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secretagentspydetectiveninja · 6 years ago

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Alix Appreciation Week, day 3: Favourite Ship

Did I blatantly cheat on this prompt? Of course. Which ship? All of them None of them Wait until the very end and see. Am I cruel enough to break 13 kids’ hearts in quick succession? Yep. Am I sorry about it? Hell nah >:D

It was that time of year again.

Every shop window was advertising specially themed chocolates, cards, flowers, every radio station blasting out love songs non-stop, every pavement of every street filled with couples holding hands and using this day to be as mushy in public as they wanted without the usual repercussions. The very air was filled with the stench of romance, so thick it weighed down on everything, worming its way into every nook and cranny and smothering everyone like a blanket of stale marshmallows.

In other words, it sucked.

Alix hurried to school facing straight ahead, ignoring anything that made this day different from any other. Hopefully during class she’d be free from it, right? She could always just zone out and ignore anything the teacher was saying if she needed to.

Unluckily for her, she didn’t even make it to class unscathed. While pulling textbooks out of her locker and stuffing them into her bag, Marinette shuffled into view, a ridiculously bright blush covering that freckled face of hers.

“Hi Alix!” she squeaked, waving enthusiastically for a few seconds before clearing her throat and seemingly trying to appear less nervous. “I, um, just wanted to say hi to you before everyone else b-because I – well not that I don’t want you to say hello to anyone! N-no wait… what I mean is…”

Her face glowed so bright it was like she had eaten one too many tomatoes. Did Marinette always stutter like that all the time? Usually she only did that around Adrien, right? But then again she hadn’t spoken to Alix for quite a while, seeming to just run off whenever getting near her, so if her attitude had changed in the meantime then there was no way of knowing.

“What do you want, Marinette?” Alix said. “Just spit it out.”

She was already half expecting it. Everyone knew what Marinette’s stuttering meant. But that didn’t make it any less awkward when Marinette finally managed to stammer out, “Will y-you be my Valentine?” before hiding her face behind her hands and taking a step back.

So, the class rep herself had been hit with Cupid’s arrow in the cruellest way possible, huh? Alix sighed. “If I say no, will you get akumatized?”

Marinette shook her head frantically. “No, of c-course not! Don’t worry! I… I just… um… bye!” She ran off without another word.

Well, hopefully that would be all. Why did Marinette like her, anyway? Usually people found her intimidating. Or annoying, that too. Not worth hanging out with much. Whatever Marinette liked her for, it had to be something superficial, since no one in the class knew her very well at all.

Alix stood up on the lower shelf of her locker to reach the things she had put at the top – why did these lockers have to be so tall, seriously – only for her fingers to close around a loose slip of paper. She pulled it out and had a read.

I know you probably don’t think of me this way, but you’re so brave and inspiring and I wish I could pluck up the courage to ask you to be my Valentine in person. But I can’t. So have this letter instead, as a token of my feelings. I hope you have a great day today, whoever it’s with. ~J

Seriously? Did Juleka really think Alix wouldn’t recognize her handwriting? No one else dotted their “I”s with stars. Maybe Juleka wanted her to know it was her, though, at least subconsciously, and so didn’t even try to hide it.

Unfortunately, that wouldn’t change anything. Alix stuffed the note in her pocket, slammed the locker door shut, and looked around for Juleka. Probably best to just return this note as soon as possible before that gothy bundle of nerves spent too long getting worked up waiting for some kind of reaction.

She ran up the steps to the classroom two at a time, not looking where she was headed, only to directly run into someone at the top and bounce backwards, almost falling right back down. The person quickly turned around and grabbed her hand just in time.

“Hey dude, slow down there! You don’t wanna get hurt!”

Looking up, she saw Nino beaming down at her. Oh, thank goodness it was him and not a teacher or a snitch. She did not want to get in trouble again for running in school, or her dad would kill her for real this time.

“Actually,” Nino continued, “you’re just the person I was looking for. I wanted to talk to you.”

Still holding her hand to stop her falling, he loosened his grip slightly and gently pulled her up onto the landing.

“I made a new mixtape,” he said, not looking at her now. “It’s, uh… I could send it to you. If you want. I mean, it’s for you.”

The warm smile on his face had turned into an all-too-familiar cheesy, nervous grin. The same kind of grin that so many people had on this particular day of the year, a grin that spoke volumes about how they were feeling on the inside. A grin that Alix did not want to see.

“You made a mixtape for me?” she asked, trying to keep disappointment out of her voice.

“Yeah!” Nino rubbed the back of his head, looking at the floor. “It’s, um, a Valentine’s Day present, I guess, if you want it…”

Alix promptly let go of his hand and wiped her own hand on the side of her shorts. “I’m sure your mixtape is great. But um… could you send it to me on a different day of the year? Like, any other day at all? Any day that isn’t this day?”

“Sure…” His face was falling.

“Do send it though. I wanna hear it.”

“Um, cool, I’ll do that…”

Why did he still look sad? People always seemed to take rejection so hard for some inexplicable reason, no matter how nice you were about it. It didn’t feel good at all, hurting people’s feelings like this… but what was the alternative then? Lying to them?

Whatever. Alix gave Nino a brief smile before pushing past him and heading to the classroom. As soon as she walked through the door she saw it there – a crimson rose, lying on her desk. Oh come on, what now? Stomping over, half expecting it to be a joke, she picked up the flower and was about to toss it out of the window when she caught the faint scent drifting out of it.

No, it wasn’t normal flower fragrance… it was perfume. And a very familiar perfume.

She turned to the back of the classroom and slammed her hand down on the desk. “ROSE!”

Rose, who had been sitting in her seat at the back with a textbook up to hide her face, jumped and dropped the book with a thud. Her face was almost as pink as her dress.

“Y-yes?”

Alix clambered over the desk in between and made her way over, dropping the flower right in front of Rose. “I think this belongs to you. You seem to have lost it.”

Maybe an indirect rejection would be a better way to deal with poor, sensitive Rose, at least if she didn’t want another akuma on her hands. In any case, Rose blinked a few times with those giant eyes of hers, taken aback. Clearly that wasn’t the response she had expected.

“Actually… I…”

“Lemme guess, were you gonna give this to Juleka?”

Rose’s eyes had rather alarmingly begun filling up with tears, but the mention of Juleka’s name managed to stop her from actually crying. “Oh, well… I didn’t think of that, but…”

“You should do it.” That would kill two birds with one stone, as the saying went. Alix wasn’t even sure what would cause sweet girly Rose to go for someone like her when Juleka was already her type, anyway. Or what would cause anyone to go for her at all.

Without waiting for a reply, she turned and vaulted back over the desks towards her own seat.

Class itself was uneventful, thankfully. By the time the bell rang Alix had almost forgotten what day of the year it was – at least, until she leapt to her feet and felt the crunch of paper in her pocket. Oh yes, Juleka’s note. Juleka herself had come into class late and there had been no chance to talk to her. Maybe it would be better to get it over with now.

Alix was just turning around to go when she felt Mylène put a hand on her arm, pulling her back.

“Alix! Wait a moment!”

She had to bite her tongue to stop herself snapping What now?!

“Are you doing anything later today?” Mylène asked.

“Why?”

“Well, I was wondering if…” She was twirling a strand of hair around her finger, biting at her lip. “Since it’s… Valentine’s Day…”

Really? Was this just because they sat next to each other? It wasn’t like Mylène ever willingly talked to her outside of class time, about anything other than needing a hand with schoolwork. People seemed to find the prospect of spending Valentine’s Day alone so horrifying that it almost seemed not to even matter who they asked.

Or at least, that was what it looked like from what she had gathered over the years.

“Sorry, I’m busy tonight,” Alix said simply, shaking her arm free and walking off. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mylène curl up a little – okay, maybe there were a few genuine feelings there after all, oops. Still, that didn’t change her answer.

She headed to the back of the classroom as everyone else was leaving and thrust the note right into Juleka’s hands without even a greeting. “I think you accidentally put this in my locker.” She was sure it had been no accident, but rejecting Rose indirectly had worked, so maybe this would too.

Juleka was hard to read. The hair covering her face made it almost impossible to see anything, not to mention she was one of those tall people, so it was hard to see her face anyway. But her quiet mumbling did indicate some kind of response.

“Did you mean to put it in Rose’s locker?” Alix continued, lowering her voice enough that Rose nearby wouldn’t hear.

“Hrnnhrhhnnrhn,” Juleka said, the visible sliver of skin on her face going red.

“I bet Rose would love it. Don’t worry, I won’t tell her. I’ll let you do that.”

“Hrmmbbffrrrr…”

“You can do it.”

Alix gave her a thumbs up, then had started walking away when she finally heard Juleka actually speak.

“Wait!”

She turned around to see Juleka shuffling around nervously.

“Th-this was meant for you… but it’s okay. I get it. I’ll give it to…”

Her one visible eye shifted to the side as she trailed off.

“Hey, Juleka?” Alix said, trying to force herself to be nice for once. “It was pretty brave of you to tell me. Good going.”

Juleka smiled. “Thanks…”

Cool. Now that was sorted, hopefully the rest of the day would be free of any sorts of shenanigans, because honestly, this was getting kind of ridiculous. Whichever cosmic entity was up there firing Cupid arrows at all Alix’s classmates, they had a really sick sense of humour.

The rest of the day was not free of shenanigans, of course. Alix was heading out of the empty locker room for lunch when someone suddenly grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and yanked her up into the air.

“Hey, midget!”

She had known who it was before she even heard the voice. “What the fuck do you want, Kim?”

He dropped her and crossed his arms. “I have a challenge for you. Well, kind of a challenge. A bet thing.”

Oh, thank goodness. Finally something normal was happening on this lawless, godforsaken day. At least she could always count on Kim to be his usual annoying self. “What is it?”

“Well I wanna prove myself and no one else ever takes my challenges seriously except you, so like, I have to ask you, it’s not ‘cause I want to or anything, I…”

“Get to the point.”

“Fine!” His face had suddenly gone the colour of his hoodie – not a good sign. “I bet I’m totally a way better kisser than you, so I challenge you to a competition!”

Not him too…

She smacked her hand on her forehead. “No. Just… oh god. No. Ew.”

“I’m not asking ‘cause I want to!” he said quickly. “It’s just that no one else would do it, and like… I mean, I’m definitely gonna win, but if you somehow win instead then you can take me out for dinner or something… okay even if I win I’ll take you out for dinner, how’s that…”

“Is this all just an excuse to get me to go out with you?”

“N-no! Well… unless you want it to be…”

Alix rolled her eyes. “Jeez, at least ask me properly.”

“Okay, okay… do you wanna go out with me?”

“Nope. See ya.” She shoved him aside and left the locker room, calling out a quick, “And don’t go getting akumatized over it!” behind her shoulder as she went.

Not even a second had passed before Chloé was standing in front of her, hands on her hips, haughty smirk on that cold face. “I heard that.”

“So what?” Alix snapped.

“So, I just want to say: join the club, darling!”

“Uh, what club?”

Chloé let out a little chuckle with her hand covering her mouth, like one of those evil rich lady anime villains. “The club of girls who are too good for that loser, of course! Surely you know he’s asked me out plenty too?”

“Yeah, everyone knows. I also don’t care.” She tried to walk past, but Chloé stepped into her path and blocked her way.

“Boys aren’t good enough anyway, wouldn’t you say? So boorish and unsophisticated. Don’t you think… someone else would be a much better choice?”

She had her hands clasped together now, batting her eyelashes.

“I’m gonna throw up,” Alix muttered.

“Oh, you’re just like them!” Chloé stomped her foot and folded her arms, turning away. “So… so… oh, I don’t know! Rude-spirited! Tomboy! I thought maybe you’d be a little different today.”

Yeah, most people did act different on this day. But Alix acted the same every day, and if Chloé didn’t like it, then tough.

“I don’t have time for this,” she said, rubbing her aching forehead. “You’re like the seventh person to make a move on me today and it’s really weirding me out…”

“Hmph!” Chloé flounced off, her nose upturned.

Alix breathed a sigh of relief – only for every bit of relief to vanish when she heard a timid little voice from somewhere to the side.

“That was really cool of you…”

No, not another one, not again…

But sure enough, she turned aside to see Sabrina sidling over, the look of admiration on her face that was usually only reserved for Chloé.

“Don’t even try it,” Alix warned.

“Oh! Um, no, of course I won’t!” Sabrina looked down, her doormat personality suppressing anything she would have otherwise said. Was that bad? People didn’t like keeping their emotions bottled up, right? Maybe it would be better to hear her out…

“Okay fine,” Alix sighed, “just say what you wanna say and go.”

Sabrina nodded, still looking down at the floor with her hands clutched to her chest. “You’re really cool and I wish I could be more like you and I know if I ask to be your Valentine you’ll probably say no but I do want to so…”

For goodness sake, it was like being the protagonist of one of those awful dating sims – when was it going to end?!

“You’re right, I’d say no,” Alix replied, “but you know what? If you wanna be more like me, I’ll teach you to rollerskate at some point.”

Sabrina’s face lit up. “Really?”

“Yeah. And here’s another tip: if you wanna be like me, stop being a mushy dork like everyone else.”

Sabrina’s face fell again. “I can’t help it…”

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? No one could. That was what made it even more frustrating to have to turn everyone down.

“Fine. Just… ugh, I’m getting out of here.”

Alix walked off as quickly as possible. Maybe going home for lunch was the best idea, where there would be no one else to bother her. School was being more cursed than usual today.

She was out of the school’s front doors when she heard someone calling her.

“Hey! Alix!”

It was Adrien, standing at the door of his limo and waving at her. She apprehensively waved back. Was he about to start too? She didn’t trust anyone right now.

He ran over to her. “I’m so glad to see you – you’re one of the only girls I know who doesn’t completely fangirl over me on Valentine’s Day, it’s getting so tiring…”

Her hopes shot up again. “Really?”

“Yeah! It’s so refreshing! I…” He looked past her towards the school entrance, his face filled with alarm. “Oh no, here they come…”

Alix turned around to see a bunch of squealing fangirls running through the doors, waving posters and autograph pads. Adrien grabbed her arm.

“We probably shouldn’t stay here or we’ll get swarmed – come on!”

He had pulled her into the limo before she knew it, leaning across her to shut the door. The screams of the fangirls could still be heard, but they wouldn’t be able to see anything through the tinted windows.

Adrien quickly shuffled back into his own seat, grinning sheepishly. “Uh, sorry… They’re kind of wild, aren’t they?”

Alix just nodded. Whatever she was going through today, poor Adrien clearly had it a hundred times worse.

“I was just going home for lunch, maybe you’d like to join me?”

“Sure,” she said. Adrien probably needed a bit of sanity in his life right now.

“Great!” He smiled that sunny smile at her, putting on his seatbelt. “I just hope Nathalie won’t tell my father…”

Alix put on her seatbelt too. Yeah, Adrien’s restrictive life sounded less appealing by the second. Hopefully by being a good friend to him, she could at least cheer him up a little.

Halfway through her third sandwich, sitting at the end of the long, empty Agreste dining table, it occurred to her that Adrien had shuffled his seat closer. Noticeably closer.

“Thank you for being here,” he said, resting his head on his arm, not even eating.

“Yeah, no problem,” she replied. “I wasn’t exactly having the best day either.”

“I never have a good Valentine’s Day… but you’ve made it a bit better.”

Well that was depressing. And suspicious, too. Hopefully he wouldn’t…

“You’re, um, really cool. Different.” His hand shifted over, ever so slightly, to rest on hers, far too warm to be normal. “I’m really glad you’re here with me, you know…”

“Is this a date?” Alix asked, her mouth still full of sandwich. Adrien blushed.

“If you want…”

Date? Right now that was another word for nightmare. Wait, was this a nightmare? Was she dreaming? Would that explain why today was so unprecedentedly bad? But no, she was wide awake, and all of this was real.

“Well in that case this isn’t a date,” she said.

“Oh, okay.” Adrien’s smile disappeared, and he took his hand back. The rest of the not-date continued in an uncomfortable silence.

By the time Alix arrived back at school, she had made up her mind that from tomorrow onwards, she was making proper friends with all these kids. It seemed like she didn’t know any of them very well at all, and had also happened to make a lot of them rather sad today. Breaking hearts was nowhere near as fun as it sounded. Perhaps by being friends with them, it would ease the guilt somewhat.

Of course, her day immediately got worse when the monthly stomach cramps hit full force – “monthly” as a loose term, considering she was only 15, and her hormones did not seem to know the meaning of the word month. She rushed into the toilets and hoped she wouldn’t be too late for class.

Running out into the locker room a minute later, she almost bumped right into Ivan, who was towering there as sullen as ever with his phone in one hand and a piece of paper in the other.

“Ivan! Dude, get out of my way, I’m gonna be late for class and I don’t want another detention–”

“I wrote you a song,” Ivan grumbled.

“Uh…”

Without another word, he hit the play button on his phone. Out poured a heavy metal track that would put Kitty Section to shame. Ivan began singing unintelligible lyrics off the piece of paper – well, less like singing, more like screaming.

Alix just grabbed the phone out of his hand and paused the song. “That’s nice, but seriously, I don’t have time. But thank you for this wonderful, sibling-like performance, you’re so much like a brother to me dude, it’s great, I gotta go though. Bye.”

She handed the phone back and ran off, leaving him standing there bewildered. Had that got the message into his brain? Hopefully it had. And hopefully he wasn’t going to get akumatized over it. Dealing with an akuma attack today, on top of everything else, would just be too much.

She hadn’t been expecting anything more to happen before the end of the school day. Obviously, she was proved wrong when paired up for the next class project and sent off to the school library for research during the last lesson, and immediately began to expect nothing but the worst from her project partner. He did not disappoint.

“So,” Nathaniel mumbled, pulling a book off the shelf and passing it to her. “What’s up?”

“My level of bloodlust.”

His eyes widened. “That sounds like something Jules would say…”

“Jules? Oh, are you friends with Juleka?” She hadn’t expected him to be, considering how he always kept to himself all the time. But Juleka didn’t let just anyone call her Jules.

He shrugged. “A little, maybe?”

Alix pulled up a chair and sat down, plonking the book down on the table without bothering to look at it. “You’re a bit like me, aren’t you? We’re the leftover classmates.”

He sat down next to her. “We really are…”

“No best friends. No true close bonds.”

“Exactly!”

At least Nath understood. He was different, of course, usually being a full-on loner, not interacting with the others at all. But he knew what it felt like. Maybe, just maybe, he would relate to her in another way too. Maybe he wouldn’t be different at all on this cursed day of this cursed year.

“Can I draw you?” he asked suddenly.

“What?”

His face had gone so red it was blending in with his emo hair. “I… you’re so… I mean, I won’t make a comic or anything! Unless you want me to…”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah whatever, you can draw me. But stop blushing.”

He just blushed even harder.

“You’re still doing it!”

He looked down, his fringe falling to cover almost his entire face. “S-sorry! I can’t help it…”

“No one can, apparently.” It wasn’t blushing she was talking about exactly, and Nath seemed to understand.

“It’s okay, I’m not asking you to be my Valentine,” he said quietly. “I know you don’t like stuff like that.”

“How do you know?”

“Just things I noticed…”

True, he must notice a lot, sitting at the back all quiet. Usually he seemed to have his head in the clouds. But maybe sometimes he paid attention to what was going on down on earth, too.

“You’ll find someone to be your Valentine someday,” Alix said, hoping she didn’t sound too fake. “Now, are you gonna start drawing me or what?”

Nath smiled. “Sure…”

The school day finally ended. Was the torment over yet? Please say it was. This day had already been too much to bear. But Alix was pulled out of her rather murderous thoughts when she closed her locker to see Alya standing there, leaning against the locker rows, sporting the tell-tale flannel she often wore, and a rather dazzling smile.

“Hey Alix,” she said, throwing out a finger-gun and winking. “You look tired. Well you must be, ‘cause you’ve been skating through my mind all day.”

Alix sighed. “How many more of these have you got?”

“Plenty. If you were a triangle, you’d be acute one. Are you from Tennessee? ‘Cause you’re the only–”

“You sound like Chat Noir.”

“Uh… is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Right now, if I’m being honest, a bad thing.”

Alya grinned. “No problem. I’ll cut down on the bad puns and cut right to the chase. How about dinner?”

“I already have dinner plans, sorry.”

Alya looked at her carefully, even adjusting her glasses slightly. “Are you just saying that because the bad puns put you off?”

“Bad puns or no bad puns, my answer is still no.”

“Hey, fair enough. I hope you have a good dinner, whoever it’s with!”

Out of everyone who had asked today, Alya had the most genuine smile on her face after being turned down. Alix smiled back, more genuine than usual too, and gave her a friendly punch in the arm. “You too. See you tomorrow.”

Alya waved and walked off happily. Was she seriously okay with it? Or was she just acting? In any case, Alix put her bag over her shoulders and started walking off too – home, finally!

Well, almost. She was almost across the courtyard when Max caught up with her.

“Alix, there you are!”

She allowed her spirits to lift ever so slightly. Max liked dudes, right? At least, she thought so. She wasn’t 100% sure. But maybe he would be the first person today to not bother trying anything, and her day wouldn’t be a total disaster after all.

Of course, that was too much to ask for.

“I have a scientific experiment I need your help with!” he said. “Markov isn’t around, right? No? Good… alright, listen…” He lowered his voice. “I have never experienced an actual Valentine’s Day date before, and before I actually ask someone I have any interest in, I think it would be beneficial to go through a practice run with someone else first so that I know what to do, just as an experimental thing, and–”

“Are you asking me out?”

“Hypothetically speaking, yes.”

At least he didn’t sound very nervous about it, which was better than could be said for pretty much everyone else.

“You don’t need a practice run,” Alix said. “Just go for it.”

“But I need something first to build my expectations on! I can’t just ask out Ki– uh, someone else who I actually like, without first experiencing what such a thing would be like myself…”

“Is there, um, anyone else you can ask for help? Anyone who isn’t me?”

Max sighed. “You’re refusing, aren’t you? I understand. It’s fine.”

“Look dude, it’s not personal, it’s just–”

“You are uninterested in the fundamental concept of Valentine’s Day whatsoever, yes, I know. Come to think of it, I don’t even know why I asked you in the first place. I suppose perhaps I thought your objective point of view might help give me some perspective.”

“Uh… yeah.”

He smiled. “Well, I hope you have a good day anyway. I’ll find someone else.” Speeding up, he walked past her and out of the doors.

Alright, well that was all her classmates. Every single one of them. Surely, surely there couldn’t possibly be anyone else now. People in other classes were terrified of her, there was no way. From here on she could make it home without any more grief, without any other awkward advances, without–

“Alix! Has Max already left?”

That robotic voice flooded her with relief. She turned to see Markov whizzing over.

“Hey Markov!” she said, fist-bumping him as he came to a stop in front of her. “Yeah, Max just left.”

“Ah, I thought so. I feel like on Valentine’s Day I should leave him be to have his own adventures.”

Oh, thank goodness for Markov. He was a robot. Unlike every human she knew, Markov would feel the same way about this day that she did.

“Can I talk to you about something?” she asked.

“Of course!”

“Cool. Well, I’ve just had a really weird day. My classmates don’t even care about me that much, I’m not that close with any of them, but they all seem to have crushes on me… why? How? Like, how does that even happen? What do they see in me? What’s the point?”

Markov was silent for a few moments, processing all that, before speaking. “Romantic attraction appears to be a rather unintuitive, arbitrary human emotion. I will spare all the technical details. But in many cases, it is not necessary to know the subject well to experience attraction to them. The attraction itself involves a desire to want to get to know the subject better, much like regular friendship.”

So her classmates wanted to know her, just as she wanted to know them. They were just a bit more… sappy about it.

“As for why they all seem to like you in particular, well, there are many reasons!” Markov continued, his internal fans whirring a little louder. “As you are slightly more withdrawn, there is a mysterious charm! And yet you still have a friendly personality, and one that is spirited too. And…”

Dark blue blush circles were creeping up under his cheeks, his volume lowering.

“…while beauty is subjective, I would argue that you are rather… well, I believe the colloquial term is ‘hot’, though that denotes temperature… though perhaps that’s why my internal drives appear to be overheating…”

No way. No way. Alix just stared, unable to believe what she was seeing.

“Is this what it feels like?” Markov was saying now, the blush spreading all over his face. “I… I suppose I understand now…”

“If I ever meet the real Cupid,” Alix said, her hands curling up into fists, “I’m gonna strangle him.”

“What? Why?”

“He seems to think it’s funny to shoot his arrows at everyone and make them all fall for the one person he never shot anything at, ever.”

“Are you speaking in metaphors? I have trouble understanding those sometimes. It’s so poetic though, I would have no objections if you continued…”

His dotted eyes were slowly transforming into hearts, and Alix had had quite enough.

“That’s it. I’m not talking to anyone else for the rest of the day. I’m going home.”

“Oh… well have a good day!”

She ignored him and strode right out of the school doors.

Home sweet home, at last. Her father was out working late, Jalil was spending the night with some bae from uni, so Alix had the house to herself. She grabbed a bucket of ice cream from the freezer, went to her room, and turned on the TV to pick a good movie.

Oh, how nice it was to be alone! Being the class’s third wheel had never been fun, and being the class’s collective crush was even worse. At least the one person she could always count on was herself.

Well… it was a little lonely in here. It was Valentine’s Day, after all. As much as she hated to admit it, she didn’t want to spend it all by herself. For the first time her brother wasn’t here to hang out with, so someone or something else would have to do…

She picked up her rollerskates and lay back on the bed in front of the TV, holding them close. If there was one thing she could always, always count on, it was these skates. They had been with her through countless races, countless challenges, the very best and the very worst of times, even being akumatized along with her.

She helped herself to a scoop of ice cream and curled up around the skates, waiting for the movie to begin.

“Someday I’ll find a real friend to spend this day with, someone like me,” she whispered to them. “But in the meantime, you’ll have to do. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

#i barely even proofread this cause it got too long oops #alix appreciation week #miraculous ladybug #alix kubdel #and everyone else #random stuff #aish writes #we are miraculous #pretend this is a universe where no classmate ships are canon yet

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dappercritter · 4 years ago

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Invader Zim: Taller Tales of Terror - The First Fic That Wasn’t

This was going to be my first fanfiction that I ever published, but things came up and I found other story ideas and fandoms to get into. However, because there’s nothing I hate more than leaving a story untold and forgotten.

So like a writer jilted by a big name studio working on a big superhero movie that went terribly wrong after they left, I’m going to share it with you good folks to see if you still think there’s hope for it in some capacity. If so maybe I’ll choose to revive it in some capacity, or one of you kind folks can adopt it. Whatever you think of the once untold tale I’m about tell you, I hope you enjoy it.

The fic would have been either a mini-series/anthology or a movie-esque sequel—or two—to Enter the Florpus.

It would have followed the stranger further misadventures the kids would go on as teenagers, all of which have at least something to do with getting taller, literally or metaphorically.

Although I'd do my best to recreate the series' darkly comic tone, there'd be more to the story than just that. I'd like to do a sort of character study with my fanfics and explore what they would do as they got older, how they would change if they could change, if they'd mature and try to connect with each other more, or if they really do just hate each other. It'd be like a coming-of-age story but done in the style of Invader Zim.

But don’t be fooled, folks! It's not going to be one of those big dramatic fanfics with high stakes (nor any smut) thrown in. At it's core it's still just a fun, dumb, mildly disturbed "What if?" sort of fic. There would be a bit more emphasis on character and plot than normal, because I do love me a good character-driven plot, but still plenty of room for (what I hoped would feel like) the usual weird dumb creepy fun that original series excelled at.

The story is set in basically the same continuity (or at least the closest thing to a continuity that can exist in Invader Zim) as the show and comics. The only difference is that the Battle of Meekrob actually happened—but not really.

Long backstory short, there was a big showdown between the Irken Armada and the Meekrob-allied Resisty, but Zim and Dib missed it because a food fight got them stuck in detention. Zim tried to get Skoodge (who was rooming with him at the time because the scrapped Season 2 episodes were sorta canon here) to cover for him until her got there, while Dib tried to get Gaz to take Tak’s ship to provide support against the Irken. By the time they got out, however, the battle was over, Gaz blew the whole thing off to get a new game, Skoodge and some other Invader became the war hero Zim always aspired to be, and The Almighty Tallest decided to cancel Operation Impending Doom 2 because after the big exciting space battle they felt like they couldn’t top anything after that. Suffice to say, Zim took it pretty hard. Dib however would have seen this as something of a win since Zim still failed in a sense. Albeit it was a very anticlimactic win, even to him.

The actual story would have taken place about 5 years after the Battle of Meekrob, where Zim, Dib, and Gaz have made it to high school (or “hi-skool” as this is the Invader Zim universe, after all). Setting wise, things haven't changed much but the characters have made a few surprising or not-so-surprising developments. The most important of all, so important that it would be the focus of the entire story, in fact! would have been Zim developing a brand-new disguise utilizing an exoskeleton, based partially on the Almighty Tallest, in attempt to make him look like a normal teenager AND impress superiors. Naturally, things go horribly yet amusingly wrong for everyone involved.

Now just where and what has everyone been up to/going through in those five years? Here’s a rundown:

-Zim spent those 5 years obsessing over his crushing failure, begging the Tallest to give him another chance, which they refused every time. Being stuck on a planet of smelly, stupid, and increasingly annoying creatures for so long without any real victories has left him bitter and frantic with more shmoopiness than usual. Even the little "VICTORY FOR ZIM!" moments he used to have got harder and harder to come by. By the time he reached high school, he was so messed up he didn’t realize his classmates had all had growth spurts until Dib easily overpowered him in one of their petty fights and points it out to the whole school. Thus, leading to the new exoskeleton and subsequent schemes to redeem himself in the eyes of the Tallest while looking normal in the eyes of his human classmates. Unfortunately, due to his desperation and general lack of understanding about the human body, the exoskeleton comes out looking like a lanky robotic nightmare with clawed fingers that jerks around like a big cybernetic marionette.

-Dib meanwhile has been doing slightly better. He and his paranormal research are still looked down upon, but he's persevered through the hope that someday he'll prove he's right. After (indirectly) stopping Zim from joining the Battle of Meekrob, Dib got a small confidence boost, thinking of it as a big step to exposing for Zim real now that he’s effectively trapped on Earth with him now. Although, following a rather blunt intervention from his family, he's started thinking about what he’ll do with himself once Zim is gone. He still hates his guts and he's still hellbent on beating him, but he's also started getting out more and trying to socialize more—however awkward his attempts may be. That he's also gotten taller and his head isn't quite as big compared to the rest of his body has been good for his self-esteem too. But make no mistake—when he's not going for runs, working shifts at his dad’s lab, or looking into a “totally normal” science major, he's toiling away on improving his array of anti-Zim strategies and defenses.

-Gaz is doing pretty good but she is totally done with Zim and Dib's junk. Although she's still her old apathetic self, she's doing everything in her power to broaden her horizons so she doesn't end up in the same, stupid rut that they ended up in. She would have gotten into indie art and game development; although her work is still fairly obscure, it's quickly gaining attention for it's macabre, edgy, punishing and geeky nature. (Imagine the works of Jhonen Vasquez, Toby Fox, Hidetaka Miyazaki, and Hideki Kamiya mashed together.) She also participates in e-sports tournaments on occasion, if only because crushing countless so-called “gamers” brings her amusement. Her psychic powers have also gotten stronger with her age, and she likes to experiment with them whenever she can—usually when somebody really annoys her. She's doing fine in the story until, after a run-in with a certain unkillable spoiled brat at an e-sports tournament, sends her over the edge and she trashes the place in a Carrie-esque episode. This gets her sent to anger management therapy, and now she's trying to find a way out to avoid sitting through an endless slog of "sappy" sessions.

-Gir would still be insane.

-Minimoose would still be the ultimate techno-lifeform Minimoose.

-Zim's Computer is still tired.

-Prof. Membrane is still the greatest and most powerful scientist who ever lived but he’s also trying to make time for his family more and mentoring Dib to be the successor to his legacy he always thinks he was meant to be. That is if is experimental new immortality machine doesn’t work out. May or may not have to fend off Clembrane whenever he comes to visit.

-The Almighty Tallest are still living content, tyrannical lives. They didn't take canceling Operation Impending Doom 2 very hard because, as it turns out, they just got bored with it after a while. (Of course, Zim's repeated interference didn't help keep their spirits up either). However, they'd come up with the perfect plan to obtain absolute control of the universe AND get the feeling back: by making Operation Impending Doom 3 a thing and setting up a huge hype campaign for it. Thing go pretty well for them until Zim calls them and tells them about his new exosuit. They believe that Zim is trying to make himself look like a Tallest so he can lead a rebellion against them and get revenge for treating him like garbage. (He's not, obviously, but they're too dumb and paranoid to realize this.) So, they pretend that they're ok with it and let him carry on his merry way while they figure out how to dispose of him without making him look like a martyr figure of some sort, thus giving the other Irkens they mistreated any ideas.

-Tak would show up again in the second half and this is where it gets spoiler-y. She would come to Earth on the Tallest’s orders with a squad consisting of a reformatted Mimi, rogue SIR units, as well as Tenn and Skoodge who she had recruited to aid in her vendetta against Zim. She would subsequently reveal that after drifting through space in an escape pod, she crashed landed on Meekrob just as the battle was about to begin, and using the element of surprise, rescued Tenn from captivity and assisted Skoodge and the Tallest in devising a battle strategy so brilliant that it crushed the Resisty and Meekrob’s alliance and earned her the status of Irken Elite. She grew comfortable in her new position but could never get over her fear that Zim would eventually ruin it all again, so she waited and prepared for the day she would strike back. I don’t know how or if she would adopt an updated disguise (perhaps a hologram of her older humansona projected over her, Tenn, and Skoodge standing on top of her shoulders?) or hide in the shadows while Tenn, Skoodge, Mimi and the berserk SIR squad did her dirty work.

-Skoodge would have gone from aspiring to be Zim’s friend to being his worst enemy after Tak turned him to her side by digging into his past with him, making him realize how little his supposed old friend cared about him. Despite this he still keeps an unusually cheerful disposition—even repeatedly apologizing to Zim whenever he attacks him—and acts as the heart of Tak’s squad. He thinks of them as his real friends, so he always goes out of his way to help them out or keep the energy up. Even though Tak looks down on him because of his size, she appreciates his gullibility and unquestioning loyalty. Tenn just thinks he’s nice, especially since he’s good at keeping the SIRs in check.

-Tenn has recovered from the traumatic escapades she endured on Meekrob at the hands of the rogue SIR units and imprisonment under the enemy, returning to her usual competant Invader self—something Tak values quite a bit in an armada largely composed of egomaniacs and morons. Tenn values Tak’s companionship even more, viewing her as a conquering hero who not only won the most important battle of Irken history, but also, her heart. …Not she’ll ever act on her feelings. That would inconveniance the mission! (Although Skoodge has picked up on this and gladly supports her, thinking they’d make an adorable couple.) After investation revealed that Zim was supposed to receive the rogue SIR units instead of her while he trashed the Megadoomer that was rightfully assigned to her, she bought into Tak’s view that Zim’s very existence was a threat to all Irkenkind, gladly assisting her efforts to eradicate him.

-Mimi and the rogue SIR units have been reprogrammed to be less insane and follow orders again thanks to Tak and Skoodge’s efforts. However, Tak also had a berserk mode installed specfically for eradicating targets with optimal, brutal efficiency. Mimi still tends to glitch though. In addition to Mimi retaining her cat holo-disguise, the berserker SIRs would gain new disguises resembling either feral cats or rabid teacup poodles. (I hadn’t decided yet.) Tenn still gets anxious around them.

-Gretchen might show up again and would possibly get to reconnect with Dib, maybe even finally be honest with him about her feelings for him when she surprises him with her surprising new position at Membrane Labs: the janitor.

-Keef will… er, uh… actually, don’t get your hopes up.

Well, I think that’s everyone important. Okay back to the plot now!

So, right up front, the biggest part of the plot as well as the biggest reason why I got uncomfortable with the whole thing was there wiould be some romance in here between a few couples and that it would have figured into the plot. The most significant of all: ZAGR (a.k.a. Zim and Gaz Relationship). But I wanted to make it feel organic and even sweet without sacrificing the feel of sardonic madness but also keeping it in the wholesome zone.

I always felt like Zim and Gaz were a natural fit for each other (like quite a few other people, admittedly) because I always felt like their personalities were a good fit and they could have a lot in common. The story would follow them as they unexpectedly developed a romantic friendship, bonding over their resentment of the Earth and humanity, their absent family members, a love of technology of questionable intent, and subjugating those who anger them. It would all start with Gaz agreeing to help Zim improve his suit and his unassuming human act just to get back at Dib for annoying her. At first they’d be acting entirely out of spite and necessity, but as they spent more time together, they’d start to enjoy each other’s company more.

Gaz would be the first develop feelings, since she voluntarily rejected the concept of love instead of being programmed to reject it like Zim, as she slowly realizes how much they have in common—much to her horror. Zim would take more time but when he begins to understand how he feels about and just what these DISGUST feelings are, he’d handle it just as poorly. (e.g. I pictured a scene where Zim has such a hard time admitting his feelings for Gaz that he ends up vomiting black goo like he’s possessed or something. For comedy of course.) But they’d both start to open up to each other in the end, if only because they’re the only two people in the universe they can stand. Gaz would try to help him overcome his anxiety and stop caring as much about what humans think of him, while he would be someone that she can actually relate to.

Dib, however, would take sincerest offense to it. He’d be totally freaking out, nearly diving off the deep end to put his plans to defeat Zim into action and expose him before he could be exposed. He’d also make a point of demanding what Gaz could see in a monster like him, even reminding her of everything that Zim had done. Probably in an exchange like this:

DIB: He stole our organs! He tried to crush the planet with Mars! He kidnapped me and threatened to turn me inside out! He tricked me into helping him teleport Earth into outer space so his rulers could destroy it! He turned me into bologna, Gaz! (*holding back tears*) BOLOGNE!

GAZ: I thought you got over that.

DIB: Well, physically I did, yes, but not mentally.

Gir would be pretty on board with it though.

The other biggest plot of the series would have been Tak’s return and the reveal of her and the Tallest’s master plan to destroy Zim once and for all: kick off Operation Impending Doom 3 by placing Zim on trial, executing him, and completing Tak’s plan to turn the planet Earth into a snack bowl for the Tallest (which she still insists is a good plan, she just never got to complete it) big enough to feed them while they watch the conquest of the rest of the universe in style. Zim and the Membranes get through to her and her squad, and possibly the other Irkens, by turning them against the Tallest to stop the Irkens once and for all. Maybe.

Finally to wrap this little nightmare up, here’s a vague outline of the stories I had planned for this wannabe whopper:

-A Whole New Nightmare – Following an amusing prologue about how Zim and Dib ended up missing the battle of Meekrob, Zim finally realizes that his natural Irken height threatens to expose his façade to all the classmates who have reached proper adolescent human height. He creates his exosuit then proceeds to cause a scene when he calls the Tallest and goes to hi-skool. Meanwhile, Gaz bugs Dib about still wasting his time bullying Zim. Zim then challenges Dib to a contest of normalcy: a series of challenges that are just overhyped normal teenage things like loitering, hanging out with friends, and finally a dance-off. Whoever loses has to admit they’re a complete weirdo and admit they’re most embarrassing secret. Dib wins the first round, but after he blows off Gaz to hang out with the other kids, she and Zim strike up a nice conversation and he wins the second round. The final dance-off ends in a draw when Zim and Dib both end up looking like total dorks. The story ends with Dib and Zim standing up for themselves against their judgemental peers, but Zim ends up overtaking his big speech and convincing his classmates to completely forget about his bizarre new appearance.

-Gaz the Befriended - Zim and Gaz make a deal: Gaz helps him fine tune his suit while posing as his "NORMAL HUMAN!" friend, and in return he helps her figure out how to control her powers while posing as her friend so she won't have to go to anger management counselling. While they do drive each other nuts, they eventually learn they have a lot in common and start acting like real friends. Dib grows suspicious of their "friendship," sets out to uncover the truth.

-They Follow - Dib goes on social media to share his findings on Zim with the world in an attempt to verify all his evidence via wisdom of the crowd. Zim finds out and retaliates by joining social media as well to make himself look like a hard luck case in an effort to gain sympathy from the (basically ignorant) public. As their war of words escalate and their follower bases grow, they end up starting a flame war that threatens to destroy society itself.

-Star Dib - Hoping to find some real help, Dib sends a message to outer space looking for reinforcements. He ends up with what remains of the Resisty, who dissolved after their crushing defeat on The Battle of Meekrob. Taking pity on them, he volunteers to become their new leader. Shenanigans ensue on a galactic level.

-C for Conspiracy - Dib stumbles across a mysterious conspiracy involving Earth tech being backwards compatible with alien tech. He wants to take it on himself, but realizes that he might actually need Zim’s help. So he has to swallow his pride and ask him for help, and as if that weren’t enough he has to put up with his and Gir’s (who tagged along) antics.

-Night of the Living Prom-goers - Prom night comes along and all the hormonally-imbalanced kids are ready to go, except for Zim, Dib, and Gaz. Until Gaz works up the nerve to ask Zim out, which he actually accepts. While Gaz prepares for her perfect tolerable evening, Dib desperately tries to convince her that Zim’s up to something while trying uncover his true motives, only for her to snap at him and challenge his views on Zim. Little do either of them know, Zim plans to use the prom as an experiment to harness Gaz’s power for his own ends. But at the same time, he ponders whether his friendship with Gaz is just a means to an end or something more. Either way it will be a night they will never forget. Or survive! Probably.

-The Return of Tak’s Revenge Rises - Tak finally returns to take her revenge on Zim and the Membrane siblings. Striking them when they least expect with the aid of an upgraded MiMi, a squad of berserk SIR units, and two fellow invaders Zim had wronged in the past.

-Doomed Together - Following Tak’s strike, the Almighty Tallest kick off Operation Impending Doom 3 with a mission of utmost importance: sending in the Irken Armada to ensure Zim is destroyed once for all so they can finally proceed with absolute universal domination. Now, Gaz, Dib, and some unlikely allies must come up with a plan to save their even more unlikely new friend and the rest of the universe from the most fearsome force in the universe! It’s basically the grand finale.

And that is all there is, or was, to Taller Tales of Terror. I can’t guarantee I’ll ever revisit it, what with all the other stuff on my plate right now, but I’m glad to have finally shared the story of my first fanfic with y’all.

So, tell me, my filthy monkey maggot mutual friends. After all that horrible rambling, what did you think?

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seyaryminamoto · 5 years ago

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Rejoice! Long-Winded Anon is here with another question. You have dedicated a lot of time and chapter space developing the side characters more than many fics usually would because most authors focus much more on the main characters, bending or even sacrificing other in-universe elements to fit their preferred vision, as shipping fics often do. But you take much more care writing other characters. Was that planned? Or spontaneous in the flow of plotting and world building?

On great measure it’s spontaneous, but it’s mainly because the story has required it. I will say, I did have a lot of canon characters presence when the story started out. Often readers seemed to be just thrilled to recognize old characters in new roles, and I had been working, up until then, with the notion that the more canon characters I used, the happier I’d keep everyone, pretty much.

So, all the way back in the first arc we had Shoji, a one-time character in canon, from the Headband, taking up a recurring role in the story as clerk in the Grand Royal Dome. Likewise, Song was a one-time canon character and she took on a role that turned her into a constant presence in the story, with her own development and relationships with the main characters. Smellerbee has only featured for one chapter, but she was there anyhow. Piandao trains Sokka, same role he had in canon, but for a longer period of time and eventually vanishes for yet-to-be-revealed plot reasons. Chan and Ruon Jian had roles too, Chan a relatively brief one so far, Ruon Jian a constant but background role nonetheless: marrying Mai off to a completely unknown character could have been an easier way out, but offering a one-time canon character further relevance actually might intrigue certain readers, I guessed. There’s June’s very controversial role from early on in the story too, Toph’s first sponsor is the same guy who was hired by her parents to track her down in canon, Xin Fu. Jet’s initial appearance is brief, even if his hypnosis might have helped many readers guess he’d come back for more eventually. Even Haru, who yes, is relevant in canon but he only shows up in a few episodes regardless, gets a bigger role here as Ty Lee’s gladiator. The hammer-wielding earthbender from Zuko Alone? He’s the Twin Hammer, the earthbender Sokka fights in Garsai’s Arena, and the first earthbender he defeats.

Yeah, there were lots of less important characters even at the early stages of the story, and several OCs who didn’t amount to much. Smellerbee’s sponsor? Literally got his name from a brand of eggrolls that they used to sell in my country XD Hosang bite-sized eggrolls were so nice… and as I needed a name, that came to mind and he was her sponsor. The Spawn of the Volcano is also an OC, as is the Hallowed Rock and frankly nearly every gladiator who’s not easily identifiable. But many unfamiliar and new characters, like Kuan, Aonu and Renzhi, Kino, Tiang, Seethus, the homeless people Azula helps, Haiyan and Yang, the entirety of the Blue Pack, Hina, most gladiators introduced after Haru…? Practically all of them are outright OCs, and that’s because I really felt I would have been stretching believability past an excessive point if somehow I kept choosing to repurpose characters who had showed up in canon at some point.

To put things simply… Miyuki and the Herbalist couldn’t have showed up if I didn’t have Sokka and Azula traveling to the Herbalist Institute. Aunt Wu as well, along with Meng, couldn’t have showed up believably in the story if they didn’t go to Makapu. Even Jeong Jeong is very deliberately operating in the northwestern Earth Kingdom because that is where Aang finds him in canon. If I’d featured them in locations that were completely incompatible with who they were established to be in canon, I would have been hurting the story rather than enriching it.

So I can’t, for instance, have Onji and Hide and Shoji and basically all of Aang’s classmates from the Headband moving to the Capital when they all lived in an island in the outskirts of the Fire Nation, because yeah, maybe some would have moved away (like Shoji did)! But would they all travel and move away to the same places? Would they all choose professions that coincidentally would align with whatever Sokka and Azula are up to at the moment, so that they’re relevant to the story somehow? Seems like a stretch, doesn’t it?

I really think I just reached a point where I couldn’t stretch believability so far without risking the story’s integrity. I couldn’t just make Hide Azula’s Guard Captain, for example, when all logic dictates that there should be lots of competent firebenders and soldiers in the Fire Nation who would be far more suited for the role than a completely common boy who showed no special aptitudes in canon other than being an annoying teacher’s pet. Hide apparently would have grown to be in the military, says the Wikia, but how many soldiers does the Fire Nation military have? Soooo many… and why would we not get to know them? Why should we only stick to the ones we met through canon, when there are already so few of those and most of them wouldn’t suit the role of Azula’s Guard Captain anyhow?

That logic steered me towards OCs over canon characters in the later stages of the story. Kino, Aonu, Renzhi, Yang, Haiyan, the entire Blue Pack, Hina, Rhone, Seethus… they’re all new characters, but as long as they fit in the roles the story needs them to fulfill, there’s no real reason for them to feel out of place the way they could if I was forcing them in, the way some writers do with overpowered OCs who break all logic in the setting they’re written into. Rhone, in particular, received far from a warm welcome when I introduced his character, but his character is an answer to a question canon brought up but didn’t really address at all: Yon Rha confirmed in the Southern Raiders that there WAS a leak of information in the South Pole that enabled them to figure out there was one last waterbender there. Canon never addressed this. I’m not going to pretend my way of addressing it is the one way to go… but it’s something. Likewise, Sokka’s increasing popularity would only logically result in him developing a fanclub like the one we saw for Suki early on in the story: why should the characters in that fanclub be anyone we already knew? There are so many people living in the Capital, lots of them unknown in canon, but they’re there. Is it more reasonable for common people who live in a city to be part of this club, or for people like, I don’t know, Star, to move all the way from Ba Sing Se only to fawn all over Sokka in the Fire Nation Capital? Which option makes more sense, ultimately?

And that’s really where my logic went in the end. ATLA did a decent job at showing us the common, ordinary folk who make a living in their world despite the chaotic war. Those are the people Aang helped often, and they didn’t all need some insanely exaggerated reason to be where they were, or to be who they were. Had I dragged them out of their natural living spaces, like for instance making Jin into a gladiator? It would have been ridiculous to no end. Her role and story work in Gladiator because it feels plausible within what canon established for her. And that’s how I’ve tried to keep it for all the canon characters I use. If there are no canon characters who can fulfill a certain role? Then an OC it is!

I admit, it was a lot of fun repurposing characters, but stories like mine reach a point where you can’t really do that believably anymore. I think starting off with as many canon characters in relevant roles as possible did help a lot with capturing the interest of readers who were intrigued by how much the world they knew from ATLA had changed in this setting, but it wasn’t sustainable to do that forever.

As for focusing more on canon characters than on OCs, I’m pretty sure I’ve done that, on the most part. Perhaps the only exceptions for it are characters like Rui Shi, Xin Long and Kino, but other than them I think the core cast of the story is comprised by canon characters. I guess I might be forgetting someone important, I don’t know anymore xD but as to why OCs get attention where they would just be standing in the background in many other stories… I guess because I’m not a big fan of static characters with little to no personality. Not to say all my OCs have personalities, pretty sure I have some terribly flat ones xD but I do want my characters to feel like real people with lives of their own, whether OCs or not. So when Dong cries a river because his girlfriend Yumiko dumped him, he feels like a character whose life didn’t just begin as soon as Azula stepped into his room to inspect it. When Kino airs his grievances to Aang and Katara about how his fellow soldiers ignore him no matter what he does, he also feels like someone who’s had struggles, however ridiculous they were, before he got to know them. When Haiyan and Yang have no money because they eloped and have been struggling to get on their feet ever since, it’s clear they’re going through their own problems too. Rui Shi may not have any issues of that magnitude, but he has a very obvious difficulty: his charge makes his life unnecessarily difficult ever since she got it into her head to get a gladiator :’D And there’s next to no reason for him to be pleased for that.

Ultimately, writing an OC is no different from writing a canon character as long as you let them have lives of their own, even if simple lives. And that’s what has guided me into writing this story and the characters featuring in it as I have.

#gladiator #ocs #... secret to ocs maybe?#I dunno #anyways people need to be less afraid of using OCs if they really need them #especially in coherent roles #where you can't have anyone else #also um I've added a fuckton of my old OCs into the story since ages ago #obviously not a lot of people know or can even notice because most of them are unknown BUT #one day I'm gonna draw 'em #in all their forms (?)#because I need practice on clip art studio whatsitsname #and that's my best idea for it #so HAHAHAHA #OC SPREE GALORE ONE DAY #MARK MY WORDS!!!#long-winded anon

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syrupwit · 5 years ago

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Letter for Multifandom Horror Exchange

Hello there, and welcome to my letter for Multifandom Horror Exchange 2020! I appreciate that you’ve taken the time to read this letter. I hope that it will provide you with clarification, inspiration, or at the very least a bit of entertainment. Although I’ve written more for some sections and less for others, rest assured that I would be super excited to receive a gift for any of my requested fandoms, characters, pairings, or horror types.

Please see the table of contents below:

Likes

DNWs

Fandom: House (1977)

Fandom: Invader Zim

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Fandom: Too Many Cooks (2014 Short)

Likes

A long list of my general likes can be found here.

When it comes to horror, I tend to prefer psychological explorations, suspense, and disturbing implications to explicit gore and violence, although I’m definitely not opposed to more graphic content. I love ominous atmospheres; building, lingering senses of dread; and landscapes and environments that interact with and express the characters’ fears, anxieties, and griefs. I especially love horror with supernatural elements -- ghosts and hauntings, monsters and cryptids, eldritch deities and their cultists, magic and magic users. I’m also a big fan of cosmic horror, and the sense that characters are pitted against amoral, indifferent forces that might not even recognize them as significant enough to be hostile towards but that are nonetheless damaging to human life. Additionally, I really like dark comedy, gallows humor, and horror with a more comedic / parodic / satirical slant.

While I typically prefer hopeful or bittersweet endings for my requested characters and pairings, please go for it if you have a great idea with a darker ending.

Some horror media I have really enjoyed but am not requesting for this exchange include the short stories of M. R. James and JS Le Fanu; William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder stories; Clark Ashton Smith’s Averoigne stories; “The Night Ocean” by R. H. Barlow and H. P. Lovecraft; the connected-ish novels The Red Tree and The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan; the parody / pastiche novels of A. Lee Martinez; My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix; and the movies Suspiria (1977 version -- haven’t seen the new one yet), The Others (2001), and Kwaidan (1965). Also I really love Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. I don’t know if listing all that helps, but there it is.

Do Not Want (DNW)

Underage sex

Character or ship bashing

Hate speech or in-depth onscreen depictions / discussions of bigotry

Harm to pet animals, or any graphic animal harm (fighting a giant evil wolf or something is fine)

Characters having consensual sex when they are not attracted to each other

Noncon that goes against a character’s in-fic orientation

Bestiality

Scat

Necrophilia

Sexual activity involving worms / spiders / insects

FANDOM: HOUSE (1977)

Requested Fanwork Types: Fic -- Not Emphasizing Sexual Content

Requested Horror Types: Dark Fantasy, Folk Horror, Gothic Horror, Psychological Horror

Requested Characters/Pairings: Auntie & Gorgeous, Auntie/Fantasy, Kung Fu/Sweet

If you are not yet familiar with House or are looking for a refresher, this fanvid by AbsoluteDestiny hits most of the high points: Rock Lobster [YouTube link]. The basic plot is that seven girls visit their classmate’s aunt in the countryside for summer vacation. While initially charmed by the aunt’s quaint manners and old-fashioned home, they soon discover that something is very wrong. Things get weirder and weirder as more of the girls disappear and the aunt’s past is revealed. Innovative art design, a bangin soundtrack, and a kaleidoscopic array of surreal, absurd events and images make this film a memorable, exuberantly strange experience. Also, the aunt is hot, and you can quote me on that.

*** PLEASE NOTE THAT THE FOLLOWING RELATIONSHIP SECTIONS INCLUDE MINOR SPOILERS ***

Relationship: Auntie & Gorgeous

I’d love to learn more about the dynamic between Gorgeous and her aunt. How long had Auntie planned to prey on / possess her? Did they truly have any interactions while Auntie was alive? After the film’s ending, is there anything next for them? I’m a big fan of Subtle Menace and Vague Yet Troubling Implications, so scenes of Gorgeous going about her daily life while receiving odd letters from her aunt absolutely would not go amiss. And what’s up with the cat?

Relationship: Auntie/Fantasy

The postwar generation gap and feelings of alienation between younger/older people are major themes in House. I think this finds a lot of expression in the relationship between Auntie and Fantasy, Gorgeous’s best friend who is prone to daydreaming and ill-equipped to grasp the full tragedy of Auntie’s life. One of the concluding scenes of the film involves a possessed-by-Auntie Gorgeous holding Fantasy’s head to her breast and petting her hair while she cries; I guess that’s just very interesting to me. I love UST and ominousness and weirdness, so please go for it if you have an idea that involves any of those things for this pairing.

Relationship: Kung Fu/Sweet

These two are just cute, and a little sad. Kung Fu is the action girl of the friend group, and Sweet is a gentle, polite girl who Kung Fu feels she has to protect. Unfortunately Sweet gets attacked by futons and trapped in a clock, and then Kung Fu is eaten by a lamp. What might happen in an AU where they survive, or where the house consumes the courses of its meal in a different order? Is there a “wandering through dreamland” element to the nightmare dimension where they’re trapped at the end? Perhaps the body horror from the movie is played straight, and Kung Fu’s head and legs continue to move independently of each other though they share the same mind (agh). Who knows?

FANDOM: INVADER ZIM

Requested Fanwork Types: Fic -- Not Emphasizing Sexual Content, Fic -- Emphasizing Sexual Content

Requested Horror Types: Institutional Horror, Paranormal Horror, Science-Fiction Horror, Survival Horror

Requested Characters/Pairings: Dib/Zim

Like a good chunk of people in the fandom right now, I had my teenage love for this show revived by last summer’s movie. There’s something irresistible to me about the blend of snappy comedy, unapologetic pessimism, and hints of a more complicated universe that we just barely get to see. For this exchange, I’d be thrilled with a story that retains the lighter elements of canon, as well as something that explores a darker take on things. I haven’t read any of the comics yet, but feel free to include stuff from them if you like.

Relationship: Dib/Zim

Apparently this is my OTP. Yeah, I don’t know either. The enemies to frenemies or lovers dynamic is one of my favorites. I particularly enjoy these two as outcasts who fruitlessly seek validation from indifferent or hostile societies via their rivalry when they’re the ones who really understand each other best. I prefer their relationship to end up a positive thing for both of them, if with some rough territory along the way. Like a good chunk of ZADR fandom, I prefer this ship aged up to late teens or young adults, but feel free to write them canon age as well -- just no underage sex, please.

For each type of horror I’ve requested, here are some ideas I have:

Institutional Horror: The world of Invader Zim is full of unpleasant and draconian institutions -- for example, the Crazy House for Boys, or Dib’s school with its underground classrooms. Irken society itself is one big dystopian horror-fest on pretty much all levels.

Paranormal Horror: The supernatural is another canonical feature of this universe. <3 Does Dib get in over his head investigating strange phenomena? Does he raise the walking dead again, get grounded for it, and have no choice but to stand by helplessly while his zombies overtake the city? Does Zim acquire an unwanted tenant in the form of a ghost, or a mysterious artifact that promises to grant all his wishes? There are so many options.

Science-Fiction Horror: Haunted ships and abandoned research stations, the yawning emptiness of deep space, eldritch monsters beyond the stars... Dib and Zim can encounter all of these and pretend not to be scared out of their wits by them. Also! Killer robots, sentient computer viruses, experiments gone wrong? Anything you like.

Survival Horror: These two would make great survival horror protagonists on their own, but I also really like the idea of them being thrown in a situation where they have to work together to make it out. I really like the idea of Zim and Dib being pitted against a more serious antagonist or challenge than those they encounter in canon, and of them realizing that, despite the many canonical instances of mutual attempted murder, neither actually wants the other to die. (And then getting out with a new understanding of their importance to each other! Or ending miserably. Either way.)

FANDOM: THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES

Requested Fanwork Types: Fic -- Not Emphasizing Sexual Content, Fic -- Emphasizing Sexual Content

Requested Horror Types: Cosmic/Lovecraftian Horror, Folk Horror, Institutional Horror, Paranormal Horror, Religious Horror

Requested Characters/Pairings: Gerard Keay, Mary Keay & Gertrude Robinson, Mary Keay/Gertrude Robinson, Trevor Herbert & Julia Montauk, Sasha James/Michael, Martin Blackwood/Peter Lukas

As a rule, I’m not into podcasts. I sat down with the first episode of this series about a month ago and became obsessed within two days. (I am now caught up through Season 5.) I love the unique worldbuilding, and the way the horror feels really genuinely horrifying and modern and immediate even when it’s one of those rad historical episodes, and all the characters, and the plot, and aaaahhhhhhh I love it. I’d just really like to hear more about this universe (and characters), and all the terrible things that can happen in it (and to them).

Character: Gerard Keay

Poor, doomed Gerry Keay. I want to know more about his adventures! Canon divergence, pre-canon, something set nebulously present or post-canon -- I’m here for all of it. I ship him romantically with pretty much every character except his parents, and platonically with every character including his parents; in particular, I like him with Gertrude and Jon. If you’d like some slightly more specific prompts, here are a few:

Trevor and Julia using Gerard as a monster manual, pre-Season 3. Did they ever run into something he couldn’t identify?

AU where Jon keeps his page instead of destroying it.

Working or traveling with Gertrude, trying to relax after a taxing case but getting pulled into another one.

Teenage Gerard chasing Leitners and getting in over his head.

Relationship: Mary Keay & Gertrude Robinson | Mary Keay/Gertrude Robinson

Grouping the platonic and romantic ships together because I like both and am mostly just interested in seeing these two interact more. “Dubiously (a)moral older women on orthogonal sides of a conflict, also one of them semi-kills the other” is, like, a dynamic that could have been tailor-made for me.

Mary Keay is so deeply creepy -- her statement in “First Edition” gave me legitimate shivers. Her quest for power and attempts to control the Entities are really interesting to me, and I enjoy how they contrast with Gertrude’s more utilitarian, less openly self-serving approach. Gertrude, on the other hand… I just fuckin love Gertrude. The frail old lady exterior hiding a ruthless will and a spine of magically reinforced steel -- I swoon. (I should note that I really like stuff that explores the more vulnerable and messy sides of badass / competent characters, especially female characters. If Gertrude locks up her heart and throws away the key, etc., what could make it strain its chains...? Or, uh, something like that.)

Relationship: Trevor Herbert & Julia Montauk

Yes! Obnoxious monster hunters!! I’m intrigued by their intuitive understanding of each other and strong bond despite the age gap and different life experiences. Do the demands of the Hunt ever interfere with their partnership? What sorts of gnarly, gross, twisted, chilling, or darkly funny situations have they gotten into over the course of their travels? I love them as happy monsters in comic, if gruesome, circumstances, but I’d also be down for something exploring the darker or softer sides of their work and relationship.

Relationship: Sasha James/Michael

I was mad interested by Michael’s introduction in “A Distortion,” and Sasha was so brave with him. I’m a huge sucker for the trope where a supernatural creature protects or helps a weak ordinary human, even if it’s for a price, and for any monster romance along those lines. Perhaps these two have other encounters between their first meeting and Sasha’s murder, or an alternate first meeting? Perhaps Michael rescues her from the Not!Them? Or perhaps, in an AU, Archivist!Sasha has a very different sort of relationship with the Distortion? Or something else...?!

Relationship: Martin Blackwood/Peter Lukas

A later addition, but I couldn’t help myself. I love how amiable and sensible Peter acts even as he’s carrying out dread errands, and I felt for poor Martin dealing with Peter’s weird corporate speak and technology issues. There’s so much potential for comedy, angst, and multi-layered horror with this pairing -- the Lonely is such a strangely seductive concept even as it’s terrifying, and Peter’s relationship to it is very interesting. Peter, himself, is very interesting. Martin, I’m just very fond of, all his courage and scheming and petulance (and codependent tendencies). I’m down for pretty much anything about this pairing.

FANDOM: TOO MANY COOKS (2014 SHORT)

Requested Fanwork Types: Fic -- Not Emphasizing Sexual Content

Requested Horror Types: Cosmic/Lovecraftian Horror, Killer Horror, Psychological Horror, Survival Horror

Requested Characters/Pairings: Character of Author’s Choice

The “Too Many Cooks” short can be watched for free on YouTube.

I remember watching this when it came out. I watched it again when I saw it in the nominations for this exchange, and yep, STILL CREEPY AS FUCK. ❤︎❤︎❤︎ I love the genre parodies in this short almost as much as the gradually eroding realities / intensifying horror and strangeness. I would love to hear more about this nightmare world and how an individual character might experience it. Really, I’m up for almost anything here. :D

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