#posted this to ao3 a bit ago but i've done some editing since then so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mochiwrites · 1 year

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last life au

in light of third life turning two years old today, I offer a wip I've had sitting in my google drive since february! if any of you remember this post I made a while back, all you need to know is that third life!grian has swapped places with last life!grian somehow. without further ado, here's my very unfinished and very rough last life au wip (pls don't judge it too harshly LOL)

happy two years to the series that changed me as a person! :D (edit: now posted on ao3! read here)

if you enjoyed, please reblog! reblogs do more than likes <3

To Grian, the desert was once a home.

It wasn’t perfect, not really. Perfection is nearly impossible in a game of death, but what he and Scar had came close. The desert was the farthest thing from a good location, all things considered. The days were hot, far too hot, and the nights were so cold that it left Scar and Grian curling up close for warmth. There was nothing but sand for miles, which made gathering materials a constant challenge.

But they had their home. Their tower, their place of respite. Dogwarts was a constant threat barreling down their door, but together they made it work. Their home was far from perfect, but it was theirs and that’s what Grian came to love about it.

Except now, as he stands in a ring of cacti, he has destroyed his home.

His home is filled with lava and craters, a reminder of what they did to survive. Their desert was ruined days ago in what they had hoped to be the final showdown with Dogwarts and The Red King. They blew up their desert for a win they never achieved.

Maybe that was the first sign that things were going wrong. Their desert, their home, their small temporary sanctuary in this hellish game was blown apart.

Ends justifies the means, no?

After all, to Grian, their home was more than just the desert. Their home was with each other. The desert never mattered much to him, not when he had Scar, and vice versa. The desert was a symbol, more than anything. Of Grian’s debt, his guilt. He’ll never admit it, but it felt a bit liberating to destroy it.

And maybe that’s why things went oh so horribly wrong.

Maybe that is why his fists are shaking, knuckles raw and covered in blood. Maybe that is why he stares down at the bloodied corpse of what was once his partner, his other half. His insides twist and turn, creating a mangled mess of emotions within him. The sun beats down on him, sweat and blood mixing together as one. His hair is in his eyes, but he doesn’t care much. His tank top feels like too much but also too little all at once.

His knuckles ache, his body is sore. He’s hardly covered in bruises and scratches, and yet he still feels like he’s just been beaten half to death anyways.

He can’t bear to look at Scar, to meet his gaze and see his own brightly shining eyes reflected in lifeless, empty ones.

“For everything you’ve done to keep me alive this long, you may slay me and take the enchanter.”

Scar’s words ring in his head, accompanied by his laughter. Grian puts a bloodied hand up to his mouth as a wave of nausea rolls over him. He doesn’t pay any mind to the copper twinge that fills his mouth. He tears his gaze away from anywhere remotely near Scar, instead turning and looking over the mountain.

Their home is in ruins. Their home is gone. The last of their home has been destroyed by his own two hands, killed for the sake of winning some pointless game.

His victory feels hollow. Empty.

He had wanted to win together. Winning without Scar felt… wrong. It feels wrong. After all they’ve been through, after establishing something between them, winning alone just… didn’t look as appealing anymore.

“I’m getting you! I’m getting you good!” “I don’t think you are!”

His hands ache. His chest feels tight, as if his ribs have been coiled tightly around his lungs to constrict his air flow. He takes a slow step back, as if trying to escape the scene of the crime. His legs shake from the weight of both his body and his actions. Grian takes a shaky breath.

“Can we win together?”

He stumbles as he walks backwards, his world dipping and tilting.

Grian won alone.

He doesn’t feel like a winner.

He doesn’t even want that title.

The guilt is eating at him. Why? Why is he the one that survived? The point of all of this was so that Scar could win! That’s why Grian stayed with him!

(He won’t admit to himself that there’s more to it than that. He won’t admit to himself that somewhere along the way his feelings changed. No longer was he staying by Scar’s side out of guilt or obligation. Without Grian even noticing, Scar grew on him. Scar broke through his walls with his ridiculous yet charming nature, and Grian found himself wanting to stay with Scar because he wanted to see him win. Because somehow, somewhere, Grian’s heart had been swayed and stolen. Somewhere, he had fallen in love.)

For a moment, he’s angry. He’s angry at the blood lusting ghosts for demanding a final fight. He’s angry at Scar for letting him win, for making him win. Frustrated, bitter words lay on his tongue as he turns around to admonish the man, emotions getting the better of him.

Only to turn and be met with his corpse. Blood pools around Scar’s body, bruises littering his face and chest. Grian had been throwing punches wildly.

His stomach lurches, and he covers his mouth again. Copper fills his nostrils, heavy and thick. “Oh… I don’t feel good,” he mumbles, but there’s no one around to hear him.

He tears his gaze away, instead surveying the desert around him. His blood is rushing in his ears, making it hard to hear. His head swims as he stands still, looking over at the rivers of lava throughout the desert.

Grian’s eyes settle on the cliff face.

This desert isn’t a home anymore. It’s vacant, empty. Pointless. His home doesn’t exist, not without Scar.

He walks toward the cliff.

“Scar, I’m so sorry!”

“I’m sorry too!”

The desert is unfamiliar, morphing and twisting into something dark and unwelcoming. It has become a monster of Grian’s own creation. It has become something that Grian has ripped apart with his own two hands. Something that once brought him warmth is now cold and barren. The desert is a shadow, a weak imitation of what it once was.

He stands on the ledge.

He wonders what was going through Scar’s mind during all of this. What was he thinking? Does he hate Grian for being the one to survive? Is he at peace, having been the one to die? Does he hate Grian for killing him? Does he hate Grian for ruining their home? Or is he happy with the way that things have gone? Grian supposes he’ll never get to know.

He shuts his eyes and jumps.

-----------------

Muffled noises surround him.

He can’t quite make out what the noises are, not when it feels like his head has been submerged under water. One by one, his senses return to him and huh, that’s weird. He’s dead, yet he can feel his body? That… shouldn’t be normal. Granted, Grian has never been permanently dead before. Do most dead people still feel their body? Is that even possible?

The next thing he feels is something soft underneath him. Now Grian knows that isn’t right. The last thing he remembers feeling is his body slamming into the hard ground below, shattering his bones. The pain had only lasted a few seconds before Grian fell unconscious, but it had been excruciating while he could still feel. Darkness had come to claim him quite swiftly.

But whatever he’s laying on… it feels nothing like the harsh sand. It’s softer, almost silky. Plush. It only serves to confuse Grian more, seeing as once more, he isn’t sure if feeling things still is normal for a dead person.

Ever so slowly, Grian slowly opens his eyes. His eyes are met with a stone ceiling, which… is that supposed to be there?

Grian had a few ideas of what the afterlife would be like – if he even has one. An empty void, or maybe the End. Perhaps he’d return to the wasteland that was once his home and haunt it as a ghost. (A kinder part of him had hoped that he’d reunite with his friends, and they could all cry and hug one another. And maybe he could see Scar again, and shake him around for making Grian kill him, and then hold onto the man so that he’d never lose him again.)

Experimentally, he wiggles a finger or two. Yup, there’s still a body attached to him. Alright. Though to his surprise, he isn’t in any sort of pain. Maybe that shouldn’t be surprising, all things considered.

Something wet touches his hand then, and Grian leaps up with a shriek. He pulls his hand back and looks at whatever touched him, finding a dog sitting on the ground. “Huh?” He looks at the dog, seeing a red collar around its neck. “Why is there a dog here?” The animal simply tilts its head to the side in response.

It’s then that Grian actually takes the time to look around at where he is, and he pauses. The first thing he notices is that he’s laying in a white bed. There’s a chest and a crafting table in front of the bed, and there are dogs just about everywhere. Ah, so that’s what all the noise was. A furnace is set on the floor against the wall, and Grian finds himself feeling very confused.

This is… definitely not the afterlife, that’s for sure.

Did someone rescue him? How? Grian was the only one left on Third Life, everyone else was…

Lips curling in a frown, he moves to slide off of the bed. Just as his foot touches the ground, he pauses, recognizing the extra weight on his body. Looking down at himself, Grian finds iron armor on him, which only worsens his confusion. Why is he in armor?

Standing from the bed, he looks around at the room. He’s certain that he’s underground, if the walls of stone and dirt are anything to go by. He watches as one of the dogs (a pup) clambers onto the bed and circles the pillow before curling up and laying down.

It leaves him feeling very confused.

He casts a glance around at the stone box he’s in, looking at each of the dogs. Some of them don’t pay him any mind, and others are staring right at him. Who’s dogs are these? And why are they here, wherever here is. They seem friendly with him at least, but Grian doesn’t know if that makes him relaxed or more nervous. He remembers Joel’s pack of wolves.

While looking around, he spots a ladder tucked against the wall leading down. He doesn’t go toward it, in case it’s trapped. Instead, he looks at the pickaxe he has on him and uses that to cautiously dig a little staircase up.

It takes him a few minutes to get to the surface, considering he’s trying to dig out and also listen to his surroundings. When he finally pops his head out from the dirt, he does so carefully, peeking out to look around him. There’s no one around him besides trees and mountains. He sighs softly in relief. Though he still has to remain vigilant.

Climbing out of the hole, he covers it back up with dirt (just in case if he was saved by someone, they won’t immediately notice he’s gone). Standing at full height, Grian takes a look around. The first thing he notices is how the landscape is completely different to Third Life. What is this place, he wonders. The terrain all looks different.

Lips dipping in a frown, he sets his hands on his hips, “Definitely not in Kansas anymore…” he mumbles to himself. If this is the afterlife, it’s quite odd, that’s for sure.

While looking around, he catches sight of something in the distance. It looks like some kind of cobblestone building with roofs of dark oak. From where he is, he can spot four of them. One is at the very top of a mountain, being the most visible.

The idea of approaching it leaves Grian hesitant, but maybe a little investigation wouldn’t hurt. He’s going to have to check it out if he wants any answers as to what this place is. So he makes a journey toward the direction of the towers. Trekking through the trees, he uses the branches for coverage.

And when he gets to the big entrance of the four towers, he pauses.

Grian stares at the front entrance, watching as pistons move up and down in front of him. Watching it, his eyes follow the movements curiously. Surrounding the entrance are walls of dark oak and cobble, wrapping around the base completely. He considers walking inside, maybe exploring whatever this new structure is. There was nothing inside the chest within the bunker for him.

His inventory is an assortment of different items, none of which Grian knows what’s important and what isn’t. By now he’s ascertained that he’s in fact not dead. Which is… confusing. How is he alive? And where is he?

“Oh, Grian!” Someone’s calling his name, and the sound of someone else’s voice makes him jump. He looks up, seeing a familiar blue and red jump suit and dirty blond hair.

Grian’s eyes widen, “Tim..?” The name escapes him with a sharp breath. No longer does his skin look sickly and gray, instead healthy and free of blood. His hair is vibrant, as are his brown eyes. A diamond chest plate sits over his upper body, iron leggings and boots. Grian almost feels like he’s seeing a ghost. The last time he saw Jimmy, it had been in the desert. Right before he died.

It feels weird to see him again, considering he wasn’t meant to die in that fight. He was meant to stay safe. With Scar.

Grief and regret crashes into him at once, nearly knocking him over. Images of that battle flicker in his mind, as well as the aftermath. They hadn’t spent long at Jimmy’s grave.

(Grian paid Jimmy’s grave a visit late that night. He had been fully aware of the risks, knowing that anyone from Dogwarts could attack him. But Grian could bet with certainty they were too busy enjoying a perceived victory against the Desert.

Jimmy’s grave was nothing fancy. Extravagance was a privilege they didn’t have there. Simple cobblestone walls and a poppy planted in the ground was all Scott could give him.

Grian sat down, and apologized. He hadn’t even been there for Jimmy’s death. Jimmy wasn’t supposed to die. And Grian hadn’t even been there to help him. He apologized for that. He promised revenge. His death would not be in vain.

At some point, someone had joined him. A warmth slotted against his side, and the smell of sweat, burnt sand, and summer heat filled his senses. He relaxed.

Neither of them spoke for a while. Grian leaned against Scar, letting his thoughts wander.

“I’m sorry the trap got messed up.” Scar apologized with a low mutter.

Grian huffed quietly, gently knocking his head against his arm,“I don’t care about that. I mean, I do since the only one it got was me, but — I’m more thankful you survived.”

“…I’m sorry you died,” was Scar’s response, “But on the bright side, your debt’s been repaid! You’re a free man!” Grian knew Scar well enough by then to know when he was forcing himself to act cheerful. He could hear the underlying sadness in his voice, the way he was holding something back. But most of all he could hear the fear.

To that, Grian only pressed himself more firmly against him. “Then my first act as a free man is to see this through with you until the end.”

He heard Scar take a breath; shaky and rough. An arm wrapped around him, and he heard a murmured, “Thank you.”)

Jimmy looks a little nervous as he stands on the other side of the pistons, “What’re you doing all the way over there for? Get in ‘ere already!” he exclaims, gesturing for him to come in. “Mumbo disabled the trap!”

His body moves as if it’s on autopilot, legs carrying him toward the gate. He clumsily hops over the pistons and line of stone bricks, landing on the other side. His footing is a bit clumsy as he hits the ground, wobbling slightly. Jimmy laughs at him, and Grian tries to process the sound.

Jimmy isn’t dead. He’s alive.

What in the world is going on?

Grian goes over to him, staring at him with something akin to marvel. Jimmy turns to him, still looking nervous. “So uh… I’m not going to be kicked out, right? I know we had the vote and all yesterday but just wanted to triple check you didn’t change your mind overnight,” he rambles to Grian, shifting back and forth on his feet.

“What?” Blinking in confusion, Grian looks at him. “Why would I be—”

“Oi, Tim! Give the man some space to breathe, would ya?” Another voice joins them, and Grian tenses at the familiarity. “He only just got back last night. At least wait an extra five minutes before you start pestering ‘im.”

Glancing to his side, he spots The Red King’s right hand man approaching them. He’s dressed in iron, a shield attached to his arm. The familiar black bandana peeks out from underneath his hair and his blue eyes are creased with amusement as he looks at the pair. “Martyn?!” The exclamation escapes him before he can stop it. He takes a small step in front of Jimmy, knowing that Scott would be crushed if he lost him a second time (The memory of Scott in his mind would be, anyways). He keeps himself on guard.

Martyn smiles at the pair, “Good morning to you too, fellow Southlander!” He grins. “How’s it feel to be yellow again, eh Grian?” he questions, which makes Grian bristle slightly. He remembers Martyn taking his first life very clearly.

“I’m–”

“Watch out!” A voice calls out, followed by the sounds of feet hitting the ground. Grian jumps as someone barrels past himself and Martyn, cutting right through them in a blur of black. “Hot lava bucket in my hands!”

“I told you to wear gloves!” A second voice follows, and Grian catches a glimpse of yellow and black. He turns his head in the direction the two voices went, seeing them both by the entrance of the fort. Almost instantly, Grian recognizes Impulse from behind. But the one next to him…

Grian feels his entire body freeze. His breath is punched out of him, eyes widening.

The man next to Impulse is setting the bucket of lava down with a large sigh, shoulders sagging in relief. He straightens up, taking a moment to glance around. His eyes lock with Grian’s, and Grian feels rooted to his spot. His throat feels dry, as if he hasn’t drank anything in weeks. He swallows, but it does little to rid the feeling.

Oblivious to Grian’s freezing, the man smiles wide at him, hurrying over. “Grian!” he exclaims, “Glad you got here before I reset the trap, mate, “ he greets cheerfully, but Grian feels too stunned to speak.

Why is Mumbo here? Why?

A multitude of emotions crash into Grian’s chest at the sight of his best friend. Relief, horror, guilt. They each roll over him, loud and vicious as they threaten to overwhelm him. He can’t look away from the man, the feeling of confusion holding his head above water.

(“Do you think Mumbo would be proud?” The question had been half nonchalant as the pair ran through the desert, digging deep underground. The true meaning of the question was a secret, one between only himself and Scar.

Scar paused to consider it. He had lifted a finger to his chin as he thought, “Oh! Mumbo would be crying from happiness!”

“Be honest with me.” Grian had said.

Scar hadn’t been.)

Standing in front of the man, Grian does not share the thought. Not after the blood staining his hands. And isn’t that ironic? In a game where your aim is to kill and survive, he feels guilty over killing. But maybe that’s because of who his final kill was. Because of how it all ended. Grian had hoped he’d never have to face Mumbo after that, but apparently fate had other plans.

“Speaking of getting here early,” Martyn’s voice cuts through the fog of confusion settling over Grian’s mind, causing him to look over at the other. Grian forces his gaze away from Mumbo with a painful pang, meeting Martyn’s eyes, “I see you’ve gone and scored another life on your way back from Scar’s.” He wiggles his brows.

Just hearing Scar’s name causes Grian’s stomach to curl with grief, “W-What?” he asks, the shock of Martyn’s statement sending him back a small step.

“Don’t you try and fool me, G, the last time we saw you you were on yellow life. And now you’re green!” Martyn points at his wrist, and naturally, Grian’s gaze follows.

His heart squeezes uncomfortably tight as he sees the familiar line of hearts down his wrist. There’s three hearts on his wrist, green, yellow, and red. Nausea rolls over him like a blanket, wrapping around him and tightening around his neck. He feels sick. Why? Why?! He thought he was done with all of this! Was killing Scar not enough? Was winning an empty, meaningless victory not enough?!

Is this his punishment? Or some sick kind of joke?!

He clenches his fists, watching the way they shake from how tightly he clenches them. Burning hot anger runs through him like lava, melting his insides. The warmth goes from top to bottom, engulfing him in an angry, vicious flame. He feels too much, yet too little all at once. He wants to scream. To cry. Maybe break something, or blow something up. Blood is pumping in his ears; his heart feels like it’s going to burst.

This isn’t the afterlife. This is hell.

“Grian?” Mumbo’s gentle, concerned voice breaks through the anger threatening to overtake him like a light. The sound of his voice snaps him from his spiraling thoughts, and he notices how his fingers dig uncomfortably into his skin. As if his nails can break the hearts on his wrist, shatter them. He lets go instantly, seeing angry red lines left behind.

Lifting his gaze, Grian sees four pairs of eyes watching him. Yet the only eyes he focuses on are Mumbo’s, it’s been so long since he’s seen the man. His presence is normally a comfort for Grian, something grounding. But right now, all Grian feels is conflict. His grief and guilt is suffocating, and Mumbo’s presence does little to help that feeling. Mumbo looks at him with nothing but concern and kindness, with the way his eyebrows dip and lower, a worried frown marring his face.

Mumbo takes a step closer, hand reaching out to him, “You alright, mate?” Looking down, Grian sees the man’s wrist. Four hearts go down his wrist in a line. Two of them are already gone, looking faded and cracked. The sight of the hearts on his wrist sends his stomach dropping, heart lodging in his throat.

Grian recoils from his outstretched hand as if it were a weapon, and Mumbo freezes in place. He pulls his hand back. His face falls, and Grian pretends he doesn’t see.

“I’m fine.” Grian hastily replies, ignoring the burst of pain in his chest. He scans the people around him. Mumbo, Impulse, Jimmy, and… Martyn. He takes a breath. So he’s stuck in another life game. Great. And it looks like these four are his… alliance.

A sudden thought strikes him. If those four are here then… who else is here?

His communicator pings, and he pulls it up, heart still firmly lodged in his throat.

<GoodTimeWithScar> oh team BEST~

<GoodTimeWithScar> A wizard *never* forgets his promise.

If seeing Mumbo made him sick, then seeing Scar’s message in chat plunges him into freezing cold water. Scar’s name is red (of course it is), and it sends nostalgia and grief tearing through him all at once. Everything suddenly feels like it’s too much, his head swimming. He stumbles slightly, nearly falling if it hadn’t been for Jimmy taking hold of him. “Seriously, you alright?” Jimmy questions, and Grian… Grian doesn’t know.

All he can think about is his final moments with Scar leading up to that stupid duel. The splashing of water below him as he jumped down to meet him in that shallow pond.

“Betrayer!” he had screamed.

Well look who’s laughing now.

Grian had thought about it very briefly, in his final moments, what it’d be like if he ever met Scar again. He had wondered if Scar would scorn him, or if Scar would pull him into his arms and congratulate him on a battle well fought. He had also considered keeping his distance, as far away as possible, as to never hurt Scar again.

And yet, just as usual, his heart never listens to his brain.

Because as he looks at his communicator, watching the others reply in chat, his eyes only focus on Scar’s name. There’s a part of him, a very deep part within, that cries out for him. It sees Scar’s name, and it reaches. It reaches far and wide, and it doesn’t concern itself with the logical side of Grian’s brain. No, it simply sees the fact that Scar is clearly alive and well and it wants to run right toward him.

Seeing Scar’s name makes Grian’s chest ache with a deep yearning that he knows can never be satisfied. There is an ache in him that he knows will only continue to eat away at himself, until he is rotting and reaching. His soul is crying, begging for Scar at his side, and though Grian knows that he will only be the catalyst to Scar’s ultimate demise, he is weak to the pull of his emotions.

Grian’s other half is alive! He is alive and that part of Grian feels incomplete without him. Empty. His heart aches at the thought of being with Scar again, of being able to give him the apology he deserves. Just the thought of being able to apologize to him is enough to break Grian down.

“S-Scar,” he stammers, completely forgetting that Jimmy even asked him a question. “He’s – I have to get to him,” he says, turning to the others.

He’s met with varying expressions of confusion, though it’s Impulse who says something, “Didn’t you already bring him his stuff after he died?” he questions, and Grian quickly shakes his head.

“No I just – where is he? I-I need to see him, I–” he stammers, thoughts running far too quickly for him to actually think coherently.

“Up north dude, where he always is.” Martyn replies, though he’s looking at Grian with… something. If he weren’t so distracted by the thought of Scar, he’d probably look closer into that. However, distraction is the card he’s been dealt, and he lets it play. He spins on his heel for the exit, walking briskly with purpose. “Make sure he doesn’t kill you!” Martyn calls after him, “Remember the guy’s on red!"

Grian knows he won’t.

-----------------

If Grian is being honest with himself, he probably should have put more thought into this. He didn’t even come here with a plan! He had just heard that Scar was north, so north is where he went. He was moving too fast for his brain to actually catch up.

It was a bit of a journey, getting from the cobbled towers (the Southlanders, his mind supplies) to the big mountain in the north. But the second he saw the hut on top of the mountain, he knew exactly who lived there.

Maybe what made the journey so difficult was the thoughts that accompanied him.

Grian won’t say that he ran to Scar’s — because he didn’t. Not really. He had walked. And his thoughts consumed him with every step.

He’s stuck in another life game. Scar is here. Mumbo is here. He doesn’t know what it means. This game isn’t Third Life, he knows that much. His mind is scrambling, trying to come up with some kind of plan. A strategy. He’s trying to lay out a safety net for himself but he should’ve known from the start it’d be pointless.

There are no safety nets in a game of death. There are no “plans”, despite how badly Grian may want to use one. He learned in Third Life that plans don’t work, even the most carefully planned strategy blows up in his face. It won’t stop him though. A plan gives him something to fall back on, a faux comfort.

A plan keeps him from running headfirst into danger, a plan keeps him alive.

Which is why he probably should’ve come up with a plan before going to Scar. He doesn’t know what kind of state the man will be in. He isn’t sure how to even approach a reunion with him. It’s obvious that he’s in some kind of… who even knows where. Obviously his friends all know him here, but he isn’t sure if they remember him. Who he is. What he’s done. What they’ve all done.

It doesn’t help that he’s apparently been dropped right in the middle of this new game.

He doesn’t know how to handle an approach to Scar. Hug him? Smack him? Ask him if he knows who he is? A no on that last one, Jimmy and the others have already answered that. Besides, Grian isn’t sure if he could handle Scar looking at him like Grian was a stranger in every sense of the word except the literal one.

He settles on just seeing what happens. Sometimes no plan is the best plan!

But just — not in a death game.

His thoughts trail off as he approaches the bottom of the mountain, and he looks up. He grimaces as he gets a clearer view of the hut up top, sighing. “Of course Scar had to put his base in the most precarious spot ever,” he grumbles before beginning to make his way up the mountain. He makes sure to be careful with each step, keeping himself aware of where he’s stepping.

When he makes it to the top of the mountain, he’s rather out of breath, chest heaving from exertion. This mountain is a lot bigger than the one back in the desert. But he reaches the top, and is face to face with a hut made of wood and dark stone. The roof on top looks like a wizard’s hat, and Grian can’t help his fond huff.

He focuses his gaze on the entryway, finding it wide open. This is it. Scar is beyond that doorway. Grian’s hands shake just at the thought of seeing him again. Anxiety runs through his blood like water, filling him completely. His heart picks up, beating against his ribcage. He swallows thickly.

A small part of him wants to run away. A small part of him wants to turn around and head right back down the mountain and forget that he even came here. A small part of him is afraid to look Scar in the eyes. It makes him feel like a coward.

And yet despite that small part of him, Grian walks forward.

He walks right into the hut, and promptly stops. Right in front of him is none other than Scar. He’s digging around in a barrel, humming to himself. Grian isn’t sure what the tune is, or where it’s from, but the scene feels familiar. His chest aches.

“Scar?” he says, causing the man to yell out.

He jumps up in surprise, letting out the typical fearful scream he does whenever he’s snuck up on. It makes Grian smile softly, and god he misses this man. Scar spins around on his heels, turning to look at Grian. Grian gets a good look at his eyes, and he sees a dark red haze swirling in them. There is not a hint of warmth in his eyes, no kind of recollection or even joy at seeing him. Grian isn’t sure what he sees in Scar’s eyes, but he knows that there is anger in them. Bloodlust.

(He thinks he might see hatred. And that is a thought that shakes him right to his core. He does not want to live in a world where Scar hates him, even if it is justified. Does that make him selfish?)

“Oh, Grian,” Scar eventually says, and his voice is cold. Empty. He takes a step forward, something whimsical about his footing. Scar is dressed in dark robes, stark white hair peeking out from underneath. “If you’re here to nab another life from me, Grian, I’m afraid you’re out of luck,” he says, his voice low and dangerous. There is a promise of a threat in his voice.

Grian frowns at that, chest panging. “I’m not interested in your life, Scar,” he says matter of factly. He’s already taken one (two, if his guilt counts the creeper), he doesn’t want another one.

A laugh spills from Scar, something lacking any real humor. “Oh, don’t you play with me!” he exclaims, voice sharp and angular. The sound of it causes Grian to jolt in surprise. “You can fool me once or twice! Or…” he trails off, thinking. “Three times, whatever, it doesn’t matter!”

“Scar…” Grian says, and he quickly realizes that he probably should’ve prepared himself a bit more. He lets the other approach him. There’s something different about him compared to Third Life. Something bitter, cynical. Grian isn’t sure if it’s because of the nature of this new game, or if it’s simply because Scar is on red.

“No, Grian!” Scar exclaims, reaching for his diamond sword. “You know, I was planning on hitting Team BEST first, give ‘em a real good thrashing. Send a message and all that! Can’t mess with ol’ Scar! Not anymore, no sir!” He takes another step toward Grian.

It’s the instinct of green life, Grian knows, that has him backing away slowly. He takes a few tiny steps backwards.

Scar looks at him, something angry and hurt in his gaze, “But I think you’ll make a good first message to the masses. You were the first to take advantage of me, after all.”

Grian’s back slams into the wall behind him, crushing his wings. He cringes at the feeling, but he doesn’t move. Scar is cornering him, holding the blade to his throat. He easily towers over Grian, putting just enough pressure on his sword to spill a bit of blood.

Looking at him, Grian doesn’t see a hint of the Scar he once knew. He isn’t quite sure what’s going on here, what the Grian of this game has done to wrong Scar, but what he does know is this.

He killed Scar.

And the hatred in Scar’s eyes isn’t misplaced or even misdirected.

He doesn’t fight back against the blade on his throat, the blade that is spilling his blood. He simply stands there and meets Scar’s hazy red eyes. To Grian, he thinks this is good retribution for the cactus ring. He sees no point in fighting against Scar when this is something he believes he deserves.

Yet Scar thinks otherwise.

See, he had expected a lot out of today. He’s on red now, and he had a goal in mind. He was going to make everyone on this forsaken server regret thinking they could just use Scar as they please. He was going to start with BEST, and then work his way to the others. But then Grian just came waltzing in like they were old buddies and Scar wasn’t going to let a golden opportunity slip past him.

He has a whole separate issue with Grian, after all.

But as he stares into Grian’s eyes, he sees something odd. Firstly he stares up at Scar with blatant confusion and hurt. It makes him want to laugh. What does Grian possibly have to be hurt over?

Though that isn’t what makes him pause. No, what makes him truly falter is the guilt he sees in Grian’s eyes.

He observes the green life in front of him (Wasn’t Grian yellow? Did he swindle someone else out of a life?) and notices that there’s no fight. Grian isn’t pushing back against him. He’s not arguing or drawing his own weapon. Not even as Scar draws blood and pushes the blade harder.

Suddenly the appeal of killing Grian leaves him. What fun is a kill that rolls over and exposes their weak point?

Scar scoffs at him before making up his mind and taking a step back. So much for that perfect message in chat. Looks like Team BEST is back as his number one target. He lowers his sword completely.

Grian watches him with confusion, “Scar?”

The red life meets his gaze, a deep frown settling on his lips. “Who are you?”

#scarian #trafficshipping #third life smp #last life smp #last life au #mochi writes #I really want to get back to writing this one omg #once I'm on summer break.....#anyways! third life my beloved #cannot believe it's two years old #I wasn't around at the start but I'm here now and AUGH

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imminentinertia · 1 year

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In which I keep a promise to a bunch of people who read a fic five years ago and try to explain why I'm doing that now

In 2018, @vesperthine and I collaborated on run down till the rain delights you and when some people asked for more, we promised a sequel. That didn't happen.

Until now.

Now it's snaking its way to AO3 like an aging Toyota on cold Tromsø roads (I'm really sorry for this silliness but one of the inspo photos we used did this to me).

There's a bit of a backstory:

First of all, you have @nofeartina to blame for run down in the first place and @peacestew to blame for me sliding into the SKAM fandom in 2023 going "hiiii I haven't been in this fandom for years but here's a fic".

In 2018, Tina wanted fisherman!Isak in a knit woolen jumper* and somehow roped V into writing it, and then V somehow roped me into a collab (I'm still entirely unsure how I ended up saying yes), we brainstormed and looked for inspo and wrote some scenes** to see how it went. Fisherman!Isak turned into marine!biologist!Isak with an old fishing boat and a cabin, Even pretended to be suave, the Tromsø area piped up about wanting to be more of a character than a location and there we were:

Gif by @peacestew

It was so much fun writing with V, and we got along so well, so we wrote a short sequel quite soon after. It just needed a few final tweaks.

Then life happened.

Long story short, I haven't heard from Vesperthine since summer 2019. I hope she's happy and well, and I hope she's writing original fiction because she's seriously gifted, and I miss her because she's a very sweet and smart and lovely person. I was left with a nearly finished draft and a hope she'd turn up again. Since then I've turned down requests to translate and podfic run down, and disappointed a few people asking about the promised sequel, because it didn't feel at all right to make those decisions without V's input.

But it's been five years (!!!), I doubt I'll ever hear from her again, that draft is sitting there on my drive, and... so earlier this year I started thinking about just going ahead and posting it. I went through all our notes and figured out what remained to be done (not much, we even had the title ready), and decided to do those tweaks at some point.

Then Peace slid into my notes a while ago (it had been a few years since we were in touch, I love it when old mates show up), we chatted quite a bit and somehow mentioned run down, and I'm entirely unsure how this snowball started rolling but now we're doing an art + fic collab with that sequel. She's been terribly enabling, and dangling pretty gifs in front of me, how could I resist? She even made a gorgeous title gif for run down. V would have been just as happy with this, I'm sure.

Considering that the sequel was just about finished, and V and I never had any actual disagreements while writing (one tiny scuffle about adjectives, we compromised), I think she'd be okay having her name put on the sequel. And I am okay with making that decision, since it's been so long. I've done the final editing, Peace has added her lovely gifs and now I'm just going to work up the courage to post it.

As stupid as I feel giving directions for fic reading I recommend you read (or re-read, bless everyone who has read it) run down till the rain delights you first, I'm not sure the sequel will make much sense otherwise.

the roll of the harbour wake is coming soon to a fic archive near you. Peace and I hope you will enjoy it.

Gif by @peacestew

*the fic was almost immediately nicknamed The sweater fetish fic. Drooling over the guys in knit woolen jumpers kept happening for ages.

**the first scene we wrote didn't actually make it to run down, but we put it in harbour wake, and it goes to show that sometimes a fic takes a very different direction from where you start it.

#skam #evak fic #skam fic #run down till the rain delights you #the roll of the harbour wake #peacestew #vesperthine #sea dreams

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omgfloofy · 4 months

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Insurgent King Progress

I'm still working on chapters 4 and 5 of Insurgent King. I finally got some good progress done tonight for the first time since the nasty storms a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully, I can have 4 finished before long.

I don't know where I'll be on 5 when I finally get 4 posted. It might be another long wait because while I have 5 outlined, I've not really written much on it yet outside of a few scenes. It's going to be pretty action oriented so it might take some time to get it out.

Thankfully, chapters 6 and 7 are mostly done. Once they're out, I can start tackling the next story of the series, which shouldn't be nearly as long as this one. (I think the story that shares its name with the series will have the most chapters, as it's kind of an 'origin story' of Noctis as the 'Insurgent King' in the series.)

Thanks to anyone who's been patient with me through all of this. I have a snippet from chapter 5 that's getting removed from the story. I can't make it fit narratively. I should have 4 up on AO3 in the next week or two. <3

At the end of chapter 3, Noctis gave Nyx an order to retrieve a package for him. This would be (most of) the scene of the package arriving to the Lighthouse. As per usual, this hasn't been edited. It's just a bit that I enjoyed writing, but I don't think fits the flow of the chapter itself.

Enjoy!

----

Nyx didn't knock when he arrived. He rarely did, and Noctis never really bothered him over it. "Special delivery for His Majesty." He carried a box in his hand - it was a metal case of some sort.

Noctis looked up from the table. He had Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto all seated with him at the sectional and they had been pouring over papers that were scattered on the table. There was a pause, then he quickly got onto his feet. He knew exactly what it was. "Oh, fantastic."

As he gestured to the table, Noctis said, "Bring it over here." He glanced at Ignis. "It won't mess anything up, I promise."

The case was handed over and Noctis set it on the table. He quickly opened it and was pleased with the contents.

"Magic flasks?" Gladio asked as he picked one out.

Noctis picked up another and passed it between his hands. "Yeah. I only had a couple in the armiger when the Imperials took Insomnia and no one could get to the others."

Prompto was surprised as Noctis tossed the one in his hands over. He caught it without issue, though. "You haven't even used them?"

Noctis focused on counting the others in the case. "Because just using what I have now isn't very efficient. These I can prepare and store in the armiger for all of you to have access to them."

"Thank you, Nyx." This time, Noctis stood up and faced the glaive directly before he offered a bow - one that was returned.

Working with them was extremely inefficient, so I opted to not do so for now."

As he studied it, he tossed it between his hands. "This way, I can hand out some more magic to everyone else to help cover us. There should be six of them here." Noctis quickly took a peek at the contents of the case, before he offered one up to Prompto, then to Ignis.

#ffxv fic #final fantasy xv #ffxv #ffxv fanfic #the insurgent king #noctis lucis caelum #ignis scientia #nyx ulric #prompto argentum #gladiolus amiticia

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singsweetmelodies · 1 year

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hello everyone ❤️🥰👋 so, apologies in advance for what's about to be a very long post, but today is a sentimental day for me, because it is - guess what - exactly one year since i posted my first-ever f1 rpf fic and in so doing officially joined this incredible, insane, "i've never felt this way about a pairing before" fandom.

that's right. one year ago today, on the 2nd of June 2022, i, katie singsweetmelodies, posted my fic ils se connaissent par coeur - which is, of course, about piarles, and incidentally also about monaco 2022 (which, as it happens, was the first f1 race i properly followed/watch live on f1tv.) needless to say, this was a bit of a defining moment for me, fandom-wise. i mean, if you had told me one year ago that i would proceed to write over two hundred thousand words for f1 rpf, i would have laughed in your face. but here i am today, with 225184 words currently posted to AO3 on this account - and still counting!

i know everyone always says "this fandom is special" and whatnot - but in this case, for me, it really is. i mean, for fuck's sake, i wrote SMUT, if nothing else. i've certainly never done that before (or, at least, i've never published it before. but now i've got probably 50k of it available in full explicit detail on AO3... needless to say, this fandom has bewitched me mind, body and soul.)

it hasn't always been a fun ride - i mean, how could it be, i chose to be a fucking FERRARI fan - but at this point i would like to do the biggest, most whole-hearted shoutout to all the amazing, incredible people i've met along the way. yes, i've had good fandom friends before. but the ones in this fandom feel special in a way i can't quite put into words, but you just are, and i want to thank each and every one of you so, so much for it. you guys have brightened my days and my dashboard, made me laugh and made me groan out loud, made me ship things i never would have considered otherwise, and been some of the most wonderfully supportive souls i've ever had the pleasure of meeting. it has been an honour and a pleasure getting to be in this fandom with you all, and at this point all i can say is: here's to many, many more years!! ❤️❤️❤️

now, to end this all off with a hopefully full-circle moment: i started this all in monaco, so before the end of tonight, i am going to post the monaco chapter of my latest WIP (all that remains is editing those bits i wrote at 2am, lmao, and then my full circle 2 June moment will be complete.)

and all there's left to say, once again, is thank you. thank you all, for everything. i love and appreciate you all more than words can possibly say ❤️💙

#katie rambles #a whole fucking YEAR guys!!#not to be all sentimental but... it does feel like i've known some of you forever #posting that first fic with so much hesitation feels like a LIFETIME ago fr #this fandom has made me feel so welcome in the most beautiful; beautiful way #and i love you all for it. i love you ALL #it has been an honour and an absolute pleasure #and; seriously; here's to many more years. SO many more!!#(PS: if we have interacted in any tiny way; then you are my bestie tonight. i love you. I LOVE YOU. thank you so much. *hugs tightly*)

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the-pen-pot · 1 year

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So, a reader asked some questions about Patreon over on AO3 in my comment box. A friendly reminder it is UTTERLY againt the TOS of AO3 to talk about Patreon even in the comment box - so I had to delete their comment, and I didn't fancy attempting to answer over there and getting done for breach in terms of service. 🤣

Instead, I'll answer the questions here:

On your Patreon, you said all fanfics will eventually find their way here. Is that actually the case? It seems like there are a number of stories on your Patreon that are not on AO3 (even ones that you posted quite a while ago).

Basically, I only post/update one multi-chaptered fic on AO3 at a time. It's really all I have time for. That means one fic is getting consistently edited and updated - in this case that's Hiraeth.

Other multi-chapter fics on Patreon (like King and Court, Guard of Diocletian, and Where The Heart Is) are incomplete, updated sporadically when people in the $5 tier vote for them in project polls - and they are predominantly still rough drafts. What goes up on AO3 is the final, edited version of the chapters.

When it comes to ficlets. I try to pop them up on AO3 eventually. These are one-shots - and they normally end up on AO3 within six months - sometimes sooner*. Basically I move stuff over when I have the time, and gradually, so as not to flood AO3 all at once with a dozen new fics.

(*Real life has been so hectic that I've fallen a touch behind on this - and have been steadily rectifying it this past month or so.)

One of the stories on your Patreon (Hiraeth), is locked, but it’s free to read on AO3. What is the reason for that?

Patreon gets updates of chapters of Hiraeth one week before AO3. So, for example, where I updated chapter 48 on AO3 this weekend, I updated chapter 49 on Patreon. Patrons are paying for that advanced access to the next chapter.

The reason the chapters already posted on AO3 are locked on Patreon is sort of really that there isn't one. I just assumed most people would rather read stuff posted on AO3 actually on AO3 since the navigation is better. I didn't bother unlocking those chapters when they're already readily available for anyone who wants to read them on ArchiveOfOurOwn

Some of the stories on your Patreon $2 level are locked, and some are not. What is the reason for that?

Some of the stories, particularly ficlets, are unlocked to followers on Patreon (that's people who don't pledge, but do want to keep tabs on me) one months after patrons have seen them and a little bit before they go up on AO3. It's a little treat for people who follow me but don't have the inclination to pledge.

Hopefully that helps!

P.s. People can sign up for free trials for a week in the $2 and $5 tier (I recommend the $5, because then you can get access to pretty much everything) BUT Patreon doesn't notify you when it comes to an end. They just take your money (which I HATE as a business tactic). However, that's totally out of my control, so I recommend getting the free trial and immediately cancelling so you're not charged, if you want to take a closer look at what's on offer. You can always come back and pledge later if you decide you want to!

#PlacesToSupportMe

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nehswritesstuffs · 1 year

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I really enjoy your TTOU AU. I’m curious if you’re going to continue writing chapters for it. Thanks for your awesome writing!!! 😊

*side-eyes people in my DMs*

Here's the short answer: I plan on it, but cannot give an estimated start date since other varying things are taking priority. In the meantime, know I love you and your support, Greyscale, as it keeps me going.

Long answer under the cut.

The thing about The Thick of UNIT is this: it's very long and very convoluted. At this juncture I need to do a complete read-through, probably do some slight editing to what's already up, take a long look at what I have planned, and then edit that to hell and back as I tighten the story and get it on track again. The main things keeping me from doing this are:

Size: We're talking 225k words thus far by AO3's estimation. That's a lot to go through! And that's just the main story! It's 283.5k words with all the extras!

Time: There's only so much spare time I have available to write, let alone edit this monster.

Writing Resources: This is something a lot of fic writers understand, I think, because it's about what ideas are flowing and when. You have to go where there is flow, or else things will be bad.

My Editor: He's still not done and is even more scattered than me when it comes to this, if you'll believe, and since he and I don't control what the other does...

Real Life: I've been job hunting for a year (exactly; I was let go a year ago today) and I'm engaged, so I've been trying to get house-hunting and wedding planning off the ground (there's a lot of barriers here I won't go into). Plus there's a bunch of normal things that I'd do anyhow involving family and friend groups that take up time. energy, and resources. And I'm a tante now?! Tantes are cool.

Indifference: Now this is admittedly a weird one that deserves explaining. I still love The Thick of UNIT, as well as the parent shows Doctor Who and The Thick of It! They all still hold a special place in my heart. It's just... well... I average single-digit notes on here. I don't have enough reviews on FFN for there to be one per chapter. Most of my comments on AO3 are conversations. Although I'll be one of the first to say that you need to write fic for yourself and don't worry about an audience, I will also admit that it's very difficult to put into practice. I hit a big ol' wall of burnout with TTOU, which is something that can happen to anyone about anything, even stuff they love, and I'm trying to get over that and the indifference it causes. also everything that i've seen of DW post-Twelve is just irritating and i feel so fucking bad for Gatwa and none of that helps any

So... yeah... the double-edged sword with longfics is that they are a lot of time and energy, which I unfortunately do not have a lot of to spare. "But what about those other fics I see you posting?" That's where all my writing resources go, because the ideas are flowing there. It's probably weird to think about since I was almost exclusively writing fic for Doctor Who and The Thick of It for nine years, but what I've been able to churn out lately hits something completely different, deep down in my soul from before I even knew what Doctor Who was, before The Thick of It first aired, and a lot of it is a bit existential in its own way.

"But what am I going to do in the meantime?!" Feel free to check out my bookmarks on AO3, which has a lot of TTOU fic (including some by the lovely @fajrbismuth, whose tumblr url is yes from the fic). That not enough? Maybe, idk, create something of your own. Write some fic, draw art, create a moodboard, do something that channels your love for it. and maybe if you make sure i see it, i can reblog it for everyone here to see. Hell, I don't even care if you do your own Malcolm/Kate stories independent of TTOU. I can't stop you.

Thank you, though, for all your love and support over the past, what eight years of this. It's humbling when I get to see how much people love my writing and it really does make it worth it in the end.

#I'm not blaming anyone in my DMs for this just I've been talking recently about TTOU so it's. like. 'SEE?!'#TTOU also recently hit 10k hits on AO3 which is pretty impressive considering their tracker's shit at recording that stuff so that's cool #so. yeah. one day i'll get back to it. that day is not today however.#The Thick of UNIT #replies #Greyface replies

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acetonitril · 10 months

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You knew this was coming! xD How do you feel about 11, 20, 27, and 28 from the AO3 wrapped (writer edition)? And, if you're up to it, 6, 13, 15, and 30 from the reader edition =)

Well, did I know or did I hope for it? ☺️ Thank you either way!

[writer edition]

11. What work took you the longest to write?

the sight of you leaves me weak, which took me three months to write. I'm not surprised because it's my longest fic and so much happened in my life while I was writing it. But my current WIPs are great contenders too, if they ever get done.

20. Which work of yours have you reread the most?

I tend to reread the latest one I posted the most but. Who are we kidding, it's probably (toi et moi) dans la nuit on trouvera.

27. What do you listen to while writing?

My issue with listening to music while writing is that I get distracted because I have to sing along. So the options are either instrumental music (but I can get distracted by that too), no music, or listening to one song on repeat so much until it has become meaningless. I do all three, but mostly write in silence. Sometimes I watch videos I'm not interested in because I need some noise in the background. (Fun fact: A good chunk of the writing/editing of the Big Boi Bradley fic was done while I was watching drama youtube and like, I guess?)

28. Favorite work you wrote this year?

don't mention toi et moi again don't mention toi et moi again don't mention- I don't know, I don't have favourites 😊 (that's a lie, it's toi et moi)

[reader edition]

6. What's your absolute favorite works you read this year?

There are a lot but one that definitely deserves this title is, even if it seems a bit random, @yikes-00's Rack 'Em Up, Big Blonde aka the Hooter's fic. I first read this almost a full year ago and I have read it so many times ever since. I can't even tell you exactly why I love it so much but it's a comfort fic.

13. What trope do you think you read the most of?

Well if it were up to me, fake dating. I certainly tried my best to read as much of it as possible.

15. Favorite canon concept you read this year?

Does this mean like, favourite fic that's technically canon? Because then I have to admit I cheated a bit and held this one back for the previous favourites question as this is probably the fic I've read the most this year? I am of course talking about @gothampot's Crazy 'Bout A Sharp-Dressed Man which completely altered by brain chemistry. I am obsessed. (It's post canon, that counts.)

30. Biggest surprise for you as a reader this year?

I love that you asked this question because if anyone understands, it's probably you 😄 But I was so surprised that you can apparently gain a reputation within a fandom for the comments you leave on fics? I'm very flattered but it was a bit unexpected to get anon asks à la "I see you in the comments a lot and wanted to thank you".

#thank you!!#magdarko #ask

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3pirouette · 1 year

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The Captain and the Missus (4/?)

Title: The Captain and The Missus

By: TriplePirouette/3Pirouette

Spoilers: AU of CA:TFA

Disclaimer: They're not mine.

Distribution: AO3 Anyone else please ask first :)

Story Summary: Instead of wanting to recreate the serum, Schmidt wants every trace of it wiped from existence so he can be the sole one to benefit from it. This means that Steve’s life is in danger, and Peggy’s new job is to keep him alive as he travels in hiding with the USO tour.

Story A/N: AU of CA: TFA, based on @roboticonography’s idea of having Peggy go on tour with Steve as “Mrs. America”

(Robot’s post HERE: https://3pirouette.tumblr.com/post/654017864817360896/steggy-24-49)

SO... Yes. yes, it's true. I've somehow managed to only update this once a year during the past three years for Steggy Week. At least I'm consistent.

For 2023, this satisfies Steggy Week Day 2: WIPs and Updates.

Chapter 4: Bubbling Pots

Summary: Peggy and Steve are off on their adventure, but she’ll need to start relying on him just as much as she wants him to rely on her if this is going to work.

A/N: My goal today was to reacquaint myself with the story and get a good outline going. After I did that, I realized that I do, in fact, have a fairly solid chapter. I only ended up doing a few edits. I spent most of my time working on where the story is going, and figuring out what comes next. So, you ACTUALLY GET A CHAPTER. And without having to wait a year!

~*~

Peggy sat in the audience, next to Steve, while the chorus girls sang on stage. She tried to keep a pleasant look on her face as the one on the end, Marie, warbled off key, but found it quite difficult. She and the rest of the cast were filling the seats as they slowly moved through the script.

“This reads like a bad radio play,” Steve whispered, leaning over.

Peggy hummed, nodding in agreement. The “scenes” they were to play between song and dance numbers were trite and silly. “Think of whose left, though. Wives and kids, mostly. They’re not looking for Shakespeare or Descartes, just some hope and a little time to forget.”

“True,” he looked around, leaning closer to her and dropping his voice. “Just seems so disingenuous.”

“Most of it is, anything they think will squeeze a penny from our pockets,” Angie leaned over the seatback between them, voice barely more than a whisper. “Since all the proceeds here are going to the war effort, you can almost forgive it, but that’s all showbiz is: trying to figure out what will get butts in seats.”

Peggy almost smiled, but winced as Marie missed another high note. She waved the script she’d been given just an hour ago when they arrived at the rehearsal. “You really think this drivel will get people coming?”

“That drivel?” Angie draped her arm over the seat and poked Peggy’s script. “No, not at all.” She shrugged and rested her chin on her folded arms. “And Marie’s gotta stop telling them she’s a soprano when she’s clearly an alto, or the little bit of draw we’ve got in the music’s gonna head south, too.”

Steve dropped his head in his hands as the piano player plunked out a line of harmony for the singers. “This is going to be so embarrassing.”

“Aw, don’t worry, Cap.” Angie’s sarcasm softened, “Usually after some rehearsal they figure out what fits, what doesn’t, and the show gets at least a little better.”

Peggy reached over, letting her hand sit on his shoulder. He wasn’t a boastful man to begin with, and she’d seen the little hints of panic in his eyes when they talked about the show. Getting on the stage was not going to be easy for him. “You’ve done many of these, Angie?”

“Many might be an exaggeration, but I’ve auditioned and understudied loads of them. Usually got cut by the time they had the show ready to take on the road, but that ain’t happening this time.” Her smile and confidence were infectious, and it bolstered Peggy.

“I’d hope not,” Peggy supplied as they all clapped mindlessly as the trio of girls exited the stage and the director called up a pair of tap dancers.

Angie leaned back. “Certainly won’t. I was ensemble then. I’m a feature now.” She sighed, picking up her script and flipping through. “Though, who knows. Last show I toured with they replaced a bunch of girls once they got to Chicago.”

“Why?” Steve tried to split his attention between the conversation and the dancing happening on stage.

“Who knows? I mean, Doris was a rough dancer to begin with- and she wasn’t getting any better, so that’s probably why she got the axe. There were a couple of girls- well,” Angie leaned forward, a smile on her face as she stage whispered, “when you’re on one of these shows, there are rules about how late you can stay out and who with- be glad you don’t have to worry about those, English, because I think a few of the girls got caught with some GIs one night and that’s why they were ousted. We never knew for sure, but they were out all crying and sobbing the next day.”

While Steve was enthralled and Angie was completely unbothered, the tapping was starting to fray Peggy’s nerves. She found it difficult to focus on the information Angie was giving her- information she sorely needed as she had almost none. “Who enforces such a thing?”

“They call her a chaperone, but she’s basically a baby sitter who rats people out when they want to have fun. I don’t think they’ve hired one for us yet, though. At least, if they have, we don’t know about it.”

~*~

“You know, we weren’t involved in any of the morning rehearsals, either,” Steve mused, underlining and making little notes next to his lines in his script as he sat on the bed. Peggy and Steve were dismissed for the day just before lunch while the director worked on the choreography they weren’t involved in. “They made us go just to get scripts?”

“Probably,” Peggy mused, trailing her own pencil against the back of her script, the list of the names of the cast lined up in her neat handwriting as her nails tapped on the wood. She’d told Angie she was horrible with names, and had asked the girl to go through each cast and crew member as she made a list on the back of her script. Now, she perused the names as she sat at the small table, mentally ticking off the little she knew about each of them. Usually, she didn’t have a problem connecting a face with a name, but she usually didn’t meet so many in such a short amount of time, and she usually had one or two to focus on.

Steve hummed low in his throat, turning another page. “This is really horrible. ‘I’ll fight for the right of justice along the Earth!’ I mean, who talks like that?”

Peggy tapped her manicured nails along the edge of the table in a quick tattoo. “You do, apparently,” she replied with little thought.

“’Where Hitler goes, I’ll follow.’ Really?” He huffed, shaking his head. He turned his head, taking her in when she didn’t reply, listening to the nervous tapping of her nails, watching as her knee bounced in time, her breathing just a little heavier than normal. “Peg?”

“Hum?”

He tried to smile, but couldn’t hide that he was a little concerned. “You’re gonna put a hole in that table if you keep tapping on it like that.”

She leaned back, the chair creaking under her. “We’re on our heels,” she muttered, lifting her hand from the table, the nervous tapping continuing as she placed it on her thigh without the tell-tale noise. “It’s a bad place to be.”

Steve set the script next to him. “What do you mean?”

She shook her head, rubbing her hand over her face before looking back down at her list. “I know nothing about any of these people, and from what I learned from Angie today it seems any one of them would be just as likely as another to be an operative.” She sighed, tossing her pencil on the table. “I should have traipsed around Europe pretending to be a lounge singer,” she mumbled, “less background to worry about than a secretary or a seamstress.”

“But you said you can’t sing,” Steve supplied, trying to lighten her mood.

“Don’t.” She didn’t turn her head, but looked at him before turning her attention back to the names. “I don’t sing. Doesn’t mean I can’t sing; I simply choose not to.” She leaned back and sprung from the chair at his interested hum, unwilling to give up on her frustration and pacing the room. “I don’t like being on my heels.”

He slipped forward to let his feet dangle off the bed, closer to where she walked the length of the room. “I see that.”

“Usually I have something,” she scrubbed her hands down her thighs, trying to walk off the anger, “a place to start. Even if it ends up being wrong, I have a place to start.”

He shrugged, pushing his script to the side and motioning towards hers. “Isn’t that list a place to start?”

She looked at him, pausing for a moment and bouncing her head on her shoulders in what wasn’t exactly a nod but wasn’t a shake, either. “Yes and no,” she muttered, moving back into her pacing. “Usually, I have a target or a suspect. Someone I can focus on.” She stopped leaning back on the stacked cases. “There’s no person of interest, no place to start at, just a list as long as my arm of suspects and nothing to go on, not until one of them tries something, which might be too late.”

Steve smiled, shaking his head. “You’re taking this way too seriously.”

She leaned back, affronted. “I am not.”

He looked at her back as she turned, opening the top case and pulling out the file she’d hidden in the lining the night before, opening it to reveal the scant information they did have. He sighed, “Ok, maybe that’s not what I meant, but so far I haven’t seen anything aside from that horrid writing that I would call dangerous.”

“That’s the point,” she huffed, turning back to him, top secret papers strewn across the top of her clothes is the case. “You don’t see it coming until it goes pear-shaped. And it will, Steve. We know it will.”

“Brandt might be planning something. But right now, we’ve just got a bunch of show kids looking to put on a show. Not a single suspicious face in the crowd. Even if someone tries something, I’ll be fine.” He shrugged, trying to lighten her mood. “I can lift tanks, remember?”

Peggy swallowed, hard, and tried to keep her composure. “Oh, I remember.” She looked at him coolly, eyes falling to the floor. “I remember your blood flowing through my fingers, and Erskine’s on the ground next to me as it poured out of him.” She set her chin, looking at him fiercely. “Very few evil men telegraph themselves by wearing a swastika on their sleeve,” she bit out. “That operative didn’t, and someone in our ranks isn’t, and that means your life is in danger here, silly little show or not.”

Something about her ire raised his own hackles, and his lips turned down, sour. “Well, then, couldn’t I be doing more somewhere else? Somewhere where they do wear their allegiance on their sleeve and I’d know who the bad guy was?” He stood, pacing himself. “Europe, for example?” He sighed, hands on his hips. “I’m not sure what you want, here, Peggy. Neither of us likes this.”

The fight had bloomed so quickly she wasn’t sure where it had come from, or why his words hurt her so deeply. “No, I suppose neither of us do,” she replied, knowing it was harsh. She did, actually, like being with him very much. It was the intelligence side she couldn’t stand. “The quicker we figure this out, the quicker we’ll be done with all this.”

The words hurt the moment she said them, and she could see the pain in Steve’s eyes. “Sure,” he replied tersely, looking as small as the day she’d met him. “We get through this, we get an annulment, and you get to go back to the SSR and I’ll head out to Alamogordo.” He turned, heading for the door.

She crossed the room, her hand on his wrist stopping him from leaving. “It’s not what I meant,” she whispered.

“I think you might have,” his reply was soft, wounded. “I’m no prize, Peg, and we both know this is babysitting duty.”

She stepped in front of him, taking his hand. “This is not babysitting duty,” she whispered emphatically. “What has happened to you may be the most important discovery in the history of science. There may be a war on, and you may have been meant to be a soldier, but think of all we’ll lose if you’re lying dead on a battle field or in the footlights on a stage? Same result, either place.”

“So, I’m a thing then,” he resigned, looking away. “you’re stuck babysitting Brandt’s Science Fair winning experiment, is that it?”

“Stop being thick,” she ordered, turning his head back to her. “That laundry list of ailments you read me that kept you out of the Army is cured. Cured.” She softened, letting her fingers caress his cheek as they fell from his face. “With Erskine gone, you and Howard are the only ones who can recreate his work.” She stopped his response by speaking again. “How many able-bodied men would we have at our disposal if we could cure asthma? Polio?” She saw his self-deprecation turn a little at her words and she pressed on. “What would your mother have given to see you better as a little boy, hum?”

“I don’t think Howard needs me to—”

“He might,” she interrupted. She shook her head and looked up at him, smiling. “Erskine gave the Army a super soldier because that’s what they wanted. But his research? His research had always been about helping people, curing people, making them better.” She stepped back, putting space between them. “You might be able to lift tanks and fight Nazis, but in truth Erskine was more interested in your health, and what that could mean for the future of medicine. He just didn’t have enough time to show you that.” She squeezed his fingers tight. “There may come a day when they call you to the front, but his life’s work lives within you, Steve. Don’t discount your safety so easily.”

His ire was abated, and he nodded. “I’m sorry, I just…” he shrugged, looking down at their hands, at a loss for words.

“We’re on our heels, both of us,” she pulled him back to the edge of the bed, sitting next to him and pulling her hand from his.

He nodded, rubbing his fingers against his palm, his hand empty without hers. “But we’re a team.”

She smiled, a little calmer. “Yes, yes we are.”

He looked around, setting his jaw and his mind after a quiet moment. “So, how do I help you?”

His question caught her off guard. “Help?”

He nodded, somber. “I can’t… do… anything right now but read these ridiculous lines over and over and get ready for rehearsal tomorrow. But it seems like you need help, so…” he shrugged. “How do I help you?”

She scrubbed her hand over her face. She’d always worked on her own, never had a partner to play out scenarios and thoughts with, she wasn’t exactly sure how to voice her process. “Well, I… I’m trying to get a handle on who these people are. It’s… infuriating how little I know about them.” She pointed towards her script. “The more I know about people, the easier it is to catch them in lies, or pick up when they mess up details. Right now, I can hardly put a face to a name.”

“When you have dossiers,” he finally put together, “you have something to compare their stories to.”

“Exactly.” She nodded, feeling a little lighter with him taking on even the tiniest of the burden. “But I don’t have anything to compare it to, and quite frankly I’ve never had to try to weed out a suspect from so many unknowns before. Usually, I have no trouble with it, but keeping their details straight seems like a herculean task at the moment.”

Steve looked around the room and bounced up, quickly darting to his own trunk and coming back with his sketch pad, setting it on his lap to an open page and smiling as he split the large paper into four sections. “Who should we start with?”

Peggy wasn’t sure exactly his plan, but she picked the most obvious and easy to manage. “Angie.”

“Angie,” he repeated, scratching out her name across the top of the first box. “What do we know about her?” he asked without looking up, instead concentrating as he sketched out a rough likeness of her face in the corner. He nodded as Peggy listed off the few concrete facts she’d mentioned, writing them across from her picture, just like it was his own classified dossier he’d seen often enough on Phillip’s desk. Below her picture he added his own words: friendly, talkative, and nosy.

Peggy laughed, a smile on her face. “I believe ‘gossip’ would do well there, too.”

He nodded, adding it for good measure. “Anything else?”

“Not just now. Who else do you remember?”

“All of them,” he said shyly, one shoulder shrugging up. “I had a real good memory before the serum, but Howard called it ‘beyond photographic’ now.”

Peggy was astounded as Steve spent the rest of the afternoon sketching the cast from memory in quick likenesses, helping her recall details about their stories and listing them on the pages. As they completed each page of four people, she tacked it up inside the trunk’s lid with pins from her sewing kit, and by the end of the afternoon they sat staring at the entire cast and crew, laid out like any war room list of suspects she’d ever seen.

“Thank you,” she smiled, running her hand over his shoulder. “We don’t know any more, but this…” she took a deep breath, “this makes me feel like it is a little less overwhelming.”

He chuckled, looking over the nearly fifty faces. “I think it’s still pretty overwhelming, now that we’re looking at it.”

“But I don’t have to remember it all off the cuff while trying to memorize trite lines,” she added, standing and running her hand over it. “We can add what we’ve learned each night, compare and contrast what they’ve said. With a pool of suspects this big, this can only help.”

~*~

Steve was distant at dinner, despite the way he’d helped her and the smiles they’d shared after their strained afternoon. He remained thoughtful and stoic as she made her toilette and they swapped times in the small bathroom. He was still and quiet as she read in bed, sitting in the little wooden chair, staring out the window.

It wasn’t until they were both in bed, lights out, that he spoke. “Bucky used to call me a self-righteous asshole after he knocked out whatever bully I’d managed to rile up,” he started in a soft voice, staring at the ceiling. “But my Ma just used to say I was like a little bubbling pot, I’d boil over when you least expected me to.” He laughed, a little burst of something between a happy remembrance and the darkness of loss. “I remember when I was a kid, sometimes I’d just get so angry…”

She looked at him as he sighed, his long eyelashes fluttering as shadows over his cheeks, silhouetted in the moonlight, waiting for him to say more through long, quiet breaths.

“I hid it, so much, until it would just burst out, you know? I’d be so mad I was stuck inside all winter that I’d finally lash out and have a tantrum, then end up gasping for breath, my Ma standing over me and shaking her head.” He smiled in the darkness. “She’d chide me a little, but mostly shake her head and remind me that the Asthma was why I was stuck inside instead of out playing in the snow in the first place.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I got better at hiding it the older I got. Let my anger out better places, but it still didn’t stop me from picking fights with bullies or doing some idiotic thing to make a point about a school rule or some other stupid, hare-brained stunt I’d come up with when I wasn’t thinking straight.”

He turned his head, looking at her in the darkness, eyes boring into hers. “I’m sorry I picked a fight.” She nearly stopped him, but nodded instead, curious to see where he was going. “It’s been a lot—”

She laughed, a light, soft sound. “Steve, it’s been less than a week since you were picked for the Project. You’re allowed to be a little overwhelmed.”

“Doesn’t mean I can be rude or thoughtless or a jackass,” he shrugged, the blanket over them shifting. “You’re in this, just like me.” He smiled in the darkness. “We’re both on our heels.”

“I’ve never been in a situation like this before,” she whispered, reaching her hand out on the pillow between them. “I’ve always had an out, a safety, a handler who was just a phone call and an extraction point away. When whatever is going to happen here happens, it will be just us. You and me.” He reached out, taking her hand and twining them together as she continued. “We won’t have Howard or Phillips or the Army, just each other.”

“I think we can do that,” he replied gently.

Peggy turned to the ceiling, not letting go of his hand but suddenly understanding the freedom the white plaster and cover of darkness gave her to be just a little more honest. “Every night when I close my eyes, I see it again: the bullet piercing you, you falling, Erskine falling just a second and a shot later. The blood pumping from your chest.” She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. “I don’t ever want to see that again, Steve. Not ever.”

“Not if I can help it,” he replied softly, holding her hand just a little tighter.

“You won’t, not if you don’t take this just a little bit more seriously.” She turned back to him, knowing her eyes were pleading. “I know it’s not what you want, and I can’t make you want it. But we’re here now and there is a very real threat, that I can promise you.”

He nodded, closing his eyes for a second. “I can do that. It’s just hard,” he barked out a laugh, tipping his head to the table where their scripts lay, “with that sitting there, staring me in the face like some farce.”

“It’s hardly Shakespeare,” she replied with a smile, “but needs must, and while it might not win any awards, there will be little children who might somehow find some solace in the thought that a great, big super hero will be fighting Hitler right along side their fathers on the front line.”

He shook his head. “They should pick up a Superman comic, then.”

“They should look up to someone like you,” she rebutted, happy he couldn’t see her blush in the dark. “You may boil over a bit every once in a while, but Erskine picked the right man for the job. I know that, and he knew that.”

He kept her hand tight in his but rolled on his back, regarding the ceiling again. “I don’t know if I can do this, Peg.”

She didn’t move, didn’t even need to think about what she wanted to say to him. “After all the things you’ve done in basic training and in that lab, getting on stage is what scares you?”

He laughed at that, nodding. “I’ll try to take it all a little more seriously, I promise.”

“And I’ll try to do better asking for help, instead of bubbling over my own pot, alright?”

He hummed in acknowledgement and they both held the other’s hand just a little tight.

Peggy wasn’t sure exactly when she fell asleep after that, or what time it was when she opened her eyes in the middle of the night, still turned towards the no-man’s-land of the pillow between them, their hands still tightly clasped together as he slept across from her, his mouth a slack circle as his eyes danced behind his eyelids in dreams, but she knew when she woke up, still in the same position but devoid of his hand and his side of the bed empty, that something had changed last night. Whatever it was she was feeling, whatever he was reciprocating, was a danger they’d have to navigate just as carefully as they navigated the rest of the cast and crew.

#steggy fic #3p's fic #3P at the Stork Club #Saturdaystorkclub

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n7punk · 2 years

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⚡️ tis me, lightning bolt fiend, here to second that my love for she ra and catradora has only increased since I discovered your fics (may 2021). realistically yeah maybe we’re a dwindling fandom but idk a single hoe here who doesn’t recognize you as the authority on all things she ra fic. Not going anywhere 😎

hey its Still The Episode, so this might be a bit rambley and incomprehensible, but its what i've got so lets go. also i know im piggybacking off this. im aware this is about to become a tangent.

first off: thank you <3 also for your other sweet message awhile ago i didnt respond to because i was nonverbal second: fandom doesn't and shouldn't have authorities, thats a daaaaangerous rabbithole. wouldn't want it to be me and we're all just here to have fun. i happen to be a pretty prolific author who's dug into metacanon some, but thats it. not trying to come down on you, ⚡️, just don't want to leave no disclaimer here and make it seem like i'm agreeing i do/should have authority on anything, unless by authority you just mean prolific producer, which like, im sure is what you're going for even if that's not what the phrasing implies, hence the disclaimer

thiiiiird, because this was spawned from a comment i made because of the ao3 thing, ive done more research into that when my brain was a little more solid earlier in the day, before it became the soup it is now. particularly this article, this reblog, this reblog, this reblog, and then this random shitty "article" that confirmed the 2019 cutoff date from the prev reblog (which was uncited), led me to conclude that it's probably fine to unlock my fics. my understanding is sudowrites is built off of GPT-3, which was trained off public access works and a web crawl which cut off in 2019. GPT-3 was a product of OpenAI. also there's some kind of "dont scrape this" flag the web crawl is Supposed to respect, and a discord comment says they already use that on the archive, but take that with a grain of salt ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

the reddit investigation reaaaaaally makes it seem like it was trained off fanfic as one of its datasets, i dont know how the hell you get those results if not, but its probably from stuff caught up in that webcrawl, which wasn't necessarily even from AO3, and it well and truly seems too late on that. i locked temporarily in case they were still actively scouring and not yet done getting everything off the archive, meaning some of my work conceivably hadn't been caught yet and could be "saved", but it looks like they stopped scouring before i started posting for she-ra LOL

also some people seem to be encountering a bug where fics that hadn't updated in years were pushed to the tops of their bookmarks as recently updated and they think that's related to this?? as far i know only a new chapter would change the publication date. i go back and edit my typos all the time: they remaind locked by the date the most recent chapter was initially posted. idk where people got that from.

#ask #anon

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rallamajoop · 2 years

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About that Human Resources sequel

Human Resources was always supposed to get a sequel. Nothing too long or involved ‒ probably just a couple K's of epilogue-ish material, to share some ideas about how Nandor and Guillermo's relationship might progress from "well yes, we have had sex once" onwards to, y'know, wherever that goes.

So naturally, when I actually sat down to write the thing, it grew into something several hundred words longer than the original story. Honestly, I'm not even that surprised when this sort of thing happens anymore, and yet...

Anyway, said sequel is still another round of edits and some proper betaing short of being ready to actually post, but given that 1) I have been promising this damn thing long enough, and 2) it is close enough to done that I've already created the parent series for it on AO3 and everything, have a couple of preview scenes:

“As you know,” Nandor begins, sitting straight-backed in his customary chair like a monarch in the midst of a royal pronouncement, “on account of how it was all caught on film because you documentary people are now just leaving cameras around to record things in empty rooms for some reason – I and my familiar Guillermo had an encounter of an… intimate nature last night. On this very couch! And a bit up against the wall before that – but you know all this, you have all the footage and all that.

“Now, I am told that when this sort of thing happens between two people who live in the same house, and who have not done that sort of thing before in one of your documentary programs, it can be the cause of quite a lot of ex-cite-ment. So I would like to make it officially very clear that there is nothing for the getting excited about in this case! Yes, it happened – and a very good time was had, especially by Guillermo, because of course I am very good in bed – but it was mostly just a one-time kind of thing. We had our fun and all, but you must understand that it does not change anything between me and Guillermo. He is still the familiar, and I am still the vampire, even though now I have touched him on the peepee.”

“Oh my god, this changes everything,” says Guillermo, grinning in a helpless sort of way, like he couldn’t stop if he tried. “A week ago, I never even knew he was interested, and now – oh man. I guess I’d never even really thought this was possible, let alone that he might…” Sitting on his bed in his room, Guillermo is trying very hard to keep his voice to stage-whisper levels, without much success. “I know, I know – it was ‘just’ the one time, but some of the stuff he said to me, while we were… just, damn. This is serious!”

“Yes, certain things may have been said in the heat of the moment,” Nandor pronounces, “but I think we are all grown-ups here, and we understand that they do not necessarily mean anything. Maybe it will happen again sometime, since Guillermo has made us all aware that sex with familiars is an option which is back on the table for us vampires now. But it is never a good idea to let a familiar get too ‘familiar’ with that sort of special treatment, because then they get ideas above their station, and they start thinking they are too goodto clean anything that is not attached to you, and then you have to eat them and start all over breaking in a new familiar, and it is just so much trouble! No-one wants that, least of all Guillermo! So it was fun and all, but you should not go thinking it will be the sort of thing that is going anywhere.”

“…and this could just go anywhere!” says Guillermo, “Like, it’s still so new – it’s not like he’s…” he gives a nervous laugh, “not like we’ve even talked about it yet, but I just…” He glances briefly at his phone, and nearly does a double take, “I just need to get some sleep – I’ve got like four hours of daylight left before he’s… I mean, before I’m on duty again. Okay.” Looking over the camera, he asks, “Can we wrap this up?”

A brief montage shows Guillermo turning off lights and turning in for the night – or for the afternoon, as the case may be.

Come sunset, though, he’s up and ready again as usual – if a little baggy-eyed, having obviously been too excited to get much sleep. He gives the camera a slightly-nervous smile at Nandor’s door.

“Haven’t been this excited to go in here since I started this job,” he tells the camera. “But I don’t really know where he’s… you know, what he’s thinking this is, yet, so I’m just gonna play it cool – go in there and… do my job.” Guillermo self-consciously straightens his shirt, and then finally reaches for the doorknob.

Inside, he dutifully checks the curtains, and then takes his place by the coffin as Nandor wakes.

“Guillermo?” Nandor calls, voice a little muffled as he opens his coffin from within, “are you there?” When his eyes fall on his waiting familiar, however, something happens to them – Nandor freezes, mouth slightly agape.

“Good evening, Master,” says Guillermo, largely oblivious as he holds out a hand to help his master out of his coffin. “What can I… hey!”

He cuts off as Nandor bats the proffered hand away and grabs him by the front of the shirt, lifting him bodily off the floor with supernatural strength. Before Guillermo has time for more than a startled yelp, he’s been dragged right into the coffin, on top of Nandor – the lid somehow, improbably, managing to slam shut over the both of them. That one, brief yelp remains Guillermo’s only objection – the noise he makes next suggests no objections to anything now happening inside.

After a moment, the coffin itself begins faintly rocking from side to side.

#What We Do In The Shadows #WWDITS #nandermo #Nandor the Relentless #Guillermo de la Cruz #fic

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violettavonviolet · 7 months

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1 Million Hits

I'm gonna hit a million hits on my ao3 account next week, which is genuinely just crazy and I've been debating what to do for the occasion for like a month now bc I don't want to be self-absorbed but also it's literally a million(!!!) so I feel like I should celebrate anyways. I haven't come up with anything yet, but just know that I'm literally flabbergasted with all the attention... Like, I garnered 500k+ hits in the last year and it's such a huge compliment lmao

I get sappy rlly easily as u might have noticed, but I'm just astounded really. Especially because I didn't even start learning English until fifth grade. (Which was a terribly long time ago, to be fair)

When I return to some of the oldest fics I've written, I tend to cringe and I've been debating either taking them down or editing them, but I don't know if I ever actually will.

The point is, I love fan fiction, I love the community I've found on here over the years and most of all, I love writing.

(Who knows, one day, I might actually publish a book instead of these silly little stories. That day isn't today, but a girl can dream)

-- this is the point to stop if u don't want to read about my history in fandom spaces, which is apparently what this post is turning into--

I started reading fanfics bc of the German equivalent to buzzfeed were u could do quizzes and get tiny xreader fics as a result. I quickly changed over to German fan fiction.de which was my first real love lmao

The stories also got weirdly popular for the fact that I couldn't do punctuation for shit and I didn't reread my stories bc I was too embarrassed.

What luck that I started learning English pretty quickly and I changed to wattpad, until the fateful day in 2018 when I found my way to ao3 (honestly the best accident that has ever happened in my life)

It took me over a year to even make an account but it definitely changed my life for the better. I've met so many amazing people through challenges and general communities on here and especially during covid I don't know what I would've done without ao3.

I think this is just my love letter to fanfiction at this point. Like genuinely, I love everything about fandom spaces and the culture around it and I love that I can write and get feedback and read (for free, which was actually why I changed from physical books to fanfiction in the first place)

It means that for fandom, I'm actually pretty old, and everyday more people join, which is of course amazing, especially because more people are willing to actually talk about it irl (I'm ngl the first few years being publicly in fandoms was a bit rough lol) I mean, I was active in fandom spaces since what, 2014?? A while.

I've grown up with fandoms and now I'm gonna hit a million in the next week, probably on my flight to London and it all just feels surreal in the best way possible.

So thank you, I guess.

Thank you for fan fiction authors and ao3 and all the spaces where people can just enjoy being people.

this got way longer than intended but I just needed to get this off my chest

#ao3 #I dunno how this turned into such a sap piece #Like that wasn't my intention when I started at all #but yeah #thank you #and if anyone has an idea for a celebration I could do #let me know

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fictionalurl · 10 months

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ao3 wrapped [writers edition]

(as usual, I just did all of them instead of soliciting asks)

1. How many words have you written this year?

You know, I don't know! My published works come out to like 57k, I think, on a quick tally, but I have at least half that again in unfinished works sitting around. A lot of them date back to a long time ago and have work done this year that falls more under "tweaks" than "adding word count," so it's tough to tell.

2. How many works did you publish this year?

Eight, not counting some I later unpublished because they were bad. Mostly they came in bunches when I was on specific antidepressants. If I were in that state of mind all the time, I can't even imagine how much more it might be.

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

As far as published works go, probably queen of secrets, which is both evocative in the way I like and actually ties itself up with a bow at the end, which I haven't managed in any other work, really.

4. What work of yours has the most hits?

My one explicit fic (on a different ao3 account) has 3500 in a shockingly short period of time. Well, only shocking when you don't normally write explicit fic. Just how it goes, I guess.

5. What work of yours got more feedback than you expected?

None of them really, to be honest, but perhaps my Lena/Jess rarepair fic, which I would love to expand upon. (I actually have many words of a followup fic already written; the trouble is, they aren't going anywhere since I don't have a plot concept.)

6. Favorite title you used

but she likes the way you sing, a song lyric that means something entirely different in context than it does as a title from a song that doesn't directly apply, but has the right vibes.

7. If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most?

I don't, really. And when I do it tends not to be from songs or artists I'm super obsessed with or whatever, at least so far.

8. Pairing you wrote the most for this year?

Supercorp... but, being the kind of person who doesn't usually experience the original media for the fics I read, that's more a product of what the community creates and what I'm therefore inspired to riff on.

9. Favorite pairing you wrote for this year?

Not a romantic pairing, but the concept of Alice and Emma from DBH meeting each other immediately wrote itself into a 13k fic without me having to do much of anything. (I want to write an Alice/Emma romance fic with them grown up now, like in college or something, not because I have an actual idea for that, but because they're so distinct in my brain now).

In general, that's my favorite way to write: a single "hey, what if X" premise that leads to a lot of other connections one can draw.

10. What work was the quickest to write?

Hah—none of them. I take ages to write anything. Well, sort of: I have a bunch of WIPs that were basically straight off the dome, but none of them have endings, because I have trouble getting back into the mental place that they came out of in order to continue them.

11. What work took you the longest to write?

My currently-75000 word original work, naturally. On a per-word basis, probably see the thorn twist in your side, which has a really distinctive and terse writing style that I initially was writing on my phone (slow) and then was agonizing over trying to keep producing (also slow).

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

Like 20. In the past month I've started to feel like none of them are finishable, but that may be a product of my mental state, so we'll see.

13. What’s your longest work of the year?

Published: my Alice/Emma fic, which is a bit weird to me because it feels shorter than queen of secrets. My guess is that as you get better your word count naturally inflates a bit unless you're specifically doing something where that wouldn't be the case?

14. What’s your shortest work of the year?

This question reminded me that I have a triple drabble that I could post, so I did (and then updated question #2). Other than that:

it just so happens to be the cyberlife model that is the very best in the world at making believe.

...a random unposted-but-complete mediocre DBH piece that's like 1.1k.

15. What WIP are you taking into next year with you?

As mentioned, I have a lot of them but none of them feel completable in my current mental state. I absolutely have to finish see the thorn twist in your side, though, because the parts I have are just so, so good that it would be a shame not to share them. Too bad I hate works with endings worse than their middles and it's super difficult to write.

16. What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag?

Apparently "fluff," but it's a count of four, so I don't think that actually counts. I don't have enough fics or tags to actually have any patterns.

17. Your favorite character to write this year?

Probably the slightly sassy ones: my versions of Emma Phillips and Jess Huang (who both have approximately two canonical lines, because that's how I roll). My OC Cassandra, who you can read in my posted GW2 WIPs, would count if I'd written her this year.

Well... maybe my favorite characters to write are actually the characters from my longest original work WIP, because they're most like me (thoughtful and gentle and getting absolutely nothing done).

18. The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year?

Jess Huang, who in a sense doesn't exist, arguably takes the cake as having torpedoed the fic sequel the most people want. But I just have nothing on that one. As far as effort put in goes, Shae from see the thorn twist in your side probably takes the cake. I promise I'll finish that eventually so you can see what I'm talking about.

19. What’s one pairing you want to explore next year?

I have a Quinn/Rachel (yeah, from Glee) WIP. No, I haven't seen that show either. Furthermore, I've read the wiki extensively and the version of their relationship I'm trying to go for (kinda toxic post-show) isn't canon, so all I'm going to be able to go off of for inspiration is fanfics written mid-run. Kinda painful.

20. Which work of yours have you reread the most?

I've reread caramel/sugarplums and queen of secrets so many times it would be extremely embarrassing to actually admit out loud. Double digit times on both, most likely. Hey, I know what I like, and when I manage to create it, well, I've created exactly what I like. I try to feel proud of that.

21. How many kudos in total did you get this year?

718, says the stats page. 99% on supergirl fics, of course, because fandom size is a thing.

22. Which work has the most comments?

queen of secrets, because it's my best supergirl work, so I mean I hope it does.

23. Did you do any collaborative works this year?

No! I don't really know anyone who... is into any of the things I'm into and does writing stuff much yet? And also that sounds extremely difficult? But it sounds like a really cool thing in theory.

24. Did you write any gifts this year?

Kind of; I only put a bunch of time in to finish a certain fic because a friend was like "lesbians? 👀" a ton of times, and that's the one time I've really experienced external enthusiasm for my work firsthand. So that one was a gift, though not in every sense since the specifics of the work weren't tailored to them (I met them after writing most of it, after all).

25. Did you receive any gifts this year?

Nope!

26. What’s your most common category?

F/F or gen.

27. What do you listen to while writing?

Absolute silence. I cannot get into a fictional world while having anything else to pay attention to. In the dark under a blanket or bust.

28. Favorite work you wrote this year?

Same as #3 since I wrote it this year. Although... honestly, my Alice & Emma fic might be as good or better?

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

Oh boy, uh. Hm. People liked the "little shimmers of ice dissipate off of it and descend slowly around both of them like the winter's first snowfall" line, and that scene is decent, but... man now I have to go think about this. It's definitely a STTTIYS line. That whole thing is basically 500 contenders for this back to back.

"I wouldn't have been able to tell… what?" carter knows, already, but she needs to hear it.

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year?

That I did it at all! I haven't followed through on a single thing in my entire life up to this point, so, like, hitting that publish button is. Wild.

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