available in Finnish and is explicit and behind a log-in wall on a small independent Finnish-only fic archive...well, I spoke to the author and confirmed the work exists, but otherwise...whelp, it’s not linked, and I did my best. That’s all you can do.

8. No matter what you do, someone somewhere will probably get upset about it. The first time I did the survey, when it got the most traction, I actually got a little hate, and I got some anons who were like “oooooo did you know that ~x~ is cheating” and I had a little “HOW DARE YOU NOT PLAY FAVORITES WHAT ABOUT MY PERSONAL FAVE?” and just...decide how you’re approaching the survey, and stick to your guns, and if anyone is a douche, hit the block button. And, related...

9. Transparency is most important imo. Not transparency for vote counts obviously, but transparency for what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it, and what you hope to accomplish. Make sure your goals are clear from the start (mine weren’t that first time, hence some of the problems I encountered) - if it’s to highlight as wide a range of works as possible, say that. If it IS to pick a favorite, say that too. Just be clear, and honest, and above board, and it should work out okay.

10. Side note...one of the saddest things about all this is that if you do it over an extended period you’ll see authors deleting their works. As such, I personally chose to download every work that gets a vote, that way it’s at least preserved. I then expanded that into a much larger archive that I’m still adding to all the time, trying to save as much Destiel as possible. But then, I’m an archivist at heart, whether you want to branch out in that kind of direction is up to you.

...okay, that’s everything I can think of. Hopefully I didn’t scare you too bad. I don’t know what fandom/ship you’re looking at but for perspective...first time I did the survey I got about 400 replies, and then the next two times it got about 200, and this most recent time it got about 300. I chose to do mine annually, on the assumption that gives some time for people to come and go for fandom and a lot of new works to get created, and I deliberately timed it for about a month after the biggest fandom event (the DCBB) that generates fics, to give people time to read those fics and consider them in their voting. For me, that means I happen to run the survey starting on January 1st, and I keep it limited to 15 days, since usually it tapers off anyway. But you could try experimenting with different schedules, or leaving it open all the time, etc., it just depends how much time you want to devote to monitoring and updating it. For me, I mostly want to do a big burst of work and then not have to think about it most of the rest of the time, lol.

So...questions? comments? thoughts? wanna tell me I’m dead wrong? I’m all ears, lemme know how I can help!

#destiel favs survey #unforth replies #sorry if this is a mess I've GOT to do some writing so I don't want to take the time to edit it #treatlouwithkindness

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shnuggletea · 4 years ago

Text

InuKagWeek 2020

Alright, to those of you still here, thank you! To those of you who left... eh, it's your choice. Anyway, here is chapter two day two of InuKagweek 2020! Loyalty. @inukag-week thanks for the poster art and here’s my day two! Still working on my own art for this piece. Something I was working on a while ago and quit. Hence why Kagome looks way better if you ask me. Thank you @petri808 for showing me a few tricks for my posts on tumblr!

Chapter 2 of 8 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

Fanfiction link HERE

AO3 link HERE

Or if you’d rather, just reading reading!

Loyalty

If I'm being honest, I never had a job in food service. But I had to assume they were all the same mostly. Things like learning the names of the drinks and the regular customers as well as how to handle a tray filled with heavy things were to be expected. However, given my place of 'work', getting grabbed, touched, and pinched wasn't. Two weeks later and I was as used to it as you could be. When you go from living in a girls home, sharing a room, and counseling sweet innocent children to your own space in a mansion and bringing drinks backstage to the dancers, it would never feel normal.

The girls were nice enough though and I never saw Inuyasha which I was fine with. Mostly.

I'd even made friends with most of those that worked there. Some were just there to strip and make money so a little inexperienced waitress wasn't worth their time. Which was fine. But my favorite was a girl named Sango.

Her eyes brightened at the sight of me, a smile on her pretty face as she paused in putting on her fake lashes. I handed off the other drinks, giving Sango her whiskey sour last. "Oh, I do love the nights you're working Kagome."

"Which is every night?"

Sango giggled, taking a sip and moaning her appreciation of the flavor. "Yes. But you are so quick with our orders. The others take forever."

"I just don't want you guys going without some liquid courage. I couldn't do what you guys do."

Sango tisked her tongue at me as I leaned against her vanity table. "It's not that bad. I mean, the audition was a little awkward."

"Audition?"

Sango went back to her makeup, lining her lips with a dark red lipstick. "Yeah. Having to get naked in from of the boss? That was nerve-wracking, wasn't it? Naomi told me she had to do the same thing even as a server. You had to too right?"

I shuttered. So everyone had to do that? Inuyasha had slept with every single girl in this place as an audition? Was that what that was? I lost my virginity to a man like that?

I swallowed my disgust and the rising vomit in my throat, suddenly feeling a desperate need to get checked for STDs because he definitely didn't wear a condom with me, and pushed off the table. "I should get back to it."

"Yep yep. Don't want the boss to catch you slacking!"

As if he could, he was never here. Too busy 'auditioning' more girls. The only one here every day, giving me a hard time, was Koga. He was always somewhere around the club, waiting to bark at me for doing something wrong or touch me. It was never in an inappropriate place but it was still unwanted. A hand on my shoulder or a push to my back. Once, he patted my butt and I nearly tore his arm off. He hasn't done it since but I see him do it to the others all the time.

Returning to one of my tables, I leaned in to be heard over the loud music. The girl on stage now was talented for sure so I was always surprised when anyone gave me their attention over those on stage. Probably thanks to the required low cut top I had to wear. It wasn't even a top really, it was a vest and I barely fit in it. There definitely wasn't room for a bra. And the pants sat low on my hips so my skin showed all the time. Every time I leaned over, I waited for a breast to fall out. Not that anyone would mind, save for me.

Plastering a smile on my face, I listened as the guy I was attending rattled off a drink order as slowly as he could to keep me there longer. It was a struggle to keep my fake smile up. He finally finished, certain he was touching himself under the table the whole time, I fled to the bar. Far from safe, it still had fewer men ogling me at it.

I rested, waiting for my order and Naomi stood next to me. "Hey, Kagome? I'm not really sure I should say something but...there's a guy here who keeps sitting in my section and watching you."

I suppose stalkers were a normal thing here. It didn't mean I was okay with it. "He's watching me? With that going on?"

I thumbed towards the stage as Sango did a super sexy split on the pole. Not sure what I'd do with myself if I was ever that sexy but it was nice to dream. "Well...I've only been here a few days but yeah. I wasn't going to tell you until I was sure. I mean he's far less creepy than the other guy that watches you…"

"There are two guys watching me?!"

She grabbed my shoulders to reassure me. "I'm not really sure! I haven't even been here a week yet. But it seems like this guy is definitely here to watch you. He sits in the corner booth in the back so he can see you but you never seem to see him…" I gently pulled from her hold and made the quick decision to face the creep. "Wait, Kagome!"

I waved back to her, heading off towards the mentioned table. "Don't worry, I won't get you in trouble."

I didn't have to go all the way to the table, figuring out pretty quickly who it was. Shaking my head and growling a laugh in irritation, I walked right up to Inuyasha who looked a little taken aback that I seemed to notice him. Crossing my arms over my chest served two purposes; hiding my overexposed breasts and showing him how pissed I was at him in general. How the hell did Naomi not know who this was? She auditioned for him last week!

Setting his drink down carefully, he cleared his throat over the loud music and adjusted his seat. "I just wanted to check on you, that's all. See how my investment was holding up."

That wasn't good enough for me and I told him as much by not changing or saying a thing.

"This is my club, damnit, I can come in and do whatever the fuck I want."

"Yes you can, Boss," Koga said, coming up from behind out of nowhere. "Everything up to your standards?"

There was something about Koga. He said one thing but clearly felt another. Inuyasha had to be ignoring it, no way he missed the indignation in Koga's demeanor. "Everything is fine, Koga. Except for your customers getting too handsy with the wait staff!"

To my added irrigation, Koga put his hands on my shoulders as if to hold me steady. Never did I ever need another to keep me steady or still and now wasn't the exception. I glared over my shoulder at him but he ignored me. But then his hands popped off me as if burned and I turned back to Inuyasha who looked ready to kill someone. And that someone was Koga so he stepped further away from me.

"I'll..uh...I'll see what I can do about that, Sir."

Just the two of us again, I turned to leave but Inuyasha called out to me again. "Looks like you're blending in here. A real chameleon or just within your element here?"

Turning on my heel, I stormed back up to his table. Leaning over I put my finger as close to his face as I could. "I survive. It's what I've always done and those girls back at the home wouldn't if they were tossed out on the street. So remember that when you think I'm okay with any of this. With you, this place, getting my ass grabbed daily, or even going through your audition. I'm a survivor and I will survive this."

He had backed up a little in his seat but I'd rid the distance in an instant. Big golden eyes danced between my finger, eyes, and lips. "I can see that." I slowly removed myself from his bubble and he crossed his arms over his chest like he was the one wronged. "I said I was sorry the other night. I lost control and took things too far…"

"Do you say that to all the others too? Is this your blanket apology for using women the way that you do?"

He had been looking toward the exit but snapped back to me with my words. "What are you talking about?"

I huffed, pissed to the point of tears. "Fine. Play dumb. Stop coming here and watching me. I'm not going to screw up your stupid club."

He tried to say something but I really wasn't interested. It wasn't like we didn't live together, not that I ever saw him at home either. If he really wanted to talk to me, he could do it there.

I caught Koga grinning at me as I stormed away, feeling Inuyasha's glare on my back. All I could think was that I really had fallen into a den of demons somehow.

oOo

Checking every day, every hour, I didn't see Inuyasha return. A week had passed and he hadn't come back to the club. Meaning things went back to the way they were, not seeing or hearing from him at all. This time I was glad.

That is until I got to work on another Friday night.

The place was packed and Koga was far too pleased about it. "Kagome you're going on stage tonight."

"Wait, what?!"

"We're short-staffed and I've gotten requests. So you're dancing tonight. Be ready to go on after Kiki."

I was numb, staring at my reflection at the vanity that Sango let me use. She was doing something with my hair but I felt none of it. The only man I'd ever been naked in front of was Inuyasha and I was fine with that. It was a livable condition to my servitude. But now I was going to be naked in front of a ton more. As I said, the place was packed tonight so easily 50-60 people were going to see my bush.

"It's not that big a deal, Kagome, I promise."

"That's easy for you to say! You can dance! And you're super sexy."

Sango sat down beside her and frowned. "You're sexy!" When I frowned in return, she kept on. "You are! Plus, dancing isn't so bad. You're alone and no one is touching you. It's easy to pretend you're just dancing in front of your mirror. Stay out of the champagne rooms though. They touch a lot in there."

I'd heard about those rooms and had stayed clear the entire time I'd worked here. But I was a server. As a dancer, if someone paid to take me in there, didn't I have to go?

The question was bouncing around in my brain when the door to the dressing room slammed open. Inuyasha took a quick look around and when his eyes landed on me, they went from bronze to molten metal. The others squealed and ran while I was frozen in my seat, Sango stuck by me even as he stormed up and ripped me up from my seat. The only thing he said or did before dragging me out was grab a robe and throw it at me.

"Cover yourself."

In the bra and panty set I had worn there that night, cause no way in hell was I borrowing from anyone else, it was nearly my turn to go on but Inuyasha was taking us towards the exit. Koga stood near it, shaking with anger and...fear?

"I told you. I fucking warned you. She's not to go on the fucking stage. Ever. She can't even dance!"

"Look, I got requests, what was I supposed to do…"

"Tell them to fuck off, that's what! Jesus, what the hell do I pay you for?! When some asshole with a few bucks tells you what to do and you listen to them instead of me?"

Koga's head hung low but I didn't feel any pity in the slightest. "Sorry, Boss."

Inuyasha still had my hand in a death grip but he put his free one on Koga's shoulder. It was the kindest act I'd ever seen him do. "If anyone bothers you, you call me. Got it?"

I didn't get to see how Koga reacted, Inuyasha pulling us out into the night. He stopped, only to wrap his coat around me before shoving me into his car. The ride was silent until I could take it no longer. Anger was surging in me. Sure, he saved me but who asked him anyway?!

"I don't get you at all. You put me in a strip club to work but then get pissed because people want me to take off my clothes?"

"You're a server."

"IN A STRIP CLUB! What did you think was going to happen?!"

"I thought you'd do your fucking job!"

A dark laugh escaped my lips and Inuyasha turned to glare at me. "My fucking job? Interesting words coming from you. Considering you bought me to fuck you."

"I told you, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for that to …"

I wanted him to stop apologizing because it made the loss of my virginity a regret to him. I didn't regret it, I had enjoyed it until he opened his fat mouth! "It doesn't change a thing! Your apology doesn't change that night and it doesn't make my hymen magically grow back! And it doesn't change your complete lack of care for my feelings on the subject either!"

"Lack of care?!"

"I know I should be thankful...that things could be a lot worse…" I really tried not to, because I didn't want to give him my tears, but I couldn't stop them either. "But it's hard to feel anything but resentment when I went from being surrounded by angels all day to working for the devil."

I cut my sobs off after five escaped and Inuyasha listened to each one. It made me wonder if he got off on them until he spoke again. "The devil huh? That's how you see me?"

Nothing more was said even as we split off to our rooms. The devil going silently into his and I could honestly say for the first time that I hated someone. Cause I hated Inuyasha.

oOo

I half expected Inuyasha to show up at the club again the next day. But with him nowhere in sight two hours in, I considered him a no show and went about business as usual.

Sango was happy to see me, jumping up as soon as I entered the dressing room while everyone else seemed surprised to see me as well. "Oh man, last night was intense. You're okay, right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Inuyasha is just...weird…"

"Weird? I thought it was hot as hell. I wish I had a boyfriend that protective. I was wondering why you were just a server all this time but now I get it…"

"Wait," I stopped her ramble with a gentle hand in her face, "that guy is not my boyfriend."

"Huh? Then who the hell is he? The way he dragged you out of here I thought for sure he made you quit…."

"What the hell do you mean, who is he? He's the boss!"

Sango's face and those eavesdropping around us twisted in confusion. "No, Koga's the boss."

I looked around, finding faces that agreed. "Wait...so when you said you auditioned for the boss…"

"Yeah, Koga. He made us all strip for him in his tiny little office. I was scared he'd do more but that was it."

I felt faint, my head getting light and my breaths feeling shallow. "But I thought… Inuyasha…."

"Kagome? Are you alright?"

Sango was holding me up off the floor and I gripped her shoulders tight. "Yeah, I just… need some air…"

If she didn't have her first set in five minutes, I was sure Sango would have gone with me. As it was, I wasn't sure I wanted the company anyway, following her finger to the back door of the dressing room.

It was freezing out, middle of January, and snow falling lightly from the black sky above. The cold helped my brain though, forcing the sticky feeling inside it to freeze so it would function.

So when Inuyasha said he was sorry...what had he said? He didn't mean to, that he lost control. Did he never intend to sleep with me? He was Koga's boss but not the boss of the other women? How did that make sense? It was if he had some kind of loyalty and he was actually showing it to me but I didn't understand or know how to take it.

Damn, now I hated him a little less.

"Hey."

So lost in thought, I missed the guy standing nearby, smoking. He took a step closer and I took a step back. It pushed me into the dark and him into the light. The bright red bulb at the end of his cigarette as he took a long drag and then tossed it. His features were sharp and dangerous looking, even with his long, wavy locks that softened his appearance. It was his eyes really, they were dull and lifeless and set on her.

"You're...Kagome right?" I really didn't like that he knew my name. "I'm a bit of a fan of yours. I'm Naraku."

He stuck out a hand but I refused to remove mine from their wrapped position around my chest. Naraku chuckled as he dropped the offer, digging in his pocket for something so I took another step back. A new cigarette and lighter in his hands, I still didn't relax, trying to slide towards the door. If he noticed, he said and did nothing as I grabbed a hold of the handle and pulled with all my might. But the door didn't budge.

"It's locked from the outside. Usually, the girls leave something to block the door but I guess they didn't tell you about that, did they?" he was grinning while my skin was trying to find a new home far from him. "Why don't you dance? You have a killer body and are so damn sexy. Does Inuyasha have a reason for not letting you? I must admit, it has me curious about your relationship to him."

"We don't have a relationship past employee and employer."

He shook his head, clucking his tongue at me. "Koga is your boss. Or...isn't he?" I fidgeted, looking for a way out. "Oh...I see… you belong to Inuyasha, don't you? Just what is your title then?"

My only choice was to walk around the building to the front, which I was about to do when the door popped open and Sango's head appeared. "Kagome? There you are! Sorry, I forgot to warn you about the lock…"

I was breezing past her, not worrying about the slip-up and Sango was glaring at Naraku. "If you ever want a change of pace, Kagome, let me know."

The door slammed heavily behind us and I couldn't be happier. Sango was still looking behind us as if Naraku had a key he forgot to mention. "You should stay away from that guy, Kagome. I'm not sure why he's even allowed near the building."

"Why do you say that?"

She looked back at me, her face pale. "Well...he snaked away a few of the girls that worked here a few years ago to work at his house or something. He promised them more pay and no stripping. But the last I heard he was sleeping with all of them and only some of them were willing."

I didn't bother hiding my disgust, nearly vomiting on the dark tile below us. Sango looked sick too. We were making our way back towards the front, Sango required to 'meet and greet' after her show and get tips. I was supposed to get tips too but I think they all went to Inuyasha or something. They could all go to the home for all I cared, I was loyal to the cause.

Naomi ran up to us as soon as we made it out of the hall and into the main floor. "Kagome, someone is here for you."

If it was Naraku again, I was just going to slug him and call over Koga. But it wasn't him. It was Mother Kaede.

And Naraku shows up, so you know there's going to be issues. Drama. Angsty drama. Weeeeeee...

#inukag week #inuyasha fanfiction #inuyasha fandom #inuyasha x kagome #angsty #fluff coming soon #no lemons today

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kmomof4 · 4 years ago

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Of Darkness, Vampires, and Soulmates Ch. 8 The Battle Ends

Oh my goodness!!! I can’t believe we’re here!!! It’s the last chapter, y’all!!! Y’all have been screaming at me for seven weeks about how much you hate Rumplestiltskin, and I promised that he would get what was coming to him!! I hope y’all like it!!! Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for coming along on this journey with me!!! I’m in tears right now typing this thinking of all the love and comments that y’all have sent my way. Please know that I reread them often and they all mean so SOOOOO much!!!

For the last time for this fic, I’m sending heaps and mounds of love, hugs, and gratitude to @profdanglaisstuff and @hollyethecurious for everything they did to help me bring this story to life. Saira was a fount of knowledge and an endless source of encouragement that was absolutely ESSENTIAL to my perseverance when the going got REALLY tough. Hollye, as one of my very best friends, was always there to discuss plot points, brainstorm, and push, drag, and pull to get me to keep going when I wanted to quit. Thank you both, ladies! This fic wouldn’t be here without either of you!

The ladies of the CSSNS and CSMM discords were there to sprint and encourage and also helped with the title. Thank you so much, ladies!!!

And finally, to @spartanguard, my OUTSTANDING artist for this fic!!! Kaitlyn, I know I say this every week, but it’s so true, you are SOOO talented and the words I know are not adequate to express the depth of my gratitude for all the work you’ve put in to your art that just made the story that much more REAL!!!

‘Thank you’ is so inadequate, but it’s all I’ve got for all of you that had a hand in bringing this fic to life. So THANK YOU ALL, from the bottom of my heart!!!

Chapter summary: Chapter title says it all, I think. Rumplestiltskin FINALLY gets what’s coming to him!

Rating: M (Violence and smut)

Words: 2050 of 41.5K total

Tags: Vampires, Soulmates, Reincarnation, Prophecy, Black Death, French Revolution, Magic, True Loves Kiss

Prologue | Ch1 | Ch2 | Ch3 | Ch4 | Ch5 | Ch6 | Ch7 | Ao3 chapter link | Ao3 fic link

Tag list: @hollyethecurious @winterbaby89 @snowbellewells @stahlop @resident-of-storybrooke @jennjenn615 @kingofmyheart14 @profdanglaisstuff @thisonesatellite @branlovestowrite @ultraluckycatnd @flslp87 @whimsicallyenchantedrose @let-it-raines @shireness-says @kymbersmith-90 @darkcolinodonorgasm @bethacaciakay @searchingwardrobes @ilovemesomekillianjones @teamhook @aprilqueen84 @qualitycoffeethings @superchocovian @artistic-writer @donteattheappleshook @doodlelolly0910 @seriouslyhooked @tiganasummertree @lfh1226-linda @nikkiemms @xsajx @klynn-stormz

Please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed.

Under the cut unless tumblr ate it.

The young woman with long red hair and her blonde headed companion pushed a stroller through the front door of the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory. Rumplestiltskin stood on the green lawn outside as a malevolent smile took over his face. He pulled a phone from his pocket, dialed and hissed when the call connected, “Your sister is in danger. Come home. Come alone. Or she dies.”

~*~*~

Emma was frantically throwing clothes into a suitcase when Killian came into their bedroom concerned alarm coloring his features.

“What’s going on, Emma?”

“He’s got her,” she choked out, turning back to her closet again. “I don’t even know who he has. He just said ‘your sister.’ I don’t even know who he has!” she exclaimed, turning again and throwing herself into his arms, her sobs breaking through. “Oh god, what if he has both of them?”

“Shhh, shhhh,” he crooned, stroking her back, “You’re not making any sense, love. Who has who?”

“Rumplestiltskin!” she cried, looking up at him, tears streaking down her face. “He CALLED me! How did he have my number? How did he get to her? I knew his voice! He said my sister was in danger, to come home, alone, or she dies. How did he find her? How did he know who she is? Who does he have?” She dissolved into tears again as he held her close.

“Well, you are not going alone, my love,” he asserted, vehemently. “That is absolutely not happening. He’s trying to draw you out, separate us so that we can’t destroy him. Blue can transport us to your home so that we can take him by surprise. He can’t really expect that I’d willingly let you face him alone.” He pulled back from her and cradled her face in his hands. “I’ll be right there with you, Swan,” he affirmed, “and we will defeat him.”

She smiled through her tears, eyes so full of hope that he wanted to promise her the world and everything in it. He drew her back into his arms, murmuring assurances into the crown of her head before letting her go to make preparations to leave.

~*~*~

Emma entered her childhood home, hoping against hope that she’d find one or both of her sisters inside. The churning fear in her gut since she received Rumplestiltskin’s summons had only dissipated when Killian held her in his arms. But he was now outside trying to gain some intelligence about his sire’s presence inside her home. The Blue Fairy had created a magical shield to keep his presence hidden from Rumplestiltskin until he showed himself to Emma.

Their conversation before they had left home continued to plague her mind.

“We’ll save her, Emma. Don’t worry. She’ll be safe.”

“How do you know?

“He wants you, darling,” he promised her. “He wants to inflict as much pain on you, and me by extension, as possible. Which means that whatever he plans to do to harm her, he’ll want to do it in your presence.”

“Anna? Elsa?” she called, “Anyone here?” She walked further into the quietness of her home until she came into the family room. What she found sent her heartbeat into overdrive.

Anna sat on the sofa, unnaturally still, eyes wide with terror, mouth open in a silent scream. Emma took a deep breath, knowing that she had to keep her head about her if they were all going to get out of here safely. She scanned over her sister for any evidence of injury beyond being frozen. Emma’s supernatural hearing could perceive Anna’s small amount of blood loss at the hands of the monster that sat reclined in the chair opposite his captive.

A rage the likes of which she had never felt before came over her before she could blink. She saw red and flew for the demon, hands outstretched and a scream like a banshee ripping out of her open mouth. Before she could reach him, however, Killian burst through the front door situated behind the chair.

Not expecting the attack on two fronts, Rumplestiltskin was momentarily startled giving Killian all the time he needed to grab the cane that he always carried when he was masquerading as a human. The creature howled with fury as he reached out for the crutch just as Emma launched herself at him and landed on his back. She grasped him around the shoulders and hauled herself up until she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips. Fangs exposed she drove them into his neck as screams poured out of her prey. She continued feasting as she watched Killian attack.

Killian meantime had taken the cane and broken it over his raised knee, dissolving the glamour spell that had disguised the dagger that the Blue Fairy had made over a millennium before.

Raising it in his hand, he plunged it into Rumplestiltskin’s chest, being careful to angle it so that it wouldn’t come out his back and stab Emma who was still holding on to him for dear life as he thrashed about under their dual assault. Withdrawing the deadly implement, a dark, viscous substance poured from the hole in the creature’s chest and was drawn toward the blade. Killian felt a drag, a pull stronger than he had ever known as the same substance pulled out of himself as well. He was dimly aware of Emma releasing her victim and falling to the floor as the Darkness exited his love. His own scream of pain completely drowned out the weakening screams of their adversary and the increasingly loud keening cries coming from Anna as the enchantment holding her captive weakened.

With the pain finally subsiding and his faculties returning to him, Killian became aware of several things all at once. The Darkness drawn from the three vampires hovered over the dagger. Once emptied of the foul substance, Rumplestiltskin collapsed face down to the ground in front of him. Anna rocked back and forth on the sofa holding herself tightly as she sobbed uncontrollably, and a deathly pale Emma lay lifeless on the floor behind his sire. Rumplestilskin’s blood stained her mouth and her eyes remained open and trained on the ceiling. She had not survived the uprooting of the vile stuff that made her, made them, vampires. Killian rushed to her side and gathered her in his arms.

“No, no, no, no, nooooo!” he cried. “Not again! Please! Emma,” he begged, “don’t leave me. Please,” he cried, trying to shake her awake. “I can’t live without you, Emma. Come back to me, please…” he trailed away, tear filled eyes meeting Anna’s who still sat on the sofa, in a stupor.

“You know what you have to do, Killian,” a soft voice intoned, behind him.

He turned frantic eyes upon the Blue Fairy, who stood on the threshold.

The Dark’s minion’s downfall is foretold

When True Love’s Kiss doth unfold

Between soulmates unbound by time

The blue eyed prince and his golden haired Swan

Their True Love will break the hold

And Dark magic will be no more.

The prophecy ran through his mind. True Love’s Kiss. True Love’s Kiss. True Love’s Kiss will destroy the Darkness! Killian looked down on his peaceful, so still Swan. Begging one last time, he whispered in her ear, “Come back to me, Swan.” His lips met hers in a cascade of rainbow light pulsing outward throughout the house. He pulled away to see the Darkness, the dagger, and even Rumplestiltskin himself dissolve in the presence of magic that was able to break any curse. The magic of True Love.

He looked down into the face of his beloved just as she began to stir. She blinked and looked up at him. “Killian!”

He couldn’t hold back his joyful grin if he tried. He hugged her tightly to himself, murmuring into her neck, “My Swan, my Swan. My darling, Swan...”

She pulled back from him before pulling him back down to capture his lips with her own in a passionate kiss that made him completely forget about their audience. Until the clearing of a throat behind him penetrated his lustful haze.

They pulled apart and looked over to where the Blue Fairy was sitting and holding Anna close, comforting her. Emma cried out and scrambled away from him to get to her sister who was starting to recover from her ordeal.

“What was THAT?!” she cried, gathering Emma in her arms. “Who… What… Uh… How?” she stammered, looking back and forth between Emma, himself, and the Blue Fairy.

After taking a few more moments to sufficiently recuperate from her shock, Anna launched herself into Killian’s arms. Her sobs renewed as her emotional pendulum swung from unbridled joy at being reunited with Killian to indignation at never knowing the truth about him. And Emma, for that matter.

Pulling back from where he finally set her down after spinning her in a bone crushing hug, she slapped his shoulder.

“How could you not tell me? Did Mom know?”

Killian chuckled with a smirk. “I think that’s a tale that’s better told over dinner and a lot of alcohol, my lamb.”

~*~*~

The Blue Fairy used her magic to resolve all the complications created by Anna’s disappearance before they reunited with the others at Elsa’s boyfriend’s restaurant.

If Anna and Killian’s reunion and the conference call they had enjoyed a month ago was thrilling, there was no measuring of the excitement when Killian and Elsa met again. He picked her up and spun her around before gathering her to him in a bear hug that was years in the making. Elsa hugged him back just as tightly.

Over the course of the evening, Killian revealed everything about the curse and how it came about, the prophecy, meeting Emma so many times over the years…

“But, wait a minute,” Anna asked, “You’ve lived three other lives, Emma? Do you remember any of them?”

Emma shrugged. “Can’t say as I do.”

They reminisced about their early years in Massachusetts before moving to Minnesota and learned about how he met Ingrid. Elsa hugged Emma close when they got to the end of the tale of destroying Rumplestiltskin and the Darkness that made them vampires.

“But how do you know,” Anna asked. “How do you know you’re no longer vampires?”

Emma and Killian turned and looked at each other. “It feels different, for one,” Emma said, still looking at Killian. “The fangs and bloodlust are gone, and my heart rate is back to normal.”

Killian continued, “That’s the biggest difference, for sure. We’d obviously gotten pretty good at controlling the thirst, in order to be around anyone else without it taking over, but the hearing and sight are also back to normal. It’s been so long for me, I could barely remember.”

“Wow,” Elsa breathed. She turned then to Killian, eyes brimming with tears before gathering him in for a hug.

“This is all fascinating and hard to believe, even with the evidence before me, but thank you for saving my family,” she whispered. “All of them.”

He pulled back from her with a bashful smile and scratched behind his ear. He was a little surprised that Anna and Elsa didn’t have nearly the problems believing him that he expected. They were very much Ingrid’s daughters.

From there, Emma and Killian returned home to Massachusetts, while Anna and her family and Elsa remained in Minnesota. Emma applied to and began law school at Harvard that fall, after a hastily put together, but still altogether beautiful wedding at their estate about a month after destroying Rumplestiltskin. Killian continued in his occupation of captaining the Jolly Roger throughout the spring and summer months for pleasure cruises along the New England coastline, pirate tours, and renting out his beloved vessel for special events. Elsa won election to the mayor's office in a landslide and was sporting a 1 ½ carat diamond on her left hand that Christmas. Anna and Kristoff continued living in domestic bliss raising their little boy, before finding out they were expecting again right after Thanksgiving. The future before all of them was bright and they walked into that future hand in hand with the ones they loved beside them.

And they all lived Happily Ever After.

The End

~*~*~

Thank you all so much for coming on this journey with me!! It means more than I can possibly say!!! I hope you enjoyed the ride!!!

#cssns20 #of darkness vampires and soulmates #krystal writes #art by spartanguard #ch8 #the battle ends

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argylemnwrites · 4 years ago

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My Struggles With Fic On This Site

So, recently I’ve had several fics/chapters of mine be flagged for suspected adult content that violates Tumblr’s community guidelines. This is not my first rodeo, so I tapped to little button to appeal, knowing that all my fic is compliant and expecting my posts to be reinstated within several minutes, as they always have been in the past.

Except, they weren’t. In fact, tapping the appeal button did literally nothing. If I reopened the app or refreshed the webpage (because I tried on both my laptop and my phone), the posts were still there, waiting for me to submit them for appeal, even though I had already thought I’d done so. I contacted support, who finally claimed they restored my posts after several days of waiting, but the posts were still sitting there, angry and flagged, and attempting to open those posts via my masterlist pulled up “URL not found” pages. Support had literally done nothing.

My temporary work around has been to remove any pictures/moodboards I added to the posts to remove the flag, but I don’t like that all my fic is only posted on a site where it can be autocensored and I cannot always appeal that decision. So, I think I am going to start dual-posting my fic on AO3. It’s a much better interface for fic, in all honesty, than Tumblr. Plus, protections for content creators are much greater. In doing so, I will have my fic posted in two locations as a backup in case Tumblr decides to hate my posts again.

I’m letting y’all know this for a few reasons. One, in case any of you use AO3 and want to read my fic there instead of here, I thought I would let you know that my pseud over there is ArgyleMN, not ArgyleMNwrites. Second, for now I will post full text versions of my fic here and on AO3, but I may at some point switch to posting links to my AO3 postings here, instead of full text in both locations. However, if people are wildly opposed to that, I figure I would rather hear so sooner rather than later. I don’t want to exclude people who already read my fic, so I do want to know if you are for whatever reason unwilling or unable to click a link to an AO3 posting. Third, I’m just kind of curious if anyone else had issues with Tumblr flagging posts and then being unable to appeal them. The appeal process, though annoying, had always worked for me in the past.

#tumblr woes #time to back things up

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turtle-ier · 4 years ago

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Hey this is a secret link so don’t click ‘read more’ unless you care about really boring rambling about a fanfiction you haven’t read.

Now that they’re gone, hi all.

If you’re here then you’ve clicked on the super-secret hidden link at the end of this series. This text here isn't a piece of fanfiction, which is why it isn't tagged with any characters/relationships/categories, etc (or even on AO3, I might put this on my Tumblr), so if you aren't interested in hearing more about the inspiration behind my fanfiction series “Something Else is Out There”, and some of my thoughts as a writer behind the process, then don't be afraid to click away.

I have plenty of other fics in this fandom that are worth a look. Personally, I would consider ‘Bring Back Pluto’ to be one of the best pieces of fanfic I have ever made, so I’d encourage you to check that out instead.

I just wanted to say a huge thank you to anyone who clicked on this series, even if you didn't read it all or only came to have a look, it still means a lot that you spent any time at all on this series.

I wanted to go into some details about the things I included or removed from these works because I, personally, didn't really know I was making these references until I looked back and went ‘oh damn’ so I thought it would be fun to take a glance and look at it through the 20/20 vision of hindsight.

To start with, I'll talk about things that I included in ‘Two Worlds’ that allowed this series to blossom, then about some of the difficulties linking the first piece with the other two. I’ll talk about a couple of specific inspirations, one throughout the whole series and one in a scene I really like, and I’ll go into details I added last minute that really changed the themes and tone in the stories.

All links, stories, Wikipedia pages etc I mention will be put in the notes at the bottom of this in order mentioned.

The tree-people were not supposed to be in it

It’s crazy to think, looking back, that I originally intended the big bad guy in ‘Two Worlds’ to be the darkness, the grue, and nothing more. The idea of the other-George was added in the middle of writing Chapter three: the slow burning fuse, as I didn't know what was chasing George; a personification of the night, a monster, or his imagination? I think originally I was intending for it to just be the darkness eating away at the torch George was holding, or perhaps Dream following him, but then I wasn't sure what to do with it.

Basically, ‘Two Worlds’ was boring. I had to fix it.

I’m actually writing about doppelgangers for my dissertation, and with other uni work I have done in the past I often re-adapt my fan work themes and settings to make them into original stories, and so I guess since I had been doing research into books like ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’ and ‘The Silent Companions’ over the summer, it was planted in my mind. I tend to think of my more modern fanfics as a trial for my “”real fiction”” (fanfic is real fiction too, don't let anyone tell you otherwise), and I guess ‘Two Worlds’ took my dissertation and multiplied it by ten.

The idea of Dream changing with the seasons originally came from a pair of works, the first called “Wake Me Up When September Ends” by SilverShadowBeliever, and “he turns orange in the fall,” which has been orphaned by the author. These are both fics I read when I was first joining fandoms, and they're both for the Yogscast.

I also mentioned that this fic was inspired in part by 'You lit a fire in my soul' by Yikes (CoralFlower) before, but I’ll just say it again, their fic is really cool.

‘Two Worlds’, ‘Archipelago’, the chapter title for the introduction in T.W, ‘A Cold Open’, and the chapter titles in ‘Archipelago’ for chapters 8 and 9, ‘Darkness’ and ‘A Very Long Game,’ were all yoinked from Don’t Starve and it’s adventure mode, but the last in that list comes from a fanfiction series by Asidian, again to do with Don’t Starve. The work in that series, ‘Out of Darkness’ was also a major inspiration, although I fear you may not understand the concept behind it if you are not someone who has played the game. Either way, their works are brilliant too.

Things that became difficult the longer the series went on

This is essentially a ‘if I had a time machine’ section.

I would mention George’s relations to the other characters sooner. Bad, Ant and Skeppy in ‘Ice Bridge’ feel shoved in at the end and rushed, with little character development outside of dialogue and Dream’s observations about them. Not to mention, at points in time I mention things like “Phil was like that – caring” or, “Techno was always one to protect others” which is the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to do, but when characters like Niki or Tubbo had two or no lines each in the second part of the series it was difficult to suddenly try and flesh them out.

If I could change ‘Two Worlds’ now, I’d have a scene, possibly in chapter 2, where George and Dream discuss people they knew. It would be a good way to imply about George knowing more than just Sapnap, and for Dream to perhaps hint that he doesn't know or remember anyone. It would also make his statement to Sapnap in chapter 3 of Archipelago false – a hint of Dream withholding information, of him being perhaps jealous of Sapnap and George’s relationship, and perhaps of selective hearing.

This kind of brings up my thoughts on Dream too – while I like some of what I did with him, often I felt like he was just the naive, new guy and nothing more. I feel like there should have been a scene in Ice Bridge where he gets into a fight or something. It gets a little tiring reading back because he just doesn’t know anything, even though he is sort of the ‘key’ in understanding all of it (there’s a term for that sort of thing – like the Ring in ‘Lord of the Rings’ or the Heart of the Mountain in the Hobbit – but I can't for the life of me remember it).

There were also some issues with connectedness. At one point there was Ant on Dream’s shoulder, and when he returned to Bad and Skeppy, Bad also had Ant on his shoulder. Dream had his knife and George also had the same knife in ‘Two Worlds’. Techno’s wound on his side suddenly moved to his leg in Archipelago. Things like that.

Inspirations that I didn't realise were inspirations at first

As (I think) I have mentioned a few times, I’m at university. One of the books I had to read in my second year was ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ which got me all kinds of fucked up.

Gawain and the Green Knight is possibly the single greatest piece of fiction I have ever read.

It’s over 500 years old, with the original poet unknown, and had been passed down for generations prior to the smug original poet writing it down. It could easily be one of the oldest pieces of fantasy fiction EVER, and it is definitely the oldest piece of written fantasy to have come out of England.

Did I mention that I love this book/poem?

I’ll link a free version that I found and referenced in the notes/at the end, as with everything else, but if you have the patience to get through the first three parts the fourth will knock you off your feet.

Essentially, the inspiration that Gawain and the Green Knight put upon me came in many forms. The most obvious ones being things like the idea of decay – worlds existing before the characters great, great, great grandparents even existed, abandoned homes, remnants of ancient religions which had been forgotten in time.

I know most of my readers are probably American, but listen up UK peeps – we live on graves. Our country is founded in ruin. In Lincoln, the nice grassy parks at the top of the hill can't be built on because they are PLAGUE PITS! In Cambridge, farmers have to be wary of where they plough their fields in case they come across these unmarked grave sites. And in London, they regularly have to stop building works and underground digging for the same reason – and this poem was written down between two plagues. The themes of Gawain and the Green Knight are intentional – death surrounded them then, and it surrounds us now. We are a country of decay. Unless your house was new when you bought it there’s a high chance someone died in it, too.

The hill at the end of ‘Two Worlds’, the one Dream climbs and they all spawn near, and same the one the ‘mysterious people’ reference, is a reference to the Celtic burial mounds that is also referenced in Gawain and the Green Knight – it’s become the chapel that the Green Knight calls his home, a grave. I think I subconsciously linked the two together. It would be ironic that the thing Dream climbed to try and save them was a memorial of failure for the world that had existed before them.

In addition to this, winter is another big idea surrounding this for obvious reasons. Winter means cold, it means famine and disease, less sunlight and lower mood. It means hard times, and for many, tragedy. In Gawain it’s mostly used as an excuse to link the role of the Green Knight to the new year – the death of an old year and the cycle to begin anew. Again, we live on graves. The old die, and we forget them, and we begin again.

The nature symbolism is another big thing in Gawain, as it’s a symbol of the wild vs civilisation, of evil vs good, and of the temporary and the permanent. In Gawain, the Green Knight intentionally carries around an axe (another symbol of evil, similar to the weapon of choice for executioners and woodsmen), and I thought that would be a neat little symbol for George. Not only is it a threat against Dream (I think it’s mentioned somewhere that George feels bad for felling trees), but it’s a sign that George is not as out of his depth in the wild as he may seem. He believes himself to be out of his depth, but Dream asking George for help to make his own axe could be a similar idea – Dream doesn't belong where he has been placed.

One thing I only noticed upon reflection is the similarities between Gawain and George. For starters, since this is a tale about King Arthur’s knights, it’s expected that anyone who sits around the round table is a courageous, forward thinking individual, but Gawain is a coward. He is told to seek the Green Knight and at first refuses to, intentionally biding a year at Camelot to avoid humiliation and death at the hands of the Knight. While George is not necessarily cowardly, he is a bit of a wimp sometimes. Similarly, at the end of Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain has the back of his neck cut by the Knight in a so called ‘beheading game’, but he is called a coward for it since he relies on an enchanted item rather than his own guts and intuition to pull him through. George isn't given the option of a magical artifact, but he does get scarred in a similar way, although, it could just be because of the way other-George died.

You could also compare Dream to the Green knight for obvious reasons. Nature symbolism, changing with the approach of winter, immortality, a representation of a lost world, someone who doesn't fit in with modern society, the last of his kind (for a little bit), the list goes on.

But one comparison I really wanted to make was between Phil and King Arthur. King Arthur hardly makes an appearance in Gawain and the Green Knight. He’s at the beginning, boasting about how he won't eat until something spectacular happens at his feast, and at the end where he refuses Gawain’s warnings about Camelot one day falling. As I’m sure you remember, Phil is crowned by Techno in ‘The Long Goodbye’, and he mentions Phil’s legacy living forever. I guess in some ways it translates across. While Phil is no king, he accepts the defeat against Techno and lets him go. He understands that the life he wants, the one where he and his friends last forever, won't happen. While in the legend of King Arthur he goes into slumber on the isle of Avalon to be woken up when England next goes to war, Phil doesn't have the same pop-out-the-grave party trick, and it’s kind of like Phil is more the embodiment of what Camelot stands for than Arthur. Phil is flawed, even if the others insist that he isn't, and he will one day fall. The legend that Techno alludes to is when Phil’s story will become like Arthur’s. A hope in darkness, and a reminder that he will always be remembered even if he is really gone.

ONE THING I didn't notice myself, but my friend noticed when I was describing the texts, was the links between Fundy, Techno and the deer/elk in the other-world. In the Green Knight, specifically the third act, there’s a scene where the green knight and his court go on a hunt. They kill a white ‘hart’ (aka a stag), which represents what the human world wants from the forest – an easy meal, a dumb animal to chase, and to not spend much time out in the woods. They chase and kill a boar too, which is a representation of power, of a bridge of sorts between their worlds as the humans would want it for its excessive meat but would not want the fight, while the Green Knight’s court would want it for the challenge of taking down a great foe. Similarly, hunting a fox is useless to humans as it doesn't hold much meat, but to the Green Knight’s court it’s a symbol of intelligence and wit, of a great prize they didn't need to seek but did anyway, and it’s a clear difference between their ideologies.

I didn't intend for the link to be there, and I only used the idea of a ‘white, three-eyed deer-thing’ because of the mythos surrounding a white hart in England, which is just a symbol of magic or goodwill (or bad luck, depending on who you ask). Many people don't realise it’s Celtic origins (again, the Green Knight is a symbol of these lost Celtic religions and lifestyles in medieval England) and so while I didn't intend for the symbol to be there at first, I think it fits in quite well that it appears at first in the other-world, and then in the over-world when the darkness is trying to untangle the two worlds, as it’s a kind of nod to the magic/evil properties of the ‘others’.

Also, a final note, often the fae in Arthurian myth (evil beings of mischief and chaos in medieval texts) operate near water. Think of the Lady of the Lake, Mermaids, Sirens, etc. I thought that was neat and made other-Sapnap mention it at some point. I just like water. It’s an adaptive metaphor.

That’s enough about general themes and me ripping off a story that may or may not be a thousand years old.

Please let me talk about a painting called ‘Allegory of Fortune’ by Salvator Rosa.

‘Whispers’ was a challenging chapter to write in ‘Ice Bridge’ purely for the section at the end where Techno is in his house.

You see, Techno in his videos is a pretty smart guy. He presents himself well. He studied Greek tragedies in university (he references Helen of Troy in a video of him, Schlatt and Travis disassembling a KFC) and talks regularly of Sun Tzu, not to mention some casual Shakespeare references sprinkled around like he’s Salt Bae. He’s a smart cookie. He seems like one of the smartest cookies on the Dream SMP. He seems like someone who plans things, thinks them out, and only takes chances when he has to.

And the goal he has in this was a risk, all right.

This is the whole thing behind that totally unnecessary reference I made. First of all, it references the painting, which depicts the roman god of fortune, Fortuna, as she is bestowing her gifts of fortune upon the undeserving ‘animals’. Animals is quoted because Rosa is heavily implying in the painting that the animals are important Italian figures, including a donkey with the royal red cloak of the pope on it (yikes), a pig with the king’s crown(YIKES) and multiple animals standing on books representing education and law (Y.I.K.E.S.). The animals are also standing on roses – a reference to the artist himself (and btw that was like the only reason why he didn't get beheaded or something because of it).

The line Techno thinks something along the lines of ‘mules are not nobles’ etc is an actual adaptation of what Rosa said about his piece when he was questioned on its meaning.

I thought it would be fun for Techno to make reference to the work in a kind of satirical way, especially since in the painting the pig is shown to be undeserving of the crown, and Techno believes he is worthy, when later he gives it to Phil after he realises that he is indeed unworthy of it.

What changed in the edits?

Everything changed in the edits. Also hardly anything did.

The first big edit I did was in chapter 10 of ‘Archipelago’ where Sapnap and George are talking. Multiple lovely, wonderful, incredible commenters pointed out how they didn't really understand what the other-Techno was on about, and while I intended to fix that in ‘Ice Bridge’, I panicked and changed it to happen then because otherwise it might have been an unsatisfying end. Techno was supposed to figure out that it was like a brain transplant to become immortal, but it saved me time later so it didn't really matter.

Originally, I was planning for Sapnap to die in the other-world, like permanently. It was going to be a reason for George to doubt Dream, and for Dream to leave the settlement and all the others behind, but instead I decided to let him live for the sake of tension within the group later. I didn't want Sapnap to die, but if I were to go back I don't know if I would make the same decision. It could have gone either way.

Chapter 5 in ‘Ice Bridge’ was originally two separate ones, splitting in half when Dream realised he couldn't remember anything from before he met George, but it got too muddled to be kept separate. A similar thing happened with chapter 14 in the same story, where it was supposed to be separated when there was another knock at the door, but that time the resulting chapter afterwards, which was going to be chapter 16 or something, was too short to be justified.

In ‘Ice Bridge’, two chapters swapped titles, ‘The Long Goodbye’ and ‘Standoff’. Chapter 14, ‘snowfall’ and chapter 15, ‘ice bridge’ swapped locations too since I felt that the piece finishing with Dream and crew was more fitting as an ending than the one with Techno, Niki and Phil leaving the other tower.

The porcelain mask was another big one. I didn't know whether to include it at first and only added it after I had posted chapter 5 or so of ‘Ice Bridge’. I figured that it would be a big symbol of closure, of Dream getting what he was looking for on his adventure and being able to return home guilt free. I understand that it may feel a bit like an unnecessary emotional kick to add, but I did feel like it was the finale of Dream’s character arc.

The final last-minute addition was the fight between Phil, Techno and Niki. It was supposed to be a breakdown, a sign that Techno had pushed too far and that Phil wasn't the man that they had all expected him to be, but I believed that a more dramatic end was necessary.

To be honest, I remembered Lindsay Ellis’ videos on Game of Thrones. I haven't watched the series nor read the books, but I remembered her reaction to a fight breaking out between a mentor character and his apprentice, two morally good characters with differing goals. Phil may be Techno’s father figure, but there is only so far you can lean before you break, and this was supposed to be Phil’s breaking point.

See, Phil would know Techno was stronger than him, a better fighter, someone more willing to take a calculated risk, but he was desperate, deluded, and pushed to the edge. When words are not enough there are only so many ways that someone can act, and Phil decided to speak Techno’s language.

I also let Niki fight in the scene because I didn't think she had done much up to that point, and having her established to own weapons earlier and then not use them later seemed dumb. I wish there were more female characters that I could have included, but no one seemed right. If I were to change something, maybe I’d have her go into the ‘Other-World’ with Sapnap or something. It might be interesting to see how the other-Techno would react to someone he hasn’t seen before.

Final thoughts

I really like this fic. I put so little thought into it at the beginning and now it’s a huge thing that contains two of the longest fics I have ever done (I keep mentioning it, but I’m still in awe. I struggled a lot with things over 5,000 not so long ago) and some of my most intergrained references. There’s a few hiccups, I will admit, but I don't think there’s anything so big that it ruins the whole experience.

I really liked how I figured out Techno and Phil’s relationship in the third part, and while I like the Dream/George stuff, I will admit that shipping isn't my ideal reading (even if I can write it) and it did feel like I was cheating you all out of DNF content a bit until the end there.

If I could start again, idk what I’d change. It’s like 2 am rn. I just wanted to talk about Gawain and the Green Knight. Please do check the story out again because I think things will make more sense with a second reading. I’ll put a link to everything I mentioned below.

I also just want to thank you for being here on this journey. I’ve also mentioned before that I had a new year’s resolution both this year and last year to write 100,000 words, and while I completed it last year with 115,000, I doubled my writing amount this year and the end of this fic brings me to 215,000, which is insane. My total wordcount on AO3 is only slightly less than double that, which means these past two years on the platform has produced 80% of my total fanfiction to date. Again, it’s insane.

Thank you again for reading. I hope you enjoyed my rambling if you read this whole thing, but please don't be afraid to say you didn't lol. I get that literary references and introspection isn't for everyone, and it honestly isn't for me either. I write fiction better than essays and it shows in my grades, but either way I hope that this was comprehensive.

Thank you all again. Drive safe and message me when you get home. Happy end of 2020!

Links:

“Wake Me Up When September Ends” by SilverShadowBeliever : https://archiveofourown.org/works/852143

“he turns orange in the fall,”, Orphaned Work : https://archiveofourown.org/works/966375

“Out of Darkness” by Asidian : https://archiveofourown.org/works/6071196/chapters/13915320

“Gawain and the Green Knight” Free copy online : https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/English/GawainAndTheGreenKnight.php#anchor_Toc178583491

Sparknotes reading of “Gawain and the Green Knight” (easier to understand than the free copy) : https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/gawain/

‘Allegory of Fortune’ by Salvator Rosa : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_Fortune

Lindsay Ellis’ Game of Thrones video part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hys_m3BPTS8&ab_channel=LindsayEllis

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGr0NRx3TKU&ab_channel=LindsayEllis

Also, bonus! I did a lot of painting (forgive me, I’m not great at it and didn't paint before 2020) to help block scenes and stuff when I was writing Archipelago so please enjoy my not very good but also I’m-quite-proud-of-these paintings. I’m mores posting them here as a neat little bonus, but also to do something with them other than have them in my desk draw lol.

#moron writes a book

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