#marcel oathkeeper

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

This Rotten Work Has Been Published!

Do you like Carry On or NBC's Community? Do you like messy lesbians in an enemies-to-lovers dynamic? Do you want to know what happens to Chosen Ones after they defeat their villain? Do you wish for a version of Harry Potter that isn't transphobic, homophobic, antisemitic, and racist? (Did you enjoy the seventy million fics I wrote about the mentors coping with the aftermath of the Hunger Games?) Do you like messy background poly bisexuals?

Well, here it is, y'all: all of the edits are done and my book baby has been published! Rachel and Daiyu are finally here for y'all to meet! I'm ordering my own copies now (and will definitely update y'all with photos when they arrive, especially now that I can get a photo with BOTH of my books), but for now, I just wanted to give y'all the link so you can check it out. I'm going to put the blurb below to those who are confused as to what this might be!

Amazon.com: This Rotten Work: 9798879537734: Jenkins, Kenna: Books

The moment Chosen One Rachel Barsky finally kills her magical high school’s evil Headmaster, she’s out. No pressure, no politics, and certainly no more death tournaments for her. She ditches the Magical Realm for a far more chill Normie community college with her two best friends, determined to finally get some blessed peace and quiet—maybe even a good nap. It’s what she deserves after giving up her teenage years to a prophecy that nearly killed her more times than she can count.

But of course Rachel can’t catch a break. Her first day of classes, tragedy arrives on campus in the form of Daiyu Nightbane, Rachel’s archrival and the annoyingly attractive daughter of the now-dead Headmaster. Daiyu’s acting suspiciously normal, Rachel is pissed, and her friends are preaching forgiveness and peace. What gives?

Rachel expects to have to grit her teeth and soldier through the annoyance of her rival haunting her early retirement, but she quickly learns that expectations are never made to last. After an explosive duel that ends up with one of them knocked off of their feet, Rachel is forced to see a kinder side of Daiyu than she ever glimpsed during high school.

Over a school year filled with Shakespeare, lightning magic, and quite a lot of kosher BBQ, Rachel finds herself toppling head-over-heels into an unlikely romance with her rival while she struggles with nightmares, grief, and lingering questions from her high school years. Is it possible to finally make a life for herself? Can the Chosen One really have a happy ending with the golden girl that ruled the school?

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And to all those who have been following this saga (or liked my fics with similar premises/themes), I think I've managed to gather all of your usernames here for the official publishing!

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

"I love you chosen ones with massive emotional trauma and a crushing fear of disappointing the people around you! I love you stories where the comedic relief character has massive fucking issues nobody pays attention to! I love you stories where teenage heroes are actually addressed as "hey why the fuck is everyone treating a child like this???" I love you sins of the father stories that address how unfair and horrible and painful it is and the complicated emotional reality that is revenge and guilt and grief and responsibility!!!"

Every single one of these ones are very much calling out one of the main characters in Burn the House Down (Rachel, Zell, Daiyu, hell, even Stebbie, all my beloved graduates of the Academy of the Rising Sun). This is a book all about the aftermath of trauma and how it fucks up every single person pulled into the Chosen One narrative/devouring maw of the magical high school that used as death tournament as a proving ground for a magical army. Yeah, the tone is very dry and darkly comedic (shout out to Rachel, who has one of the strongest personalities I've ever given a main character), but boy are a lot of these heavier themes explored!

one of my favorite subgenres of writing tropes is "[insert common trope] but how traumatizing and emotionally taxing it'd actually be to go through is addressed and worked through."

I eat that shit UP. I love you chosen ones with massive emotional trauma and a crushing fear of disappointing the people around you! I love you kids who were lied to that they were chosen ones to manipulate them and were taken advantage of via being promised a purpose and something to keep them going! I love you stories where the hero and villain used to be best friends that show how horribly painful that split is and how crushingly isolating it feels! I love you stories where the comedic relief character has massive fucking issues nobody pays attention to! I love you stories where teenage heroes are actually addressed as "hey why the fuck is everyone treating a child like this???" I love you stories about siblings on the other side of a war that show how crushing that separation is! I love you stories where the protagonist not having parents isn't just played for explanation or tragisad points, it's addressed as massively traumatic! I love you isekais that address how terrifying itd actually be!!!! I love you sins of the father stories that address how unfair and horrible and painful it is and the complicated emotional reality that is revenge and guilt and grief and responsibility!!! I love you stories about monster slayers that actually address the potentially gray or difficult undertones!!! I love you stories where the protagonist was on the wrong side and abandoned their home that address how terrifying it is to leave behind everything they ever knew!!!

I love you trope subversion in the form of "yeah, we're gonna do this trope. but how do THEY feel about it?"

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

This Rotten Work: Quick Update + Surprise Playlist!

Hey y'all just wanted to let y'all know that I have been sick for the past few days due to a pretty bad migraine/after-headaches brought on by hitting my head on a pipe at work so I haven't had the mental capacity to finish the last couple of chapters of edits and hit Publish on This Rotten Work. Sorry for the delay, but it should be up by the end of the week! In the meantime, I offer you a playlist for all of my poor traumatized blorbos, aka the main cast of This Rotten Work.

Excerpt:

Zell has a graveyard on the roof. There are no bodies, nothing so gruesome as that. Just flowers. A garden full of ghosts.

Attached to every plant, there is a name. Idunn. Sergio. Calli. Porter. The names go on and on, one small ribbon for every child who died in the Tournament while we were there.

These aren’t tombstones. They’re not graves. 

But they are a memorial. 

Zell took every death as his own failure, even the ones he didn’t execute himself. He took each one as his own guilt to bear. Atlas, Stebbie nicknamed him sophomore year, a sad smile on her face, and it’s an allusion he’s never corrected.

I wonder how much guilt is attached to each little white ribbon, each dead soul. Zell didn’t sit shiva for any of these souls, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t find a way to mark what they stand for.

I want to believe that there is hope tangled up in these vines, measured in petals and stored in apples. There has to be. I don’t know if I can bear it if Zell can’t find some way to get comfort.

@theredstoner101 @thetavoid @snazzy-hats-and-adhd @blufox3542 @neshatriumphs @khruschevshoe @weedpoop @thesirhandsome-tepalehuia @sillylittlecheeto @nefertittti @henrythepug @meet-me-behindthemall12 @aboutblankpages-blog-blog @artemisiaarm @profiterole-reads @marchionessdebrannas @harrietmjones @thearcaneuniversity @little-bloodied-angel @artemisbones @jacksope-lives @fleuranna @shehungthemoon @spacecatrainshell @celestedeluna @thefiresofpompeii @gerardway-jpeg @fleuranna @smokecloudsandrollingpapers @idealuk @aceumbrellaheroes @evelynhug0 @madhare0512 @fool-for-luv @nealmcclure @elposting @mikereads @corvidspectre @thanatosdetesreves @sapphicsigh @ameliapondmd @possumsmushroom @augment-techs @bricksbloggyplace @aurora-boreas-borealis @estel-eruantien @singerj2002 @chaos-from-basil @mskittypancakes18 @starsrite

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

This Rotten Work Playlists: Zell edition!

As @evelynhug0 so kindly requested, I'm going to release each of the main character playlists (and one for the main ship, Rachel and Daiyu) once a week leading up to the release of the book!

Third up is Marcel "Zell" Oathkeeper, one of the two best friends of Rachel and our resident disaster poly bisexual. Born into a Magical family, Zell is a bit out of place in the Normie world, what with his yellow turtlenecks, overalls, and ascots, but he's rather enthusiastic about certain discoveries, such as Guitar Hero and Mountain Dew. He likes to experiment with his cooking in his free time and his best friends have been the unfortunate recipients of many Mountain-Dew-related experiments. Underneath his optimistic attitude, however, lies a deep-seated survivor's guilt and worse coping methods than he's letting on, the best of which is the garden of ghosts he's maintaining with his Vine-Slinging powers (aka plant powers).

As Rachel describes him in Chapter 1:

“Excuse you, I love my clothes.” Zell even reaches up and smooths out his neon yellow henley to prove the point.

I arch an eyebrow at the state of his pants. “Tell that to the dirt stains on your knees, Ni.”

“You just can’t appreciate the beauty of nature, Ray,” Zell tsks as he grabs his backpack from Stebbie’s well-organized hands.

That’s Marcel Oathkeeper in his natural form for you: Zell the plant boy. Overalls and plant magic and a rooftop garden above our apartment. Dirt constantly caked under his fingernails and ground into his pants. Long, gangly limbs that looked awkward until he grew into them. He and Stebbie are quite the match, given the nearly twelve-inch-height-difference between them.

@snazzy-hats-and-adhd @blufox3542 @neshatriumphs @khruschevshoe @weedpoop @thesirhandsome-tepalehuia @sillylittlecheeto @nefertittti @henrythepug @meet-me-behindthemall12 @aboutblankpages-blog-blog @artemisiaarm @profiterole-reads @marchionessdebrannas @harrietmjones @thearcaneuniversity @little-bloodied-angel @artemisbones @jacksope-lives @fleuranna @shehungthemoon @spacecatrainshell @celestedeluna @thefiresofpompeii @gerardway-jpeg @fleuranna @henrythepug @smokecloudsandrollingpapers @idealuk @aceumbrellaheroes @evelynhug0