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lordmartiya · 4 months

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A More Discrete Calling Out, a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic

Summary: What if Ladybug had been calmer and more discrete in calling Lila out for her day 1 lies?

Hey, it's me again for @mlsecretsanta exchange, this year for @lajudit I'm basing Lila's characterization on her Volpina appearance, plus the idea she's just a teenager doing teenager things. I mean, who didn't do stupid things at 14? Now on with the story.

Lila was happy with her first day at the new school. She had made an impression on most of her class (though not the class representative. The poor girl was horribly sleep deprived, and there was nothing to gain from waking her up), got the class hottie’s attention to listen to her (and to top it off he was the only son of Gabriel Agreste. A possible in for a modeling career), set up a massive prank that would make her the talk of the school, and got a cute fox-themed necklace. She knew nothing could ruin her day now.

Then a hand grabbed her and pulled her in a side halley, and she was face to face with a hotirate Ladybug.

“Uh… Hi?” Lila said.

“Hi, best friend.” the superheroine said, her voice dripping with sarcasm (maybe she hadn’t appreciated the prank). Then she pulled out her yo-yo, that apparently doubled as a communicator, and showed her a video – the interview with Cesaire, straight from the Ladyblog. “Care to explain?”

“She published it without verifying?!” Lila whisper-screamed, looking in horror at the yo-yo.

“Wait, what?”

Lila started hyperventilating. This was bad, her castle of cards was going to collapse the wrong way, and she was going to need to lock herself in her house until she was twenty! Or go for that weird plan and turn her hair into a wig while fabricating some identity and use it to get a new life, and-

“Calm down and breath with me.” Ladybug said as she put Lila’s hand on her back.

And from there Ladybug helped Lila out of her panic attack. Because of course one of Paris’ Heroes would learn to help with panic attacks.

“So… What was supposed to happen?” Ladybug asked once Lila was calmer.

“Just… Just a big prank.” Lila admitted. “My mom’s a diplomat, so we move around the world all the time, and when I get to a new school I like to try and see what I can get my new classmates to believe, and with the new class full of big names and a girl that thinks I’m actually a friend of Prince Ali rather than friendy acquaintances I decided to go big, and the Alya Cesaire calling me out was supposed to be when I pulled the rag from under everyone! She was supposed to check with you before publishing, and then give me the chance to tell everyone to guess which of my tales were true!”

“Why did you think Alya would do that? Or even could?”

“Well, I thought the exclusive interview…”

“One of her friends had accidentally deleted a video for the Ladyblog, found me, and asked me for the interview to repay her. Alya had already saved a copy, but I did it anyway.”

Lila’s palm met her forehead at terminal velocity.

“Then why didn’t she hunt you down?” Lila asked. That was what she would have done, publishing such a video with the notoriety of the Ladyblog could be suicidal.

“Because when I’m involved she stops thinking things through, and rationalizes after the fact.” Ladybug replied, exhasperation (and fondness?) clear in her voice. “I mean, the whole Lady Wi-Fi incident happened because she thought Chloé Borgeouis was me in spite of seeing me saving her in my second outing, and right after she came up with the idea I had Lucky Charmed a fake Chloé to throw off investigators…”

That was surprisingly plausible, if one didn’t know Ladybug can’t conjure living stuff – something she actually had only explained in the exclusive interview. Lila wondered why the heroine was so sure Cesaire had come to that idea only after the Lady Wi-Fi incident. Better not ask, such a train of thought could potentially lead her to stumble on her secret identity and she didn’t want nor need both the knowledge and the danger of knowing.

Speaking of knowing...

“Were you into my school’s library earlier?” Lila asked, remembering the flashes of red she had spotted.

“NO! Why would I be there?! There was nothing for me to look for!” Ladybug denied. Badly.

“Well, my guess was that you have some kind of surveillance in place due the far too many Akumatizations and spotted a certain suspicious thing or were after me for the interview, but now…” Lila made a point to try and tease Ladybug if she ever had the chance again, her faces were adorablehilarious. But pleasure could wait, she had more pressing things to do. Like giving her a certain book. “Nevermind why you were there, you certainly spotted this.”

“Why do you have it?”

“There’s Chinese-style drawings of what look like Miraculous and their users, every page has enough nonsense in nyctography to make me think it’s a code based on Chinese writing, and one page had a drawing that looks weirdly like an ancestor of mine that family lore says wore that exact costume, was involved in weird stuff, and liked to play with illusions and tricks. There’s enough to make me think it has to do with Miraculous, meaning you would want it and I was in the right place to help. Also, I need to ask my grandmother about family lore.”

Ladybug blinked for a moment, processing how she just stumbled on someone who was apparently related to a past Miraculous user, then summoned a micro camera through her Lucky Charm.

“I’ll make copies of all pages, then you give the book back to Adrien before his father goes mad.” Ladybug explained.

“Wait, you decide what to conjure?” Lila asked.

“I can, but it’s usually better left to the magic. Also, no more lies about us being friends, that could turn out to be dangerous if Hawk Moth believes it.”

“But that one wasn’t a lie, it was a prophecy.” Lila replied, pointing out how their interaction had more or less made them friends after Ladybug saved her from a mess partly of her own making.

“Just… Just try and stay safe.”

________

Given the circumstances, Lila had abandoned the plan to impress Adrien. Sure, he was cute and well connected, but a boy she barely even knew wasn’t worth a friendship, even a tentative one. Though she had given him a scare by asking him where the book was before giving it back – seriously, that was an obviously antique book. And you keep antique books safe, no matter how much or how little someone was willing to pay (and if someone had paid three millions and two hundred thousand dollars for Action Comic #1, she didn’t even want to Imagine how much this book could be valued if the right people found out about it).

The next day at school she had been approached by Gabriel Agreste’s secretary (and almost certainly the actual bodyguard. The other guy was large and intimidating and moved quite gracefully for someone his size, but this woman looked like someone who had killed before), who informed her the scare was the only reason Adrien was simply grounded after school for a week and politely asked not to do anything like that again.

Then, after collecting herself from the second most terrifying encounter in her life, she went to class and fessed up on the attempted prank chain – better face some anger now rather than face a castle of cards that could collapse the wrong way and turn her into a pariah any moment. And of course Alya Cesaire was pissed.

“Alya, did you check with Ladybug before publishing that interview?” said the pigtailed and really cute class representative, one Marinette Dupain-Cheng, right as the Ladyblogger was about to start.

“Uuuuhhhh…” Cesaire replied, her rant stopped before it could start.

“It’s my fault. I thought she could contact Ladybug with ease, and did the wrong thing.” Lila admitted.

“If I could I’d have already asked her her real identity.”

“By how she reacted to the interview, and no, we’re not friends” or rather she wasn’t gonna admit it in public now that it was true “that would be the fastest way to piss her off.”

“But how can she get rewarded for her heroism?!”

Oh. Good intentions and utter ignorance of how countries dealt with that. There were international regulations about that, as nobody wanted to either enrage a superhero or force them to quit to make a living.

“Obviously through the special account she got from the City of Paris, with money coming from either the state police or the defense budget, as per United Nations regulations.” the blonde Chloé Borgeouis, class bully and daughter of the mayor of Paris and the Queen of Style, obnoxiously pointed out. And reigniting Cesaire’s anger by pointing out that fact in the worst possible way without being vulgar.

As Marinette moved in to prevent an argument, Lila decided she liked it there. Sure, it hadn’t gone as expected but her classmates were interesting in the right way. And who knew, maybe she’d get to stand out for more than her mother or her tales.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous #miraculous lb #ladybug #tales of ladybug and chat noir #lila rossi #marinette dupen chang #ml secret santa

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whetstonefires · 7 months

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💖🎶🛒

For the fanfic ask meme :3

💖 What made you start writing?

I...okay so there's a dumb literal answer to this I'm going to give first. My sixth grade English class was a two-semester-long creative writing seminar, where we were honestly taught almost nothing; the teacher just. Made us write things. Whatever things. For months.

She was incredibly patient with our baby shit, looking back, although when two of her students started writing execrable sixth grade poetry she set us on each other so we could get feedback without her, and managed not to make it obvious she was trying to escape the horror of sing-song childish scansion and the way kids that age take themselves horribly seriously and you have to not laugh.

Her name was Keely and I owe her, because up to that point I had refused to write my ideas down because if I slowed down enough to get a sentence written out I'd have forgotten all the bits that came after and the story was now dead and stupid and it was the worst, so writing was clearly not for me.

(I couldn't really type at this point, and didn't have reliable computer access anyway, and I'm left-handed, which makes writing longhand slightly slower and more difficult no matter what you do. Also you just don't write fast when you're ten.)

But Keely made me, for months, and it turned out this was a skillset I'd just had to work to acquire, and then I could do it and it wasn't a miserable soul-killing process after all. That's the first time I remember learning that lesson in life, and it's such a useful one. (Technically I went through a similar process with reading several years earlier, but that was partly because some very bad pedagogy put me off it at first, so it was less enlightening.)

Less prosaically, I got stuck on writing because I was a voracious reader and I kept thinking up stories, and writing them down was rewarding.

I find it's a great craft because you can get in all kinds of practice without actually doing it; you can string and edit sentences in your head when you have nothing to do or while doing something boring, and critique fiction you're exposed to, and try to understand literally anything you experience, and it's all applicable. As someone who gets frustrated with 1) materials consumed 2) skill plateaus and 3) having a Thing around after having made it, writing in the era of the word processor and cheap data storage is ideal, because it's both easier to keep my skills growing and harder to notice when they aren't than with most creative outlets, because I can store all the millions of words I've written in an object the size of my thumbnail, and because it's not supposed to do anything useful in the first place. If it does that's a happy bonus but if it doesn't I don't have to feel bad.

Fic is nice because it's got an audience to share the Things with, which makes it even better. And because you get to start at around the complexity level of a third or even fourth draft, skipping a lot of grunt work that I think is honestly overvalued--not that it's not valuable or important skill to have, especially if you want to be a novelist, but also there's a reason people on the whole mostly tell familiar stories over again, but better. The first go will suck in basically any medium. Insisting on starting there every time can lead to subtler skills getting underdeveloped.

🎶 Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

Occasionally? Most of the time it would just be a distraction I'd have to work through, setting myself up for sensory overload and maybe a migraine.

But when I do it often is a single song on a loop, because the point is that I'm keeping myself suspended in a particular vibe as I pursue a specific scene or character relationship or something. Hasn't happened recently, but I should maybe pull that trick out and see if it helps with any of my stuck pieces.

I seem to recall writing something once to about 19 iterations of Dessa's 'The Lamb?' Oh and several passages of Angels Still Have Faces were written to the Sonata Arctica song I took the title from; it helped me get Angeal to the right state of repressed extreme melodrama.

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

Um. Food? Definitely food, between my strong opinions about subsistence informing social priorities and my personal sense that meals are both a major part of the daily pattern of life and very grounding in a place and body, I come back to it endlessly. 'Two people in a room (or other defined space granting privacy) trying so so hard to communicate' is, you know, pretty common motif but I go embarrassingly hard on it.

I'm a sucker for certain flavors of angst, and for when someone is very hopeless and then someone else gives them support. I think maybe people breaking down and asking for help and then actually getting it? And just how gross and messy it feels to be miserable and how much of it happens in the body.

What else? I feel like a third party would be better able to call me out on my patterns. A lot of them after all are the patterns of my thoughts, to a sufficient extent that I experience the universe in those terms by default and that's why it keeps being there.

When I describe hugs I tend to be very precise about where everyone's arms are because I feel like that's important. I try to be specific about features of nature like the species of a bird or tree or whatever, unless the pov character wouldn't notice such a thing, and even then I often know for the sake of precision. Lots of hand gestures, and putting of one's hands on pieces of scenery and so forth, that's my theater background coming through mostly. A tendency to emphasize the kinetic relationship between objects perhaps a bit more than usual.

If I'm describing a character that has an existing visual form, I drill in on the most distinctive details I can find; this is probably by way of mild face-blindness meaning I care a great deal about whether someone has a crooked eyebrow or distinctive dimpling or something, because I'm not going to learn their face fast enough to get away with not being able to id them and call them by name until then. It usually takes months.

Diana Wynne Jones advised making sure your mental image when you describe something, especially a place, is as precise as possible, so you won't decline into abstraction, and I've found following this advice to reliably net good results. If you only know about the things you actually mention, things get flat real fast.

(The trick then is not getting bogged down in deciding which things to mention.)

I dunno, what would you guys say are my signature moves?

#ask #hoc est meum #corgisenpai #ask game #writing #fanfiction

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everlasting-rainfall · 6 days

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Welcome back River 💗 Hope your doing ok and drinking plenty of water ^^

I really enjoyed reading your new fics ; I especially enjoyed reading yandere Luffy and Sanji (you got me shipping them XD ) and the way Koby had me convinced that pirate love river did set up captain starfish demise (seriously love reading that one )

I really enjoyed reading your aus fic from crossing to zoo (I also enjoyed reading your platonic fic )

yandere Sabo made me laugh poor boy can’t catch a break hahah 10/10 you did an amazing job writing him , I can imagine him being like that if he was a yandere ^_^

hope your doing ok 💗

Hey! It’s nice to get a message in my inbox from ya and sorry that I haven’t been talking to you in our DM’s as I’ve been dealing with some personal issues that have brought up a lot of anxiety for me about random shit but don’t worry! I’m 100% safe!

There’s no need to worry at all and everything is going to be absolutely fine with me! And that isn’t me being like that sweaty smiling character who keeps glancing behind them in a horror movie while trying to convince everyone that there’s no monster like genuinely, I’m gonna be fine

Things are just stressful right now in all honesty and I’d rather not get into it too much as it’s my private life

I’m glad that you enjoyed my new stories as well! I actually felt really insecure about a lot of them like the Koby one especially as I felt like a mischaracterized him big time to the point where I was just like “Fuck, this is awful…”

I am glad to hear that it was actually pretty good though and I’m also happy to hear that that I’ve turned you into a LuSan shipper as it’s one of my favorite ships in One Piece in all honesty! Like one of my many fankids is actually their kid with Sanji being her Mom

Also I am glad that you liked the platonic fic as well because G8 is one of my comfort arcs like I got sick with a sore throat a few days ago and just wound up on my side watching my favorite episode from it because the characters really make me feel safe and comforted

So I decided to try share that with you all too in the form of a Familial Yandere Fanfic about them! I hope that it did manage to spark a little bit of that same energy as I thought that the ending alongside the rescue from those evil NPC’s was very sweet if not scary in a Yandere sense

I very much struggled with the Sabo story too like I was half tempted to be like “Fuck, I can’t do this…” but then came that idea and all turned out okay!

Plus I can see Sabo going through like twenty stress balls in a day if he’s fighting his Yandere urges like the people around him are just staring wide eyed as he pops another one, grabs a new one, and then pops that one like two squeezes later

Also I am trying to drink a lot of water so thank you so much for reminding me! If you would like to talk more though then I think some of my anxiety is wearing off a little and I do have this Poppy Playtime x One Piece thing that I can tell you about in DM’s if you’d like!

Anywho, I’m gonna get back to trying to wind down with some Animal Crossing but I am glad to see that you still like my stories! And sorry for not talking to you much in DM’s

And for anyone else whose reading this part then feel free to send me a message in DM’s if you’d like to chat or listen to me ramble endlessly about my many OC’s

Or send me a message for the Discord Link and I’ll send you one back to join! But remember! No minors allowed!!

#the rain talks back #minors dni #one piece oc

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moonjxsung · 5 months

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omg i heard we were trashing exes.

i'm gonna try to keep this short but i was with this piece of shit for almost four years so he did quite a lot of damage and trauma.

my first bf was in high school, i was vvvvv clueless about serious relationships and what was normal and what wasn't. anyway,

man said ily like two weeks in, told me we'd get married, bought me things as his way to get me to not be mad at him instead of actually apologizing for what he did. he had me convinced that id be nothing without him, that no one would love me the way he did and wouldn't love me after him cos of how much he fucked me up.

he had a serious god complex and really put himself on a pedestal, he was the smartest person and would not hesitate to bring others down for his own gain. even me his own damn gf. (keep in mind we dated in high school and now i'm 22 and he's still the same to this day.)

i grew up being called dumb and stupid by my peers so he used the fact i grew up believing i was a dumbass to his advantage to convince me that he's smart so he knows what's best. he looked down on me, talked down to me like i was a clueless child and he was simply leading the way.

even if he knew little to nothing about my friends and family cos he never tried to get to know them he would take the opportunity to shit on them whenever i'd rant about issues that came up. he tried to control which friends i was allowed to hang out with by making a good and bad friend list and showing that to my mother.

(at the time our relationship was rocky and she reached out to him cos she wanted to know i was okay. instead of telling her that she could trust me he makes a fucking list)

he ruined relationships with friends we shared, eventually isolating me from everyone. he became my support system and only friend.

bro had me feeling like anything and everything i did was wrong. looking back he never went out of his way to get to learn about what i liked, my hobbies and shit but was more than happy to give me every little detail about his interests when i'd ask him. he criticized everything i liked or did.

bro was the definition, the human fucking form of a manipulator, gaslighter and overall toxic human being. love really makes you stupid and blind to the fucked up shit that happens in a toxic relationship so it wasn't till i got out that i realized the shit he did to me wasn't normal (don't even get me started on the other shit that would literally need a big ass trigger warning)

my ex after him was 10x better but even if that ex did the bare fucking minimum of communication, respect and being a decent human i was like "omg this hasn't happened before" "omg is this normal?"

this ex was actually great but the fact i was in awe of the bare minimum means the toxic ex really had my bar on the floor

anyway ily star

~ 🌸

BESTIE :( I am so fucking sorry oh my god he sounds like absolute fucking SCUM :( the fact that all of us have a horror story about some ex is actually so alarming like WHAT is it with men that they just go around treating everyone like fucking garbage WHYYY are you even seeking out a relationship then???? And then people wonder why we love forms of escapism like fanfic or romance as a genre bc we love imagining healthy love and intimacy… as a form of escape from the complete opposite we’ve been dealt 🤕 I hope you’re far far away from him now & staying both safe and healthy!! None of those shitty ass fucking men deserved you anyway and I’m manifesting so hard that you find someone actually worth your time who gives you all the love n respect you deserve. Swear we could make a fucking emotional support group on here with how many of you guys have horror stories abt men 😭😭 sending you all my love annonie I hope you heal from all you’ve been dealt :( I love you always 🫂💓🫶🌙⭐️

#🌸 anon #ask

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truly-hopeless · 5 months

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The Barbie Bug Bit Me HARD And I Can't Decide What to Write

So as I mentioned near the end of this post, I want to start writing for Barbie (well, I say "start," but I have one up already, albeit a short one inspired by a song from a musical that I'm not super fond of and may rewrite) to break the monotony of only either writing Death Note or my novel. I watched and loved several of the princess/fairy tale Barbie movies as a kid and still think fondly of them today; finding out that some of the movies share voice actors with Death Note (a brainrot that has lasted for four years now) was a neat bonus and has helped renew my interest in Barbie, as did the live action movie that came out this summer. So I have a lot of ideas for stories I'd like to tell using the characters, some recent while a couple others have been marinating for a couple of years now. But with the new limit I'm putting in place to make sure stories will actually get finished, I can only pick ONE of these ideas to write for now and I can't decide what I want to write. So I'm going to tell you, who is reading this, a little about the stories without giving too much away about the plots and then ask you to pick which one you'd most like to read out of the choices.

Threads and Seams: Retelling of the Princess and the Pauper, but told from multiple perspectives and with things diverging heavily from canon as early as chapter one when Preminger's attempt to expose Erika as an imposter and blame her and Julian for Anneliese's disappearance backfires HORRIBLY. Will also be a little dark.

Untitled Changeling!Erika AU: Another Princess and the Pauper retelling, except Erika is a fairy who starts to learn more about herself and grow into her powers as she impersonates Anneliese. A lighter fic than the previous idea, but there is a small amount of body-horror planned and some other fairies introduced as supporting characters can be tricky.

From Violet to Fly Trap: A young woman wakes up as Princess Luciana from the novel "The Island Princess," which diverges heavily from the Barbie Roberts movie she enjoyed as a child and ends on a sad note since the author died before she could finish it. With her knowledge of what will happen, Luciana is determined to make sure Ro gets the happy ending she deserves...even if she has to outvillain her mother in order to do it. I've been reading a lot of webcomics where someone is reborn into a novel that ends badly and/or as a character that will suffer A LOT and, upon realizing this, does what they can to avoid this fate and ends up changing the entire story. And since I also have an evil part of me that wants to write bad endings to light-hearted things and make myself and others cry, I thought, "Why not combine the two? Create an angsty mess for the protagonist to clean up?"

Barbie In Danganronpa: Pretty self-explanatory, Barbie and her friends are trapped in a school and are told that the only way to get out is for someone to get away with murder. This is one that I've been thinking of for several years now, jotting down character notes, going back and forth on who should live or die, and I have the prologue and two out of the "six" chapters (if you've ever played Danganronpa, you'll know that there are two parts to each chapter, and the fanfics I've seen also have each game chapter last for several story chapters) outlined. This will utilize characters from My Scene to fill out the cast and I also have several ideas for alternate endings. May or may not try to incorporate visual elements, if I can either learn to do it myself or commission someone to do it.

Missing Scenes: My Scene Existential Horror AU. My idea is that it starts out light, showing literal missing scenes about things we know likely happened off-screen (stuff that could act as stand-alone one-shots), but then gets dark once the real world changes to the work (dolls being replaced or discontinued, personalities being rewritten, even changing styles) start to impact the fictional characters, particularly Barbie's replacement Kennedy. May make this a script and try to see about making this an analog horror, but considering my struggles with Death Note: Legacy that might not happen.

Survival Guide For The Vegetarian Vampire (title may change): My Scene Romantic Horror Comedy AU. River has hit rock bottom. He's struggling to find work as a musician, his girlfriend has dumped him, and he can now longer go outside during the daytime without his skin breaking out into horrible boils and he can't feel full no matter how much he eats or drinks. Thankfully, his roommate and long-time friend Chelsea is there to help him out, but will she continue to stick around when they both find out just how much he needs her? Crack idea I had at work that grew legs along with a not-crack ship attached (the diary entries said that long before River and Barbie got together, Chelsea had a crush on River before he let her down gently and she realized they were better as friends; I feel it'd be ironic if the tables were turned in adulthood, but Chelsea is 1. not ready for a new relationship [I'm not fond of positively portraying adultery/infidelity, so she and Hudson will have been apart for a few years, though I haven't figured out the specifics such as if it's because of a break up or death] and 2. unsure if River actually likes her now or is just on rebound or only interested in her blood or both).

So which of these should I focus on first?

#fanfiction #writing #barbie #barbie as the princess and the pauper #barbie as the island princess #my scene #alternate universes #horror #romance #drama #comedy #fantasy #thriller #tumblr polls

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himevampirechan · 1 year

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Vanishipping/Revolutionshipping fanfic:"Part-Time Job Chapter 1

I couldn't stop thinking about this idea when I saw Remi Malek dressed as a pharaoh. Tthis fanfiction is in the canon universe of Yu-Gi-Oh! but the story, as we know it, is changed by a single detail:

The millennium puzzle was never solved.

English is not my firts language but a trying to be better.

Enjoy.

"Part-Time Job"

Chapter 1

Why? Everything it had simply gotten out of control.

One second she was delivering her order to a boy and the next she was soaked from head to toe in soda and out of a job. Damn her customers' jealous, hysterical girlfriends!

Her job at Burger World was simple to do: bring burgers and fries with a smile to hungry consumers for them to enjoy. The smile was like a part of her attire and yet that girl had not stopped blaming her for being “cheeky”.

"As if I'm interested in flirting with customers, especially when they have girlfriends" she thought with a grunt stopping and looking once more at the paper she clutched in her right hand.

"SECURITY GUARD WANTED"

Once the manager of Burger World had put her, and her belongings, out on the street, a kindly old man had approached and with a smile had given her the announcement.

She looked up uncomfortably. Her blue eyes slid down the front steps to the huge marble door that read “Domino City Museum” in big black letters.

She couldn't believe than she had actually gone. She had officially freaked out!

She was there hoping to get the night guard position at the city museum because it was her last option, she needed the money and for a College school student there wasn't much to choose from!

Anzu shivered as a blast of cold air rushed down her back. With the night so late, the November weather was merciless. Shrugging her shoulders, she took a deep breath and walked towards the main entrance, hiding her face in her scarf.

The museum was about to close and only a few people remained inside due to the cold weather. Anzu smiled pitifully, realising that thanks to the guides, the last visitors would be forced to empty the building.

She didn't know where she should ask for information about the vacancy, she turned around herself trying to locate an information desk or any museum worker.

"Oh you really came!" exclaimed a voice from behind, startling her. Anzu turned her face to find the same old man from the restaurant. He was a rather short and curious man, wearing green overalls and a funny orange scarf over his tousled and graying head.

"I'm quite glad" continued the older man, folding his arms and looking at her with his big violet eyes.

"And you're early too" he exclaimed admiringly, looking for a few seconds at his wristwatch "That proves then that you're a dedicated person."

"Thank you" Anzu smiled apologetically at the compliment and was surprised at how pleasant it was to talk to him.

"Oh come on you don't have to be so shy!" invited the old man smiling encouragingly "After all if you decide to keep the job we'll see each other quite often".

"Well, that's a bit hasty, don't you think Sir?" Anzu laughed encouragingly.

"Oh no! Don't call me sir. That makes me feel old!" he exclaimed with a grimace of horror, the chestnut laughed loudly at her face.

"But...I don't even know your name," the girl clarified with a huge smile. The old man suddenly stopped grimacing and stood still as if he had seen a ghost.

"By Osiris, it's true!" he shouted causing the brunette to burst out laughing again. Their laughter echoed through the large room.

By now the museum had closed its doors and there was no one but them in the main hall. Anzu surveyed the room with new eyes... it no longer looked as huge as it had at first seemed. An impression generated, no doubt, by the nerves and uncertainty of a new job.

"I am Anzu, Mazaki Anzu" She said bowing to the old man "I am here for the vacancy of night guard."

The old man looked carefully at the girl in front of him. She was very young, probably just old enough to work, but when he saw her in the situation that had led to her dismissal she had looked so broken that he doubted she worked for mere pleasure... he had deduced that she needed the job to achieve something truly great.

She was well-mannered and quite pretty: with beautiful blue eyes and silky brown hair, her appearance was striking for a Japanese woman; no doubt it had caused her far more trouble than the afternoon's commotion at Burger World.

The old man smiled, giving her a thumbs up as a job candidate, especially since the job wasn't for just anyone.

"It takes someone special..." He thought combing his beard with his fingers "...for a special job."

The girl looked up confused by the old man's lack of response. This gesture brought the man out of his thoughts and he bowed respectfully.

"It is a pleasure to meet you Anzu. My name is Sugoroku..."

"MUTOU!" shouted a male voice startling them "There you are I've been looking all over the museum for you!"

Anzu clenched his fist over his chest. Damn! She had felt her heart skip a beat in fright. She looked up watching as a young man approached almost at a trot to where she and Mr... Mutou were standing.

"I'm so sorry Marik" the older man replied with a smile, pointing at her with a thumb "I got distracted."

"You old pervert," whispered the boy, giving Mr. Mutou an unpleasant look. Then he turned his gaze to Anzu.

The brunette froze in place as she was stared at, the boy's tabby eyes surrounded by a thick layer of eyelashes. They were so thick that she couldn't tell where the lashes ended and his strange eyeliner began. The tattooed lines stood out against his smooth brown skin and made his tousled blond hair and the piercings in his ears even more striking.

The boy was attractive...

"Look girl, the museum is closed. So you'd better go home," he explained, dismissing her with a wave of his left hand and returning his attention to the old man.

What a lout brat! Anzu felt her ears redden with anger.

"I'm sorry but I'm not here to visit" She replied firmly drawing the attention of both men "I came here for work".

Sugoroku Mutou watched the girl's posture with interest. Anzu looked rather confident with her chin raised and fierce eyes fixed on Marik, the boy sighed boredly paying no attention to what the chestnut said.

"The vacancy has already been filled," Marik said without any consideration. With growing pleasure he noticed how the chestnut's posture broke.

Anzu felt a dead weight on her stomach. No way, this job was her last chance, she needed the job!

"PLEASE, I NEED THIS JOB!" shouted Anzu suddenly making both men jump in shock. "I'll do anything to get it!"

"I already told you the vacancy was filled. So do us a favor and leave" Marik clicked his tongue ignoring the girl's forlorn expression outright, Mr. Mutou scowled at him silently reproaching him for how rude he was being to her; an expression the blond took it upon himself to ignore as well.

"PLEASE!" pleaded Anzu once again feeling in horror as her eyes glazed over "I'LL DO ANYTHING!"

This time Marik couldn't ignore her face no matter how hard he tried, with growing concern he watched as the girl's blue eyes filled with tears. Sugoroku watched the chestnut's face sadly thinking how normal it was for her to cry. In one day she had already lost two jobs.

"I...I'm sorry...I...." Stammered Marik unconsciously playing with his right earring, feeling bad for her. Time seemed to stand still for a few seconds.

Anzu had closed her eyes as she clenched her fists against her chest, silently pleading. She felt as if someone approached from her right side and stared at her, then something soft brushed her cheek wiping away one of the tears that had come in her despair.

She opened her eyes shocked by the contact and noticed with wide eyes that Marik and Mr. Mutou were still in the same place as before, looking at her with surprised expressions.

If they hadn't moved, who touched her cheek then?

"If she really wants the job, we could give her a few days trial run" Someone exclaimed from the end of the room. Anzu jumped in place mentally chiding herself for how prone to surprise she seemed to be that night "Alright Mazaki, that's three times now."

"Sister" Marik whispered turning his attention ruefully back to the woman who had spoken.

Sister? Anzu wondered in surprise, but they didn't look anything alike!

The woman walked towards them, her long black hair swaying with every step she took, and she never took her eyes off her. Anzu shrank back once she was in front of her, she was gorgeous!

"If the job pleases you we could open one more vacancy" The woman continued smiling kindly at Anzu "Are you interested?"

Anzu snapped out of her astonishment and smiled hugely.

"Yes, yes I am interested!" She replied quickly holding back the urge to dance in excitement. The brunette stared at her with her blue orbs and an interested smile formed on her lips.

"Mr. Mutou" Whispered the brunette turning her gaze back to the older man "Could you take Miss...."

"Anzu Mazaki" the brunette hastened to add blushing for interrupting.

"Sure, Miss Anzu to the office so we can talk about work more calmly" Sugoroku nodded with a smile to the black haired woman and gesturing to Anzu invited her to follow him.

Anzu smiled hugely and bowing to them, followed the old man. Marik and his sister watched intently as the two disappeared through the door at the back.

"Sister..." whispered Marik looking at her with interest "...The one from a moment ago was HIM?"

The brunette nodded momentarily erasing her smile. Marik turned his face once more down the path where the old man and the brunette had disappeared.

"This is going to be interesting," he said with a grin, crossing his arms.

See ya in chapter 2 ;)

@revolutionshipping @chocolapeanut @week-of-revo @itsmechmech @itsdanystormborn

#atemxanzu #yugioh fanfiction #pharaoh atem #yugioh atem #anzu mazaki #tea gardner #yamiyugixanzu #revolutionshipping #vanishshipping

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hiccanna-tidbits · 1 year

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@jackunzel-time

Jackunzel Month Week 4 - Fairy Tales Beauty and the Beast

***

AKAJSIFEBPYBGU NOT ME PLANNING A JACKUNZEL ONE SHOT FOR JACKUNZEL MONTH LAST YEAR AND NOT GETTING AROUND TO WRITING IT UNTIL THE END OF JACKUNZEL MONTH THIS YEAR OMG

Anyways, it’s here!!! I finally did it, it’s here!!! I was gonna write two other little drabble things for fairy tale week, but honestly?? *Collapses*

I MEAN I’LL DO THEM I PROMISE I’LL DO THEM but ain’t no way they’re getting done on time XD

So basically the story is that I saw this post last year and just. Immediately came up with a Jackunzel Beauty and the Beast-type AU to go with it in my head. At first I was like “UGH great another fanfic idea I’ll never get around to writing” and then I was like “BUT WAIT!!! Jackunzel month!!! I’ll write it then!!!” and then I just. Didn’t. XD

But then THIS year I was like “ENOUGH DILLYDALLYING BITCH YOU GONNA DO THIS” and then I guess I actually did??? Took like a week of late-night writing sessions and intensive spooky ambiance, but IT GOT DONE.

So without further ado, enjoy this bout of literally-star-crossed celestial angst! I also took a lot of inspo from the Corrupted Nightmare Jack AU here, as well as the beast from Over the Garden Wall. Kind of going for what Jack could have become if he really did join up with Pitch, even if he doesn’t exactly here. Hopefully the design I used for him is sufficiently spooky!! And tragic!! :’)

Might go without saying, but CW for a little body horror here. It’s beauty and the beast, tho so I feel like that comes with the genre XD

Fic under the cut! As always, moodboard pic credits available upon request!

***

The Sunbringer and the Shadowkeeper

The Sunbringer shivered as she made her way through the murky forest.

It felt like she’d been walking for hours and made it nowhere. The woods never changed—always the same crooked, barren tree silhouettes, their topmost branches forming jagged windows into a vast and endless night sky. Peat and old leaves squished and crunched underfoot, sometimes making noises so pronounced that the Sunbringer could swear someone else was there.

Or something. Watching her.

She quickened her pace, pulling her translucent golden cloak tighter around her shoulders. Some solar warmth still remained among its folds, but it was trickling out day by day.

The periods where the days should be, anyways.

Spring was late that year. The Sunbringer was starting to regret telling the Council of the Skies she would be the one to investigate.

By the equinox, the sun was always released from the Place of Shadows. The Sunbringer caught it without fail, holding it high in the sky as the grass grew and the flowers bloomed and the animals crept from hibernation and started families. But the solstice had come and gone, and there was no sign of the warmth-giver needed for the world to be reborn.

Now, the Sunbringer wandered through an endless winter landscape. Dead and dark and horribly cold, the only sources of light were the faint, faraway stars and the glow from the Sunbringer’s own golden braid. The further she went, the more the air bit into her skin and the winds wailed like a miserable dog. It was like something out of a nightmare.

She hummed a tune to herself, trying to calm frayed nerves. The sound of her own voice was her only companion in this lifeless place.

It was a song her mother had taught her, long, long ago. A healing incantation that could seal any wound, no matter how brutal. If rumor be believed, it could even raise the dead.

Now, the Sunbringer only hoped to dispel her own fear.

Surprisingly, the Sunbringer’s mother was not some celestial goddess, a queen of the clouds who passed her divinity on to her daughter. No, the Sunbringer had been human once, chosen for this job many, many millennia ago.

She couldn’t remember much of her human life. There were bits and pieces, scattered through her mind like tiny wildflowers in an alpine meadow.

She’d been from a small village. It was a simple life—one where she was expected to become a seamstress or a milkmaid or a farmhand girl or a grocer’s assistant or any number of other mundane things. She collected berries and herbs in the woods. She knew which mushrooms were the poisonous ones, and which ones tasted delicious cooked with butter and sage. She helped where she could—the fall harvest and the sheep herding and the chicken feeding. Her mother, who she faintly recalled being a curvy, dark-haired woman, doted on her day and night, but at the price of smothering her relentlessly. The Sunbringer had to fight to do anything on her own.

She had to fight not to have her hand held.

There was a boy, too. Brown-haired, twiggy, a constant bounce in his step. Always running through the woods and climbing trees in the summer and entertaining the younger children with goofy antics on long, frigid winter nights. He’d been her best friend. She was pretty sure, anyways.

She remembered he died young, although the exact way wasn’t clear. It brought her a strange sort of comfort, knowing that she never missed out on growing up and growing old with the brown-haired boy.

Sometimes she snatched at the faint recollections, trying to pull on the threads to see what else she could find. Her Sunbringer duties always seemed to call before she got far.

After all, there was sunshine to spread and plants to grow and cats to keep warm in little yellow squares on kitchen floors. The world was a delicate, precious balance of life and death, and it would crumble within days if she ever shirked her responsibilities.

And now more than ever, she had more pressing matters. She suspected she knew what happened to the sun—and if she was right, there was no time to be wasted.

The Council of the Skies had told many a tale of the Shadowkeeper. A creature always just beyond the shadows, he was more the dread of the darkness or the nervous tingles you got on the back of your neck than a tangible being. Those who met him said they never got a clear look, his form obscured by black tendrils and his head only a silhouette with sharp antlers and pointed teeth. When you came upon him, you felt all the bleakness and biting cold of the dead of winter wash over you.

He kept the sun swept up in his dark, swirling form all throughout the frostiest months, weakening it almost too much for the world to bear. In spring he released it, at last letting warmth reclaim the sky.

This year, the Shadowkeeper must have kept his grip on the sun, greedily sucking light into his cold body like a tick drinking blood. Hogging the sun for 3 months was no longer enough for him, it seemed.

Light embedded into the Sunbringer’s skin flickered, as it always did when she grew nervous. Long had she suspected she may have to battle the winter’s terrifying guardian, but she never dreamed it would be over something as immense as him wanting to keep the sun for his own.

Sometimes she resented being chosen for this life. It was a draining existence, guarding the heat that kept the world alive when the smallest chain reaction could leave everything destroyed.

The Sunbringer had never met the Shadowkeeper, but she believed the stories. The forest he called home was icy and frightful, and she didn’t imagine he was any better.

A heavy fog hung in the air, sticking to her skin in chilly droplets. She wondered, not for the first time, what would happen if she were to die again.

Was there any way the Council of the Skies could bring her back, use their powers to form her out of sunlight again? Or would they simply move on, letting her fade into legend as they chose a new Sunbringer?

The thought made her feel unbearably lonely—a nearly invisible wisp of a soul that could dissolve into the mist at any moment, leaving few behind who would care she was gone. The world would mourn the role she played, sure—mourn the position that needed to be filled. But they wouldn’t mourn her.

She couldn’t say how long she walked before the fog began to clear. The forest floor came into sight at some point, a carpet of brown leaves frosted at the edges.

They were cold against her bare feet. She couldn’t fully explain why, but the prickles they sent through her didn’t bother her.

Perhaps, she thought, she was so used to the heat of her own skin that a new sensation was welcomed, even if it was the antithesis of everything she was meant to stand for.

When the wisps of fog were thin enough to see the trees she stopped, eyes widening. The branches were covered in white snow, glimmering softly in the starlight.

It was a strange kind of beautiful. An unexpected piece of something pure and lovely in a world so desolate.

She couldn’t explain why, but the sight of it made her sad. Her heart felt suddenly hollow, like there was something just out of reach that belonged there.

Something to do with this tiny speck of beauty in a dead, frozen world.

The Sunbringer pushed the melancholia aside. She had a job to do—one where she simply did not have time to wonder about why she was at such a puzzling loss here.

She walked on. The leaves became sprinkled with snow—first flakes, then clumps, then a sprawling carpet. She found herself relishing the shivers it sent through her feet. Something still strange and novel, but exhilarating nonetheless.

Moonlight glinted off ice, and she saw a frozen river blocking her path. She tested it with a tentative foot, wondering if she had enough of the sun’s power left in her to float if the frozen covering didn’t hold.

The river was sturdy and strong, no trace of spring around to weaken the ice. The Sunbringer placed a foot on the frosty surface and began her crossing.

Toward the middle, the river groaned. The Sunbringer tensed as the realization hit.

There had been no spring to melt the ice until she came along.

She broke into a run, ice cracking and caving behind her. Thank the skies she always seemed to be one step ahead of catastrophe.

She swore there was something dark swirling below her—something always just under her field of vision. She knew if she stopped to get a good look, the river would have her.

Reaching the other side did not bring her the comfort she had hoped.

There was something distinctively eerie about the woods here. The Sunbringer wondered again—more urgently this time—if someone or something was watching her.

There seemed to be shadows everywhere—rippling, licking, always just out of her grasp. She heard them swooshing and whistling like gusts of wind.

But whenever she turned to look, they were gone.

Her feelings were becoming more and more of a riddle. The Sunbringer should have felt fear—crippling, nauseating fear.

Instead, all she felt was a strange longing.

The shadows were her other half, she supposed. You couldn’t truly have light without them. Perhaps that was why they called to her.

But there was something more.

The dark tendrils swirled thicker and thicker between the trees, always on the verge of engulfing her. She stopped.

“Shadowkeeper.” She spoke the word aloud, realizing where she was.

She’d reached the heart of his domain. His lair.

“Is that all you know me as?”

His voice floated in the air like mist, formless and ghostly. The icy breath of winter itself.

The Sunbringer frowned. “What other name is there? I bring the sun, you hold the shadows. That is all we are.”

“It wasn’t always.” The Shadowkeeper laughed, and it didn’t sound nearly as menacing as the Council of the Skies always described.

It was…playful. Bittersweet, almost.

“That doesn’t matter.” The Sunbringer forced her expression to harden. “All there is is now. You’ve kept the sun too long, and I have come to reclaim it. It is time for spring to come.”

“So formal.” The Shadowkeeper chuckled. “How long have you rehearsed that?”

“Long enough.” She frowned, although she couldn’t quite determine which cluster of dark wisps she should frown at. “It’s been weeks!”

“That was the only way I could see you. It’s not like you’d come out here on your own.”

Her frown turned to a look of confusion. “Why would you want to see me? Doesn’t the light hurt you?”

“Not if it’s you.”

All the flickering shadows snaked around the tree trunks and clustered together, twisting like water in a whirlpool. They spun around and around, melting from a trembling pillar into the inky form of…something.

The creature that stood before her loomed over the forest clearing. His body was surrounded by billowing shadows, floating in inky puffs like a cloak of midnight clouds. His head—or what the Sunbringer guessed it to be, anyhow—was narrow and elongated, crown adorned with the silhouettes of sharp, spindly tree branches. They jabbed out in every direction, bringing to mind the head of some strange deer that couldn’t stop growing antlers.

The only bit of color on the beast was his eyes—a pale golden that almost perfectly matched the Sunbringer’s hair. The Sunbringer found herself feeling strange again.

“You really don’t know me?” The voice that came from the beast was soft. Almost timid.

It had to be a trick. Some way for the Shadowkeeper to throw her off-guard.

Did he believe if he attacked her—if he vanquished her light—that he could plunge the world into darkness? It seemed a naïve sentiment from a spirit at least as old as her, if not older. He had to know the Council of the Skies would pick a new Sunbringer.

It was strange, come to think of it. She somehow knew the Shadowkeeper was not some ancient creature who had been around since the dawn of time, nor was he a young spirit only just learning the ebb and flow of the natural world.

To answer the Shadowkeeper’s original question, what the Sunbringer did and did not know was becoming more and more puzzling.

“I know you stole the sun.” Perhaps she should start with what it did make sense for her to know. “And I’m not sure what you want with me, but I know you need to give it back. I can’t let you make the world go dark.”

“Ask me by name, and it’s yours.”

It was an odd request, but the Sunbringer saw no reason to refuse.

“Shadowkeeper, I implore you to—”

“That’s not my name.”

The Sunbringer scowled. “Well, if that isn’t your name, then I don’t know what it is!”

“I think you do.”

The shadows swirled around their keeper, circling a few times before dissolving like smoke. Gradually his form came into view, lit only by the faintest starlight.

The Shadowkeeper—the beast—was a frightening thing. His limbs were long and grotesque, spindly and stiff like the barren trees surrounding him. His skin was rough and cracked, made almost entirely of bark. His hands ended in long, pointed branchlets, curved and sharpened into claws.

The branches on the Shadowkeeper’s head looked even more unnerving in the light. They snaked all the way down his back, all honed like a young stag’s antlers. It hardly helped that his face was still difficult to see, save for those eerie yellow eyes.

Her eyes trailed across his body, and she started. There was something pale under the bark, barely visible behind thickly-woven black tendrils.

Human skin, slowly being suffocated by wood. Before long, it would all be buried too deep for anyone to see.

The Shadowkeeper was once an ordinary person. Like her.

“Does it hurt?” Her voice came out in a strangled whisper.

The Shadowkeeper glanced down, as if just noticing the bark that was choking out the softer flesh underneath. He chuckled.

“To be honest, I’ve stopped noticing. Does it hurt when you hold the sun?”

Despite herself, the Sunbringer laughed too. “I guess…I’ve stopped noticing, too.”

The Shadowkeeper took a pace toward her. The Sunbringer surprised herself when she felt no desire to back away.

Something on the Shadowkeeper’s back caught her eye, and she cried out. Protrusions she had thought were just more branches were arrows.

She knitted her brow, suddenly concerned. “People hunt you? In your own forest?”

The Shadowkeeper snorted. “Maybe they think they can get rid of winter that way. I’m usually too quick for them to land a good blow, but not always.”

“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to live in fear.”

The Shadowkeeper shrugged, the bark of his shoulders creaking. “Eh. What can you do? I pretend it’s an intentional fashion choice.”

The Sunbringer found herself laughing again.

She gave him a thoughtful look, wondering if she’d been wrong. “You…don’t want to hurt me, do you?”

“No.” The Shadowkeeper looked at her with such a sorrow that it took her aback. “Who do you think helped you across the stream? Who do you think made sure the places you stepped were always frozen?”

“That was you?”

Her eyes widened, picturing the dark swirls under the ice and not quite believing they were something benevolent. “You were really trying to help?”

“Always.”

His voice was quick and certain, and she was left baffled once again. “But why?”

He takes a breath before answering.

“Because we were friends once, Rapunzel. A long time ago.”

Rapunzel…

The Sunbringer almost fell back onto the snow.

Memories so vague before came stampeding back at full force. She remembered everything—the bedroom her mother locked her in, a fluffy bob of brown hair, weaving flower crowns for her best friend’s sister, dancing around the maypole at summer festivals, the ice pond that had drowned her best friend.

Her best friend.

“Jack.”

She breathed out his name in a ragged sob. For a moment she stood with her head spinning, wondering despondently how she could have ever forgotten Jackson Overland.

“Took you long enough, Zellie.”

She ran to him, throwing her arms around rough skin and burying her face in his chest.

Bark groaned as his arms wove around her, pulling her closer. She felt wooden tendrils twist across the surface of her gown, entwining them together until they could have been one being.

Rapunzel thought back to the cramped room in her human home—the one her mother made her prison. With Jack’s branches surrounding her, she found it strange she didn’t feel trapped.

On the contrary, she felt safe. She felt loved.

“I’m so sorry,” she choked, face wet with tears. “I’m sorry I—I don’t know how I…”

“It’s all right.” He murmured into her hair, voice soft. “For…a long time, I didn’t remember you either. Then one spring, I looked up, and saw you floating through the sky like this…miracle of nature, and…” His voice broke. “It was like you never left my mind.”

She looked up and met his eyes, getting a good look at his face for the first time.

It wasn’t quite what she remembered. Framed by spikes of inky black instead of chocolate brown. Stretched, slightly distorted. All ghostly skin and sharp angles. Like the lengthened shadows at the end of the day. Like something in the half-light.

She reached out a hand and cupped his cheek. It was so frigid her hand stung.

She didn’t let go.

He leaned into her palm, amber eyes slipping shut. Long, sharp fingers slithered into view, his clawed hand coming to rest gently over hers.

The frightful tales of the Council of the Skies seemed laughable now. She couldn’t be scared of Jack, not when she knew how bright and good and kind he had once been.

How much he still was.

It seemed none of that tenderness ever left, monstrous form or not. He was still her Jack, even after everything.

“I missed you,” she whispered. “I felt so hollow. I didn’t even realize it, but…it always felt like I lost something. Why didn’t you ever come find me?”

“I can’t—I can’t leave this place.” He blinked down at her with wet golden eyes. “I’m not strong enough to come out of the shadows. Going out and finding you would be like—like trying to make a blizzard in June.”

“But in the winter?”

“You’re always too far to reach.” He smiled sadly, shaking his head. “I see you, flying through the clouds and glowing bright enough to warm the whole world. Meanwhile, I’m stuck in all the dark crevices—down on the ground, wanting to run to you every chance I get. But the light beats me back every time I try. So…that’s why I had you come to me.”

His hand uncurled from her back, sliding around to form a closed fist in the air between them. As his fingers opened, Rapunzel gasped.

There was the sun, golden and radiant and as mellow as it was on spring mornings. It looked strangely delicate, floating in Jack’s hand in a tiny, flickering orb.

Odd to imagine something that seemed so small and insignificant gave life to all of earth.

“At the end of winter, you always waited for me to release it.” Jack’s voice was suddenly pained. “You floated above me and got ready to catch it, but…you never looked at me. You never saw me.”

She stroked the cold skin of his cheek with her thumb. “I see you now.”

“All according to plan.”

He smirked in a way that made her raise her eyebrows.

“I knew you’d never give me a second thought if things went on like they did. I was this…menacing thing that tossed you your sun sometimes. Always just out of sight enough to make the tales of horror seem true. So one spring, I didn’t toss you your sun. I made you come and get it.”

“And so you did.” She laughed, pressing her forehead into the craggy bark of his chest. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Jack. A forest that gives a girl the scare of her life is no way to treat an old friend.”

“Sorry about that.” He chuckled sheepishly. “Wish I could curate a bit of a warmer welcome. Unfortunately I am, in fact, a guardian of winter and darkness and other related spooky things.”

“Well, I suppose it’s my own fault. I was the one who volunteered to roam the creepiest forest in existence to find you.”

“Also planned on that.” He snickered into her hairline, and she scowled.

“What do you mean?!”

“You always have to bend over backwards pleasing everyone. I remember how you were with your mom.”

Rapunzel huffed. “I like to think I’ve grown a little as a person in the past millennium or two.”

“Maybe, but…you’re still not going to ask someone else to do something you figure you could take care of yourself.”

She sighed. Even after all this time, he still knew her well enough to predict her every move.

“Oh, get out of my head, Jackson Overland.”

“You wish.”

Something nudged her side. She turned her head to see Jack extending his hand to her, sun gleaming in his palm.

“I believe I have something of yours.”

She scrutinized it for a moment. It was strange—the end of her journey was so close and so tangible, and yet…

Rapunzel didn’t want it anymore.

“Take it.” The rough edges of Jack’s fingers nudged her again. “It was selfish of me to keep it so long, anyways. And now I got to see you, so…”

She reached out and closed her fingers around the bright sphere.

Immediately she felt its power course through her, setting every vein in her celestial form ablaze. Warmth rippled beneath her skin, seeping into every crack and crevice that had grown cold. The corners of her vision were flooded with a blinding glow, and it took her a moment to realize it was her.

Suddenly, she was expanding, the sun’s power swirling around her body as she grew and grew and grew. She felt like a supernova—a radiant burst of light on the verge of giving birth to a new galaxy.

Within moments, she was standing as tall as the Shadowbringer. As Jack.

He looked different from up here. His eyes were close enough now that she could see the playful shine in them. She could make out the thin curve of his lips and the boxy shape of his ears and the rounded bridge of his nose and eyebrows that always had a rebellious hair or two out of place. Everything about him was so achingly familiar that she wanted to cry.

She glanced down at their hands—still intertwined. Jack never let go after she took the sun.

It might have been her imagination, but his clawed fingers looked a little shorter. A little less pointed.

He laced their fingers together and held on tightly, as though scared she might dissolve at any moment.

Like an afternoon sunbeam when the evening was looming.

Her thumb ghosted over the back of his hand, trying to communicate a silent reassurance.

I’m here. I’m real. I’m not going to leave you again.

She hadn’t meant to disappear in the first place, but it was no matter. It was still a mistake she was not keen on repeating.

Rapunzel looked up, and their eyes met again. She remembered something else.

She remembered how she looked at him when they sat tucked away in the treetops, him telling her stories and her sketching his movements on a tattered paper pad. She remembered watching him do skits by the fireside and splash her in the lake in the summer, and how she felt something so profound that for weeks and months and years she couldn’t put a name to it.

All she could do now was try and speak with her heart. Rapunzel leaned in and pressed her mouth to the Shadowkeeper’s.

Pure energy exploded through her, and all at once she felt so gloriously alive. It was as if she had become the entire sky, unbounded and immeasurable and shining with every color—cerulean blue, peach pink, blinding golden, deep violet, tangerine, fiery red, soft white, ebony black.

Jack’s arms wrapped around her again, pulling her closer. It felt like every moment in the universe—every passing day, every time the sun had risen and set—had been leading up to this.

It was more powerful than all the stars above them combined.

Perhaps that was only her biases talking. Perhaps she only imagined it to be that way, considering she had yearned for this longer than she would ever know.

It was like coming home to a hearth and a cozy bed after a long, long journey. One that had taken her much farther than she ever wished to go.

And it was right. Something—she couldn’t tell quite what—had been so asymmetrical before.

Now it was perfectly centered.

A deep, warm calm settled through Rapunzel as she pulls away. Jack watched her with soft blue eyes.

Blue eyes.

He’d changed. Eerie amber faded into sparkling ice blue. Inky back hair was now tinged with a beautiful, crystalline white, like fresh snow dusting winter treetops. Bark begun to peel off his skin, revealing more and more of the boy Rapunzel remembered.

He smirked in a way that made her feel lighter than she had in perhaps a century. She laughed, resting her hands on his cheeks and pressing their foreheads together.

“I love you.”

It was the first time she had truly put it into words, but she was certain some part of her had always known.

She knew when they were children, chasing each other through the woods and jumping in leaf piles and sledding down steep hills in the winter. She knew when the boys and girls at school began to kiss and hold hands, and she found her eyes always straying to Jack, wondering if his lips tasted like peppermint hot chocolate and stories and mischief. She knew when she heard he’d drowned in icewater, and it felt like half of herself had suffocated right down there with him. And she knew for all the centuries she thought she forgot about him, even if it was buried deep inside.

She felt wetness against her face, and realized he was crying.

He let out a shaky, relieved laugh. “I love you, too.”

Sharp cracks and snaps rang out as more bark peeled off. The body beneath Rapunzel’s fingers grew softer.

More like the one she had always yearned to hold, all those years ago.

And suddenly Rapunzel knew. She knew exactly what she had to do to finish this.

She knew what she had to do to fully pull Jack from the dark shell—the prison—that had grown around him, fueled by all those centuries of being feared and alone.

One of her hands strayed from his face, grabbing a tendril of blonde hair and wrapping it around a spindly, twiglike wrist. His long fingers curled over hers, shaking nervously.

Even so, Jack made no move to pull away. He must have trusted her fully.

She began to sing.

Rapunzel’s mother may have been an eccentric woman, strange at the best of times and terrifying at the worst. She may have had some unusual ideas about what it was to “love” your daughter, too.

But she had been right about one thing: The incantation she taught Rapunzel could heal anything.

Sunlight slipped down blonde hair, radiating soft gold as it went. The glow trickled across Jack like honey, and Rapunzel could only hope the heat didn’t hurt.

It appeared not to. Jack’s eyes slid shut, contented. His hand went limp in hers.

The hand that, to her amazement, was starting to feel less and less like gnarled twigs and more and more like skin.

The glow faded. Blue eyes opened under a mop of pale hair, white as afternoon clouds. Rapunzel felt fingers lace between hers, holding tightly.

They were a perfect fit.

The hand he lifted to cup the back of her neck was fully human. She smiled into his mouth and kissed him again.

Down on earth, folk across every land and every sea would later say that spring began with the most spectacular sunrise any of them had ever seen.

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scaphismpriest · 3 months

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which of your comics/fanfics did you have the most and least fun writing and if it's okay to ask, why?

If I had to rate them from most fun to least fun this is how I would rate my II fanfics/comics/AU series 1. Liminal Insanity: Revival 2. Paint Cans 3. Thy Evil 4. Haunting Relapse 5. Liminal Insanity 5. Yang's Trial I would say the most fun I've had writing is Liminal Insanity: Revival, which I'm currently working on, its been super fun to make horror series alot like Paint Cans but in an ARG survival setting where it merges existential horror and infection horror, It's still a work in progress and I've been having alot of fun coming up with all these spins on it. Paint Cans is what got me into writing more, since it's a year old I've learned ALOT from it that I can do better, I kinda didn't really mean for the series to get big as it is now since it was a challenge for myself to write how to portray downwards sprials better since Paint Cans merely happened because I was annoyed with how other II darkfics portrayed the villain with no reason or motivation or just made them purely evil out of nowhere, I also wanted to try to write a villain you could sympathize with, making the art scenes was really fun! Thy Evil has been something I've been working on that's been on the back burner for awhile, I want the story to be sort of epic moralistic thing, I have alot of fun ideas for it and the one-shots are clearly prototypes for now and not really canon for TE, I dont really got the time to actually focus on it now but when I get the time I'll develop it into an actual series! Ohhh boy, Haunting Relapse, I think after Paint Cans I could outdo myself, and I did for sure, but I had set such high expectations for myself into trying to perfect things which had caused me to stress out over it which I shouldn't have done. It was awesome to write some things like Knife's dream, OJ's hallucination, Origami's appearance etc, but other than that I had less control over writing some things because of my co-writer which shout out to him for fixing pacing and writing. I think I can say that Liminal Insanity is just Liminal Insanity: Revival, but less fun and more goofy and cartoonish than its Revival counterpart which has become way more serious toned, It was cool back then when I made it but now looking at it it's pretty underwhelming in my eyes since I see revival as its successor and way more creative when it came to existential horror themes. Yang's Trial, jeez where do I start this comic was SUPER time consuming, this is when I realized making a comic in the first place would be very labourus, especially if you put effort into the art and keeping track of colors. Plus the story didnt really have a solid bridge when it came to finishing it, I just had the idea that was like "hey what if this happened" situation-fic, but other than that, that was about it, It was kinda doomed in the beginning. I sometimes have thoughts about finishing it, but it's not fun to work on. Plus the concepts I had for it didn't age well in my creative eyes so I didn't really want to work on it anymore.

#asks

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paragonrobits · 4 months

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additional fic idea to continue on something from my old adventure time fanfic days: so long time mutuals might remember that WAY back in the AT fandom days around 2012 and onwards, I had an on going fic idea based around Ooo being broadly in the Marvel universe, with a bunch of ideas I never had the chance to follow up on, but the big one was that Finn was the latest incarnation of Thor (written more akin to Norse mythology rather than his Marvel depiction) and the Hulk being present in the background as the last hero of the age of marvels and forefather of giants like Billy

I called it Finn-Thor on my blog at the time, @hvkryter (and this was before I knew that hyphens screw up tagging, so if you try to find the stories I wrote for it, good luck to you, and let me know if it works out!), focusing on Finn gradually relearning his true nature and embracing it; at the time I had Magic Man as the Loki figure, and this was before Betty came back and became Magic Woman, and I had him firmly set as Loki in full 'tragic antagonist stuck in his narrative role' mode. Nowadays, I would probably instead make JAKE the Loki figure because... well, it fits, and its closer to my actual take on Loki nowadays.

But anyway my point is this: one plot bunny idea I have involves returning to this role, but with a twist: focusing on Finn's cycle of reincarnation and his worries about what the perpetual cycle of inevitably becoming a destroyer perhaps not so different from the Lich (which has been an idea in my mind regardless), and as Thor he was specifically more like God of War's take on Thor; a destroyer and a warrior, shaken by the blood on his hands and the death on his conscience, driven to fight and kill because he believed it was all he was good for, embracing his destiny to die fighting the Midgard Serpent because he saw it as a good death for his lifetime of torment and the horrors he had done.

A monster, inside and out; with hands of iron and a heavy heart so filled with rage; rage at the world. Rage swelling up at every little word or insult, consuming him as he feared he couldn't control his own mind, and he was a vessel for that rage, and most of all rage at himself. Doomed to be a monster.

And as Finn's memories of past lives come to him, he remembers a statement, or perhaps a prophecy, or a warning. Amid the booming of thunder, and the splatter of blood, he remembers: "You will always be... a monster."

He awakens, and agian and again he keeps thinking about this. All the lifetimes he's had in this particular continuity: of fighting and killing, or hurting others (as Shoko hurt PB, even his most long lasting friendship being made because he betrayed her in a past life, because he hurt her).

He asks himself: Is this all I have to give? Is this all I can really do, in any life? Hurt people?

He looks in mirrors and he worries one day he'll see the Lich staring back at him. Am I that different from him?

Are we both destroyers?

So from there, we switch from Finn's POV, to PB and Marceline; both centered in the now, products of the world of Ooo, distinct from what's come before. So they see what's going on with Finn, and somewhere in the background there's Jake, who is remembering things himself, and trying not to think about them as much as Finn is thinking TOO much about them.

So, they see friends stuck in bad thoughts, and they go to rescue them, however they can; because even if Finn thinks he is a monster as much as the Lich, or lifetimes of memories persuade him that's all he can ever be, they know otherwise.

#adventure time #finn mertens #marceline abadeer #marceline #princess bubblegum #fic ideas #finn thor AU #queued

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archive2394934 · 1 year

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Hi! I find it so weird that people try to mock me just because I think the Mind Flayer is a sentient being, and that Dustin was right in S4. They think I'm suggesting that Henry is a mindless puppet and not a good character/villain anymore... So so weird.

So u think it was Henry who shaped the UD? Hm, not sure about that, but hey, could be. But then why is it not only stuck on the night El opened the gate but at the moment the demogorgon got Will? 8:15 PM. Took me a while but I found evidence that that's exactly when he disappeared, and also his visions of the Mind Flayer happen at 8:15. What happened that night? What could it mean?

Also curious to hear your thoughts on Will's role in S5. We know he'll be central and his connection to Henry and the Mind Flayer is important. I can't wait to see them interact.

I'm not smart enough to explain what is wrong with this fandom exactly but its definitely something. I think its got a lot to do with the fact that so many folks in fandom in gen nowadays live breath eat sleep and shit fanfics and all their good "nuanced" takes are regurgitated bullshit from some woke zoomer on twitter who draws their favorite gay smut and whatever said zoomer did say was probably about something in the narrative relevant or some element relevant to some other fandom they were in and they just took and think it applies to this one too because it sounds smart enough. This shit about how you cant be telling a story about ""human evils"" through demonic eldritch terrors and monsters wah, wah, wah is so funny like the horror genre has been doing this for as long as it has existed. Henry doesn't represent the "human evil", either, its his mother who neglected and abandoned him for being "different", and the people like Brenner that exploited, abused and experimented on him and the corrupt systems of power in place that allowed such a thing to happen that represents the "human evils" so if they'd like to get that straight as well that'd be cool too. A lot of stranger things fans aren't horror fans also. Thats another big part of the issue, imo. The horror genre isn't their point of reference when they look at themes in ST. I'm not hating on these people but like you don't like horror - you don't know horror and therefore your analyzation on this piece of horror media is severely lacking to say the least.

But then like I've also legit stumbled on people insisting Henry's hair isn't naturally blond and that's hysterical. Completely hysterical. Like, this isn't even 'different takes on canon' thats just straight up wrong. His hair is literally blond lmfao, I'm literally?? BUT ANYWAY TO THE ACTUAL QUESTION.

The reason I think that is because, honestly, there is no way Will has any powers the way this fandom thinks. I've tried to entertain that idea to be nice to folks but they aren't nice to me so fuck em. I'm not being nice about it anymore. He wasn't born like El and while its debatable whether or not Henry ALWAYS had his powers or if he got them exclusively when he came to Hawkins, Will definitely doesn't have ANYTHING going on NEAR the caliber of what Henry has going on. I LOVE Will too, but thats just not it. Canon has explicitly shown us that Will's "powers" are that he has a link to the hivemind. Thats it. The VR game has also basically explicitly said Henry shaped the Upside Down (Also in the short trailer we have we can see this is going to be a big point of the game. You're playing as Vecna and shaping the Upside Down. While I don't know how canon the game is gonna be it does make more sense to me and would tie in with other things, like serve to explain why the hell Vecna wasn't personally involved in the early seasons. It would explain why he had to get Elevens powers to apparently restore himself since we have previous canon that tells us El and Henry are like batteries and they can exhaust their powers and need to be charged up again. I'd say shaping an entire dimension is pretty exhausting and probs why Vecna didn't get tagged in again properly until s4. And on that note its therefore comical to me that anyone in this fandom can think ANY CHARACTER possesses the SHEER AMOUNT OF POWER Henry/Vecna does. Like He Did All That. El's still finding herself exhausted from moving heavy objects.)

In season 1 Will also basically tells us the the Upside Down has looked like a dark, cold version of Hawkins ever since he got there. Henry is the one who talks about shaping worlds in canon. His words to El about shaping the world how they see fit foreshadows the eventual state of the UD. As for WHY the UD is stuck on that day, I'm not really sure what way canon wants to throw that and I'm not confident saying anything exactly because it could be too many things. But I am kinda curious now cos maybe I missed it, but where did canon say that the UD is stuck on that time specifically? I thought it only gave us the date, rather than the specific time. (Like I said I might have missed it and if I did lmk where I can find that info bc I wanna see lol) Imo, the date isn't significant to the day Will disappeared particularly, its the date El opened the mother gate. For me being the date the gate was opened has more importance than being specifically about Will. Time in the UD isn't working the same is all we can say for sure though imo. Years have passed in the human world but the UD hasn't moved past the day the mother gate opened.

Like I said I don't know what way canon is gonna go with that as an explanation for why but I doubt Will is as important to that in particular as people think. ST has got a lot of mythology references going on and the UD has often been likened to the biblical depiction of hell (or purgatory as well) through tons other symbolism as well and I know there is a concept that "damnation is eternal" and thus time "doesn't move" or "time is frozen in hell." I haven't been bothered to dig too far into any of that personally bc this fandom doesn't deserve me and my thoughts, imo, I'm sick of being indirected and mocked when I'm like the only one actually making sense out here most the time.

This is also all kinda tied to Will and Henry's particular avatars from the DnD universe. Will is the Cleric. Clerics get their powers from contact with a deity. (Will's brush with the UD/MF gave him the ability to perceive the hivemind and the creatures in it- Henry and possibly "the mindflayer" itself in particular because they seem to be the only other creatures hooked up to the hivemind that are operating on a human level intellect. ) Vecna was an extremely special case in DnD lore as a human that had some bizarre connection with this deity called the Serpent that not only gave him powers UNLIKE anything else but it also was the one that TOLD HIM how to transcend humanity and become a lich and a demi-god. ( This is almost literally what happens with Henry, and the Serpent in DnD is also portrayed thundering cloud with lighting coming down from the sky, like, is this fandom fr in doubting this?! Thats the important thing about DnD Vecna in his relation Henry. Theres other magic users in the DnD universe who "mastered" some part of "the Serpent's gifts," so to speak, but none like Vecna. No one got it like him, even as a human he was built different and "the Serpent" is the reason for why, for Vecna unlike other magic users in DnD the Serpent is not just something he "uses", or borrows power from, its said rather to "speak" to him, it chose him in particular. His connection with it is personal and unmatched by anyone else. )

I've made other posts about this ( here and here and here in partic- I also think I made another one but I cant find it rn lol ) but in a nutshell, to me, Wills role in Season 5 is going to be that he can perceive Vecna's memories. This will play a vital role in humanizing him further and probably in understanding his motives and provide the means to "stop" him. We saw this same thing with Billy in s3. Billy had no one and he was largely looked at as a bad guy, until El was able to get into his memories and understand WHY and what made Billy into Billy and how to "undo" the damage, so to speak, if only briefly.

We've been shown through the series that positive memories weaken the MF's influence. We were shown in S3 that Billy's "mind" after being flayed was just like Vecna's is shown to be in S4. Billy's mind was taken over by a raging storm, which we know is a manifestation of the mindflayer in its original form. Billy's "mindscape" is exactly like Henry's, except Henry's is more eroded for obvious reasons. I dont think the story will show Vecna being 'fixed' or 'saved', but I think if anyone is gonna be able to "get through" to him and weaken him in whatever way necessary for Eleven to 'stop him' or whatever, its gonna be Wil because Will can perceive Vecna in a way no one else can. (Which also makes sense since they're mirrors of each other in so many ways as well, which would probably actually make Henry more sympathetic and relatable to Will)

A lot of the stuff this fandom thinks of as canon isn't canon. Particularly surrounding Will. Its all fan theory and most of it ignores a good chunk of the canon in season 4 particularly about Henry/Vecna, or heavily twists it to be something its more than likely not in the wider canon context. Anyway I hope I dont sound mad at u cos I'm not I'm just v tired. Not with you-- or any of my followers or folks who support this blog- nope, we're the smart ones, contrary to popular fandom opinion on us. Which is why the frustration from me.

#henry creel #vecna #001 #william byers #billy hargrove #el hopper #jane hopper #byler

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valenshawke · 1 year

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Weekly Writing Report - March 31, 2023

“As plans go, plans will go awry,” - Magnum TA, likely paraphrasing Robert Burns.

If you’re reading this, hi! Been awhile. About that…

I probably should have taken the six weeks before I go on Prozac as an indication that my depression was bad enough that I couldn’t write based on these reports. And that this depressive episode started far earlier than I thought. Now I’m thinking by mid-September things were tanking pretty bad and not mid-December.

Bad news? The Prozac did not have the intended effect psychiatry wanted. I am not sure I agree, because I’d rather be emotionally numb than having a shortfuse and wondering if my anger is justified or not. But the fact I was so emotionally numb, I concerned two people with my sudden interest in true crime, which led into true horror or dark and disturbing real mysteries or stories, to straight up gore. I don’t know, I would usually avoid stuff like that because it would negatively impact my mood and emotions. Now? There’s some extreme cases, but I can watch other things to no ill effect now.

Good news? Not a lot to report other than Sunday, I started feeling better? Somehow. I don’t think it’s seasonal, or if it is, it’s believed to be in Summer where I very much have a known pattern going back decades of my mental health crashing and burning.

I started feeling better. Enough so that I started doing little things again. I’ve been listening to music regularly again. I’m cleaning up my apartment.

I started getting some writing done. Not a lot. But I’m trying to get something done daily. Even if it is a god damn sentence.

Fanfic

Clare and Miata Meet: This is where the first eight sentences I wrote since… checks calendar… November? Yeah. It’s frustrating here is I can’t even fully complete the outline and I’m not sure why. I think I’ve written a sentence or two the last couple of days.

Clare apologizes to Miria: The outline has been done and yet writing also came to a halt and it’s hard to write an amount. I’ve written three sentences, but it’s actually rather significant since there’s a moment between two characters not in the outline that I’m not exactly sure how I want this relationship to play out. And it’s weird that I felt it necessary to write it.

Everything else?

I guess the only thing I’ll say on the transhumanism pitch is it really feels like we’re closer to the end than the beginning.

So ends this week’s report. I hope I can make it two weeks in a row.

#Val's Weekly Writing Report #Val's Writing Tag

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letmetellyouaboutmyfeels · 1 year

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i have some questions, if you feel up to it: which of your published fics are you the proudest of? which of them have you reread the most? and, which of your wips should the average buddie fic enjoyer be most wary of?

Of my published fics it's hard to pick just one, since I have about five that I really consider the best examples of my work or milestones in my writing abilities.

(For example, my Hunger Games fic I wouldn't say is my best work today, but it's still one of the fics I'm the proudest of since it was in my opinion a really well-done fic for a sixteen-year-old and marked a milestone in trying to tackle really difficult subjects including unlikable characters and main character death.)

Of my Buddie fics the three I'd say I'm proudest of are Your Fingerprints Smeared on My Heart (Lead Me Back to You), In the Gray You are Golden, and Further Than Blood (Or Than Bones).

The first is my soulmate fic and a rare fic where I feel like I set myself a very high bar and actually accomplished what I set out to do in my head with the fic. The unending lament of a writer is that the story rarely turns out as good on the page as you see it in your mind, but I think with this one I came close. It was a challenge to write, and I'm really happy with the finished product.

The second is my Zombie Apocalypse AU that I dashed off in a fit of inspiration in 48 hours. I'm really proud of the atmosphere I created and the worldbuilding. My goal was to write a zombie fic where non-zombie and non-horror lovers could still enjoy it, and given the comments I've received I think I've succeeded.

The third is my long vampire fic that I wrote for Halloween this past year, and it wasn't coming together for me the way that I wanted. I was extremely frustrated and disappointed with myself. And then I got the idea to write Eddie's moment of being shot as if it were poetry, a 'life flashes before your eyes' moment, and sprinkle passages from that moment throughout the rest of the fic. This turns the fic into actually one long flashback, something the reader isn't aware of until they hit the shooting and all the fragments of the poem (so to speak) are repeated as one piece. That made the fic come together for me, and I'm really proud of that idea and how it turned out.

I'm actually not sure which fanfic of mine I've read the most since I uh actually don't reread my fanfics much. I do, however, enjoy reading the comments, since they help me see my fics through fresh eyes and appreciate them anew. I reread @extasiswings fics a lot, and so of my fics I'd say A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words (But Love is Undefinable) and Carbon Date Me, Excavate Me are the ones I've actually reread most since they were co-written with her and I adore her sections of them. But of my solo works... probably my Zombie AU if I'm being honest? I've reread it a few times, I just love what I did with that one.

Occasionally I'll get a comment on a slightly older fic like The Best Lie is a Truth (My Best Mask is My Face) or Even the Darkest Night (Can't Outshine the Stars) - to name the two examples I can recall at the moment - that inspires me to reread the fic. But I actually don't make a regular habit of rereading my fics. Does this make me an outlier? Mayhaps?

Which of my WIPs hmm... hmmmmm...

Probably All My Shattered Oaths. All four WIPs are angsty (the fifth is just fun monsterfucker smut) but I think that one is a little bit more painful than the others.

NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING ANYONE SHOULD WORRY ABOUT. BECAUSE YOU SHOULDN'T. SHHH. IT'S ALL FINE HERE.

#mads answers things #mads writes stuff

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hazel-eyedserpent · 2 years

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The Brave Six [pt. 1]

WARNING: This story will contain graphic/triggering language, and descriptions of violence.(Also the perspective changes)

(A Grave Encounters fanfic)

Dalton.

September 6 1946

Dear diary,

This is my first time doing anything like this. My father always told me diaries were for girls. Though according to my doctor, writing down your feelings bares no gender. He is very kind. I must say that, I’m still feeling rather sad. I never thought one little kiss would end me up in a place like this. Collingwood is very large, and there are many people here. I am one of the few whom actually have a room, which I can safely assume is because of my family’s political status. The very reason I am in this sanitarium in the first place. It isn’t all bad though. I met this lovely girl named Frankie, and her friend Joe. He’s a bit of an odd fellow, never really speaks, only grunts. But he’s nice enough. I do hope we’ll be friends. I suppose that’s all for today.

Dalton Breezly

Francis (Frankie)

Sept. 6, 1946

Dear diary,

Dr. Fluer is leaving in sixty-two. I still can’t believe he’s actually abandoning us. Strike that, yes I do. If I were him, I’d take the first ticket out of this hell hole too. Still, he’s the last decent doctor in Collingwood. Everyone else follows Dr. Freak’s lead. I almost forgot, we got another new kid. And I do mean KID, he can’t be more than seventeen. Really nice guy. He, like most of us, is here for the mental affliction known as, “being the family embarrassment”. It makes me sick sometimes, thinking that most of us will only leave this place, in a body bag. Well it’s lights out. Till tomorrow.

Frankie K.

Marcus

September 6, 1946

Dear diary,

Today is a good day. That’s what Dr. Fluer tells me to say to myself each morning. I truly want to believe it. I saw the fluffy haired girl, who’s always yelling at the orderlies, talking to someone other than her quiet companion. Given her rather unfriendly attitude, I’m greatly surprised. Anyway, so the new guy. I’m pretty sure he’s Senator Breezly’s kid. He’s not like a lot of the raving lunatics that inhabit this horror show they so laughingly call an hospital. He’s got a lovely smile, and a very nice demeanor. I am hopeful, that perhaps, that he’ll soften up enough of the folks around here, that I might actually have a friend. Maybe two? It’s nearly time for my session, I wonder what Dr. Fluer will say about all this.

Marcus Tankerton

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In 1946, Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital, was home to thousands of people. With mental conditions ranging everywhere from violent schizophrenia, to mild depression. The unfortunate part of it was, most of them were simply too different for their family’s to want to handle. That is what found Dalton, a pale seventeen year old, no bigger than a bean pole, in this awful place. He’d snuck out to the shed behind his house with a boy from school, a few days before. They’d barely touched lips before his father came in screaming. After a day of being locked in his bedroom, he was escorted out of the house (the back way of course), and taken to Collingwood. It wasn’t all bad really. Francis, she didn’t come to the hospital so easily. She was born to people who didn’t really care to have children. Naturally the neglect, and abuse, brought to the surface quite young, her, temper. Long story short, Frankie was in the middle of beating her father unconscious, when two police men tackled her to the ground. She’d been in the hospital since. It’d been extremely difficult for her to make any friends in there, as it was for everyone, given the nature of the place. Well, besides Joe, of course. But something in the way Dalton, existed, made her want to at least, try, to be friends. Now here they sat, in the “rec room” for the eastern building. Which, was honestly just a big room, with tables. There had been a television at some point, but of course someone had busted it. Currently, there was a game on each table, though that likely wouldn’t last long.

“So, what’d you do to end up in this shit-house?” Frankie asked, moving one of her chess pieces at random. She knew pretty much nothing about the game, but he seemed eager. Joe was sat directly next to her, making a happy sound as she finally made a move. Dalton eyed the board, then looked up at her.

“Well, um, kissing the wrong person, I guess.” He responded, fairly quiet, as he tried to decide which piece to move. Frankie’s small smile she’d been sporting, fell. That was all too common. This place was supposed to be for people who were sick in their brains, to come to, and get better. Reality though, was that it was a dumping ground. And everyone knew it.

“Why…Are you here, if you don’t mind me asking?” Dalton asked, as he made his move, one away from check. The smile returned to the dark skinned girls features.

“I tried to kill my dad.” She chuckled, throwing her hands up in mock defense.

“To be fair, he tried to kill me, everyday, for damn near fifteen years.” This was followed by a shrug, as she moved another piece. Dalton’s face turned into something so forlorn, it actually hurt to look at a little. Joe very suddenly hugged her, tight. She groaned, shifting in the large man’s arms. He was sweet. Too sweet for this place for sure. Joe had never been violent a day in his life. Frankie doubted he had it in him. Dalton smiled, for the first time since he’d arrived, as he watched them. It was then that another chair was pulled out from the table, and a man, late twenties, lightly tanned skin, sat down on Dalton’s side.

“This looks like the popular table, mind of I join? Marcus, by the by.” Marcus shook the younger man’s hand. He then looked at the chess board.

“Look at that, she’s got you in check mate.” The comments caused both head to whip back to the board. Well damn. He was right.

“How did that happen?” Frankie couldn’t help but laugh. Neither could Dalton, as he stared at the board in awe. How had they not noticed that?

“Back to your rooms! Five minutes till lights out!” One of the male orderlies called from the entrance to the room. The small group looked at one another a moment. None of them wanting to give up this brief moment of comfort.

“Let’s go! Everybody! That means you fag boy!” The orderly snarled in Dalton’s direction. Marcus gave the man a sneer, before looking back to the boy as they all stood, and the other two headed out.

“Don’t mind him, he’s impotent, and feels like he has to take it out on little cuties like you and me.” Marcus spoke as they passed said orderly. Whom, thankfully, wasn’t paying them any mind. As they approached the hall, the other man turned towards the shared rooms.

“Oh, hey!” Dalton called out, making his way through the crowd to the man.

“I forgot to say, I’m Dalton.”

******NEXT DAY*******

Everyday at Collingwood started the same. The orderlies come down the hallways, with a call of,

“Morning meds!” As the doors (other than solitary) were buzzed open. Dalton rubbed his eyes as he stepped out his door. Stretching, he looked to the left of his door. A man, it was hard to tell his age, as he looked malnourished, was standing in the doorway beside his. The man was mumbling something, and chewing at his nails. Then, he burst into tears.

“Shut up! Shut UP!” He screamed, starting to strike himself repeatedly in the head. Many of the others in the hall began giggling. Others imitated his pained yelling. Dalton, found himself going to the man before he could think better of it.

“Hey, hey!” He came towards him slowly, hands raised to show he wasn’t in any way armed. The man jerked back as though he’d been burned, looking at Dalton with wide, frightened eyes.

“Hi, I-I’m Dalton. You got a name?”

“A-Albert. Our name is Albert.” Albert looked him over cautiously, before closing a bit of the distance between them.

“Do you hear the demons too?” He whispered, and the boy paused. Dalton felt so bad for him. For really anyone, born to such, terrible delusions.

“De-You mean those angry voices a moment ago?” He asked, and Albert’s eyes positively lit up. Finally! Someone who understood.

“Yes! Oh my God! You hear them too!” The man very suddenly wrapped his arms around Dalton’s chest, sobbing. Only barely keeping the two of them up, the boy hugged him back, gently patting him on the back. Then he noticed the orderly coming up the hall, pulled the other man back a bit.

“We can talk about it at free time, but right now we both need to be at our doors. Okay?” He whispered giving the man the most comforting smile he could muster. Albert grinned, almost childlike, and nodded. They both stood at their rooms, as the orderly came up to them.

“Sorry rich boy, we’re all out of the designer meds. You’re just gonna have to deal with the regular kind.” Dalton sighed, taking a medicine cup off the tray, and a water. He quickly swallowed down the medication, opening his mouth to prove the point. The orderly rolled his eyes, moving down the hall. After meds, was therapy. Which ranged from sitting and speaking with a doctor, to the kind that made the lights flicker. Thankfully, today, Dalton was getting to experience the former. Though he guessed, by the way Albert was screaming as he was taken away, he wasn’t so lucky. The boy was guided to a room, with about ten chairs in a circle. Most of them were empty, but a few people were already there. Including Dr. Fluer. He was a tall, older man, with greying brown hair. He smiled as Dalton came and sat down.

“Welcome you must be, Dalton? I’m Dr. Fluer, I run group therapy on this wing of the hospital. Now, please, remember, you can tell me everything.”

#grave encounters #fanfic #random story #ghosts #no beta we die like men #short story #please read #asylum #collingwood

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beejnbabes · 2 years

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I just woke up from a dream where I was one of my horror film OCs and I’m so happy even though it was a sad dream because it was fun to have!!! I was so emotionally vested in the story that I was kind of unhappy to wake up. 🤣😂 Apologies for not finishing my Texas Chainsaw fanfic but now I need to try writing at least a few scenes from my dream and maybe a few bonus scenes that could have happened but didn’t (and at least one might be rated R).

The dream was done through the eyes of my IT OC, Blinky the Clown. There’s a part of her story that took place before the dream, so I’ll explain that first. Blinky used to be a human woman. She worked her main job at a local diner in Derry and had a part time job as a children’s party clown. At her main job, she was a waitress and she was in an abusive relationship with one of the cooks. Not usually physically abusive but mentally. He’d had her give up most of her dreams in order to help him get his. If he was stressed, it got taken out on her. She got yelled at over the smallest things and if he did get physical, well, she figured that at least her clown outfit would hide the bruises during her part time job and she’d only have to worry about covering them for her regular job. Her human name was Victoria Rose (her last name keeps changing because I can’t find one that sticks) and she thought she could eventually help her boyfriend overcome his issues. He told her things like “I’m sorry. I just get nervous with new relationships. Give it time and I’ll stop.” and “Someday, when I’m cooking with the big leagues, I’ll get you anything you want or need”. So she stayed and even took on the role of Blinky the Clown to try to help get the money.

It was during a child’s birthday party that everything started going even further downhill for her. You see, she’d taken the job not just because of her boyfriend but because she also really enjoyed seeing kids happy. Her dream before meeting her boyfriend had been a simple one. She had just wanted a large, loving family. But that couldn’t happen yet with her boyfriend’s bigger dream so she decided she’d work with kids for her part time job instead for now. So Victoria was always very vigilant at these times, trying to make sure everyone was safe and happy and it had earned her a good reputation among the parents who hired her. Anyway, at one party, she’d noticed one of the kids had gone missing when every seat was taken for cake time except one. She was looking around nervously until she spotted the child across the street, peering into the sewer. She was sure she could see a pair of eyes glowing in there so she jumped the backyard fence and went running to get the child away from whatever it was. She got there just as the child began to reach in and slipped while pulling the child away, causing her to land with her arms within reach of whatever it was and instead of the child getting bit, she got bit. Whatever it was, it let go as soon as it realized she wasn’t the child and disappeared. But not before making a threat. She heard a voice telling her that it wouldn’t be so nice the next time she tried to interfere with its hunt. But she chocked it up to some of the noises you hear when wind whistles past your ears and rushed to the nearest clinic to get the wound cleaned and stitched up. It wasn’t until the pain began to die down that she realized she’d forgotten to take off her clown outfit. She was able to get the clothing off but when she tried to wash off the makeup and take off the blinking nose, she found the nose actually hurt to pull on as if it was her own and the makeup refused to wash off, as if it was her skin. Terrified of what her boyfriend might think, she started ignoring his calls and called in to work saying she came down with something and that she’d need a few days off to recover.

As the hours passed, Victoria underwent chills, then a fever, then pain throughout her stomach and lower half like she was changing somehow, then an inability to keep any normal food down- only raw meat seemed to stay. After the first night, she began to feel like her house wasn’t dark enough or cozy enough and being underground started to surface as being a better idea in her mind… and it was easy not to fight the idea because she felt like the community wouldn’t be able to accept her the way she looked now. But feeling unacceptable was difficult to cope with anyway. Her anger got the better of her for a little while, causing her to throw things, break things, scream, cry… and by the time she calmed down and looked around her, she saw what she’d done to her house and it shocked her. If she could get that upset, who knew what she might do? Suddenly, she started to question the risks of continuing her part time job as well. She began to feel she shouldn’t be trusted around human children any longer, then wondered for a moment why the precise phrase “HUMAN children” had run through her mind. Then she realized, she somehow didn’t have fear of harming young of any other kind, which felt odd. It made her reason that she shouldn’t continue to stay where she was and she decided to take some water and some raw meat and enter the sewer system. She wondered why she wouldn’t just instead dig a hole or find a cave and really felt unsure of just why she chose the sewer, especially when dangerous things lurked in there.

On the third day, she completely broke. After a huge fit of screaming and sobbing, she went quiet and slumped against a pipe wall. When she woke up some time later, she just felt numb and empty. She stared at the opposite wall with nothing crossing her mind for hours. Then, she fell asleep and woke up feeling one of her legs throbbing. She saw a pool of blood but couldn’t find the wound. However, she noticed some scarring on the lower calf of one leg (she’d rolled up her clown pants before entering the sewer) that looked like a bite mark… when she looked around to try to see what had done this, she saw a few splatters of what resembled blood on the opposite wall that smeared off in one direction, as if whatever had done this had somehow gotten hurt too, went into shock and tried to take off. If she was going to make it down here, she knew she had to follow that… and she now noticed the smell of it filled her nostrils. Good. All the better to follow it and confront whatever it was that had bitten her. Maybe it would also be the thing that had tried to attack the child at the party. If she did away with it, at least she’d still be helping to keep kids like that safer in some way. So she got up and began to follow it. She followed the scent all the way to what looked like a huge nest of some sort. Then a voice said in her ear, “I see you and this time, I’m not letting you go”, making her whip her head around in search of whatever it was because this time, there was no way it could be the wind. In fact, even though she searched, the voice almost sounded like it came from inside her mind… and then another weird feeling washed over her. A feeling like nowhere was more “safe” than this room. She knew that couldn’t be right but she couldn’t fight the feeling. As she stood there, taking the whole jumbled mess before her in, an arm slid around her waist from behind and fingers slipped around her throat. For the first second, she thought of her boyfriend and felt a mix of emotions. One was fear of the anger of whoever had grabbed her, another was a sense that no matter how ugly things might escalate that she would survive, then finally, rage. She tore at the fingers and the arm and when that proved ineffective, when the arm only held her tighter and the fingers only began to dig into her, tears streaked down her face and she tried to scream. “Scream all you want. I have control of all of Derry. No one will hear you.” said the voice, this time coming from a source near her ear. Then she was released and when she turned around, rubbing her neck and breathing in gasps, she saw… another clown? This was confusing… and terrifying to a degree. The first thing that stuck out to her was that those eyes were the same eyes she’d seen the day she’d saved that child. They glared at her and glowed yellow like a cat’s eyes in the semi darkness. Whatever this other clown was, he wasn’t human. Then, she noticed the blood around his mouth. The smell of it was familiar… her blood! Immediately, she searched from a distance for damage on him and noticed some blood staining his outfit on the lower calf of the leg on the same side as her was!!! Somehow, what he’d done to her had happened to him as well at the same time. “You don’t scare me… I was just surprised someone else was down here.” she lied, glaring back. She hoped it would put her on a more even ground. Whatever this thing was in front of her began to smile, revealing rows of jagged teeth like a shark. “That doesn’t matter. You and I? We’re the same now. One. The same creature. Whatever happens to you happens to me but you’ve probably realized that by now. You can no longer die. At least, not in any of the normal ways… but the children of Derry still can.” it giggled hollowly.

“What… What are you- I mean… What are ‘we’?”

“We are something from beyond time and space. Something far out of the reach of human consciousness, which you seem to cling to the dead carcass of, so I’m unable to explain it better to you at the moment.”

“You mean… I’m not human anymore? That can’t be right!”

“Oh, but it is. I guess that since you were human that you’ll keep acting like it in some ways since it’s all you’ve ever known… but you’ll come around… or there will be even more death… Blinky.”

Something in her told her this wasn’t her human name… but now she found she couldn’t remember what her human name had been. “Like I said… You… You…” she began to say something and had gotten stuck. The clown in front of her began to look mildly annoyed. She took a breath and said, “I don’t know why I’m here. I mean this place, this life… I’m starting not to know who I am anymore and I don’t know you at all.”. Then, he grinned again. “I’m Pennywise, the dancing clown. Now you know who I am. Now we aren’t strangers anymore.” he replied, a sly look in his eyes.

Since then, Blinky has tried to defy him several times but each time, it only resulted in more kids dying. This kind of imprisonment without walls eventually forced her to stop interfering and a growing hunger for sustenance eventually broke her down into eating whatever Pennywise brought but she never resorted to doing the hunting herself in an effort to at least keep herself from killing kids. Pennywise does everything he can to prevent her from straying too far or finding out exactly how they both can die, sometimes even using fear tactics at the start and then eventually doing something he didn’t want to do- allowing his own inner self interest to override her, which went exactly like he thought it would. Because they were feelings for himself/itself, in Blinky, they manifested as being in love with Pennywise. Pennywise isn’t sure he feels anything toward her but keeps feeding her feelings in order to keep her on a shorter leash. This always makes her think he has interest in her when in fact, he’s just using it to keep her from doing anything against him and he is also using it so that he can use her for anything he wants.

This is the song I’m listening to while writing this:

So… there’s Blinky’s back story. I’ll be writing those scenes I mentioned in subsequent posts.

#IT #stephen king #fanfiction #au #pennywise #clowns #toxic attraction #bad fanfic ideas #Spotify

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