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ink-beneath-her-fingernails · 2 years

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Leaving Paradise

read it on ao3 | masterlist

Fandom: Up (Disney/Pixar)

TW: major character death, reintegration to society, probably others but I’m not sure. please let me know if there are any other warnings you would like me to tag.

Wordcount: 1,734

Originally Published: October 19, 2021 (originally written circa 2016/2017)

Summary: A not!fic about a reality where Carl and Russell stayed in Paradise Falls.

Notes: originally written at some point around (I'm guessing) like 2016 or 2017? not sure of exact dates, though, so not bothering to backdate it. this is another AU that I really like the idea of, but don't think I'll ever really come back to, so I'm posting it for the good intentions WIP fest. posting with minimal editing, which means you get my full incoherent hour-long ramble from five years ago that has not been touched since. have fun!

Transfer Notes: for @thenewnio ; sorry it took me so long!

Because he’s getting old and he’s really not cut out for the jungle anymore

What if Russell and Carl never made it back from Paradise Falls???

But like think about it

Eventually Carl and Russell and Kevin and Dug (and before someone gets on my case about it, yes, I checked, it’s actually Dug, not Doug) would have made their own little family throughout the years

And then Carl dies

And he thanks Russell for helping him on one last adventure

And Dug and Kevin can’t live forever but they’re holding on just fine for now, just like they have been the past seven or eight years (when they left he was nine btw)

And for helping him fulfill his and Ellie’s dream

And for becoming something like a son to him

And then

Finally

Finally finally finally

And they see this old pastel house sitting on a cliff over a waterfall, all but falling apart at the seams and held together by patchwork repairs and a sheer force of will

Somebody else, actually properly equipped and having had an actual proper plan for their expedition, goes to paradise falls

(In fact, he hasn’t told his therapist anything. They’ve expressed multiple concerns over the fact that he can talk continuously for their entire sessions and say absolutely nothing at the same time, but he always finds a way to make them listen to anything but Paradise Falls and reintegration and all things tied there. He knows it’s not healthy, knows he can trust them, knows he should, but he can’t quite bring himself to try.)

And they meet a boy-who’s-not-quite-a-boy-any-longer who for the last however many years has just been wanting to see his family again, but to hide and help it, has settled for finding and making a family of his own, a home of his own, where he can go on adventures all the time with a family of choice.

They meet a dog with a collar that lets him talk and they meet a large colorful bird who they’d always thought to be fiction

And they take all three of them home

Well

Not home

Not really

Not anymore

They take them away from Paradise Falls, back to where Russell was before

They only take Dug and Kevin because he insists (and for Science™)

And he gets to see his first family again

But he is a very different person now

They have eight years and a grave that never had a body in it and adventures only one of them was there for and what used to be several countries in between them, after all, and every time they try to talk to each other it’s like communicating with a stranger and for all of them it hurts

Carl had continued his education as best as he could where they were in between everything, eventually feeling that to some degree it was his fault that Russell was ripped away from his life, but he still needs to go back to school when he gets back and still needs to get caught up in a lot of different areas that Carl couldn’t teach him.

He sees his old friends from the wilderness scouts and yes, Russell, I think you’ve most definitely earned your assisting-the-elderly badge

He visits the grave they left for Carl when the two of them went missing (and were eventually presumed dead) ...a lot. Once a week at least. More if he can. It’s right next to Ellie’s. (He never tells anyone that it just can’t compare to the actual grave he had made for Carl when he died, buried in the middle of the jungle, right near the Falls themselves, covered in brilliant wildflowers and a headstone that had taken weeks and weeks for Russell to engrave. (He’d added a little balloon next to his name. Carl would have liked it.) (A couple months later, he goes out and finds another stone of similar size. He engraved that one in the name of Ellie, and placed it next to his. Even if her body wasn’t actually there, he deserved to be close to her always. What better a place for them to rest together than Paradise Falls, where they’d been trying to get to their entire lives?))

Dug becomes his emotional support dog

His reintroduction and integration to society is slow going and a lot harder than they originally thought it was going to be.

He’s not used to depending on people, he’s not used to keeping a schedule, he’s not used to talking with lots of people on the regular, and he’s not used to following rules. He’s lacking in the proper nutrients and it’s been a long time since he’s had a steady and regular supply of food, because even though he’d learned to adapt and he had had to take measures to learn how to hunt and fish and identify and gather edible plants and Carl and he had figured out how to make and set their own traps, it could still be hard sometimes, and some months and seasons were better than others for a variety of reasons. He’s had a few broken bones that didn’t heal right, along with a lot of scars from when he was still a fumbling little kid who didn’t know his way around the wild and didn’t know what he was doing. (Each one he’d learned something from.) He is most definitely not used to the idea that he can just ask his mom to add something to the grocery list if he wants something, that he doesn’t have to go out and find it in an environment not equipped with those things. He is not used to so much noise surrounding him, not used to the idea of contacting people in any other way than talking, writing a note to leave on the kitchen table, or leaving a message with Dug, nor is he used to the idea that a lot of people don’t appreciate two out of three of those methods of contact as they aren’t instant and apparently things are time sensitive these days. (Also, apparently talking dogs aren’t common. He forgets that sometimes. It’s been so long since it felt abnormal to him.) He’s very not used to and very not okay with the fact that he cannot bring Dug and/or Kevin with him everywhere, at first. They were his two closest friends, his family. It had been ingrained in him over the years by Carl that he had to be with one of them at all times if he was going to leave the house for any reason, and after Carl had died, they’d been the only company he had - for over a year. Suddenly being told that he wasn’t allowed to have his tethers anymore practically killed him. But society did not see his friends. Society did not see his family. Society did not see the only two things he’d had left in the end, the only things keeping him sane, the only companions he had who had made it through the journey. Society saw a boy, a bird, and a dog. Society saw a boy and two animals. Society saw a boy and his pets, and because society didn’t count “pets” as actual family, society did not want to see said pets in any place people generally were besides the home of the owner.

(Russell hates society.)

It’s really overwhelming when he finally gets back to school because the story of them finding him where they did with the animals they did definitely broke the news - nationally, at least - even if his disappearance didn’t, and people keep coming up to him and asking are you that Russell and did you really live in Paradise Falls for eight years? And did you really find a talking dog and a giant bird? And so what happened to the old guy they said you were with? And all sorts of other questions and he really doesn’t want to talk about it and he’s been away for so long that it’s a hard thing, relearning how to interact with so many people who aren’t Carl or Dug, and it’s hard enough with his family, but now he has all these other kids coming up to him and what is he supposed to do

(He’s forgotten how to talk to people his age)

(Well, he forgot, and then he became very different from the average kid his age, and now that’s a gap he doesn’t think can ever be breached.)

(He doesn’t tell that to his therapist, though. He doesn’t tell his therapist a lot of things.)

In addition to this, he was just barely starting to adjust to having to live around the schedules his family kept in addition to all the different appointments he has to go to, but now his day was completely broken down and blocked out for him, and he was just thrown into that. He still had to take extra classes to help catch him up (because Carl could only teach him so much, and there could only be so much material fit into the five months that he’s been “back home”) so he’s struggling both to understand the classes the rest of his class are taking right now, the classes they’ve already taken that are supposed to help him understand the classes they’re on right now, and also to get all the work done on time and make it to appointments. It’s even harder than it seems because on top of all of this, he’s not allowed to bring Dug to school, despite him being his emotional support dog. (Bc apparently that is not enough of a service dog for him to be needed at school, and he will frighten and distract the other students, being as...abnormal as he is)

Even though he still might be a little bit chubby or overweight (he already was before and it’s admittedly hard to get the proper nutrients out in the middle of nowhere) he can show them all up in gym class now, regardless of the activity because eight years in the wilderness where everything is trying to kill you will do that to a person (Paradise Falls was never quite the paradise they’d believed it to be)

And I just really like this au okay back off

#there's definitely a lot i would have done differently w this one if i was writing it recently than when i actually did #as it stands there's enough of that sort of thing and it's old enough that i don't really like to re-read this one and probably wouldn't #have transferred it if it hadn't been asked for #russell up #up #dug up #kevin up #carl fredricksen #not fic #abandoned #good intentions wipfest #good intentions wipfest 2021 #old work - date uncertain #major character death

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salsa-di-pomodoro · 2 years

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Ohh i am so going to at least try to partecipate in this years good intentions wipfest

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whisperwillyou · 4 years

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Donald didn’t make it off the island, but he never stopped trying to get home.

WipFest

A collection of sketches I drew back after the season two finale first dropped because I had a lot of unresolved Donald feels fndjfvd

———————

McDuck Enterprises is sending a shipment overseas. The only problem? Their course takes them straight through an area that has, as of recently, developed a bit of a Bermuda Triangle reputation. Any ship that passes through a certain radius will find itself out of control as it picks up speed and veers off course. But the terror of controls that won’t respond and a steering wheel held by some unseen force, only last until the ship escapes the radius and everything goes quiet. Some crew whisper that they’ve seen a sailor, clothing torn and feathers wild as he stares, unblinking, at the horizon; but those are nothing more than rumors.

Scrooge isn’t about to waste expensive fuel with a long detour around the area because some specter wants to take his ship for a joy ride. Obviously, the best solution is to travel with the cargo ship and solve whatever mysteries the area throws at them. They’re the Duck-McDuck family, after all, there’s nothing they can’t handle.... right?

————————

God these are so incredibly angsty on their own fhfjjf

I feel the need to mention I am NOT a tragedy kinda gal. Any and all angst a draw will always come with a happy ending.

If Duckworth can live a normal happy life as a ghost butler, than Donald can live a normal happy life as a ghost dad.

Donald Duck is so gd stubborn not even death can keep him from his family, but he’s stuck in a loop, as he continually tries and fails to get home. He’s a being born from the intense desire to get back to his family, and he’s so single-mindedly fixated on that task that he can’t even notice that they found him. They’ll just have to figure out a way to snap him out of the trance he’s in.

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ylvglo · 3 years

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I decided to participate in the Good Intentions WIP fest ( @goodintentionswipfest). So here is my Danny Phantom Ghost Town AU that I don't think I'll ever write, but I really loved the idea of. I'll start off with the incomplete draft of what was to be the first scene:

October 23rd 2004

Vladimir Masters hides his growing frustrations behind a pleasant smile as he welcomes yet another old college classmate and their family into his home. He exchanges pleasantries mostly on autopilot not really hearing a word his guests are speaking. He then guides them inside and closes the doors behind them but not before casting one last glance at his driveway.

Everyone who accepted the invitation to the reunion has now arrived. Everyone except the Fentons. The Fentons who arguably should have been the first to arrive considering they had arranged to sleep over from the day before. That Jack Fenton could get so caught up in an invention as to completely forgot about the reunion, Vlad admittedly has no problem believing. But that Madeleine, beautiful Maddie, would do the same has Vlad profoundly disappointed and slightly worried if he's honest with himself. There has been no emails or phone calls from either Fenton to notify that they've been delayed or that they're unable to come, and both times he tried calling their house an automated voice had told him the number was currently unavailable.

...

'I haven't seen Jack and Maddie around. Could they not make it?' Evelyn Pierce askes with forced nonchalance.

Vlad cocks his head but pretends to act oblivious. 'As a matter of fact they were supposed to arrive yesterday, but they never showed up and I've been unable to reach them.' Evelyn pales slightly at his words and bites her lips. Slightly thrown by her reaction, he can't help but ask, 'is something wrong?'

Evelyn hesitates. 'They live in Amity Park right?' Not really understanding where this is going, Vlad simply nods. 'Well, see.. My sister lives in Elmerton just outside Amity proper, and I've been unable to get a hold of her for several days. She hasn't replied to emails or text and every time I try calling her phone or her house I get told the number is unavailable...' she trails off.

Vlad gets no time to mull on Evelyn's words as just then Harriet Chin walks up looking rather frazzled. She appears to be in the middle of a call by the way she's holding her phone to her right ear, though she lowers the phone a fraction and points at the nearby TV with her left hand. 'Turn on the news!'

Normally Vlad would protest Harriet ordering him around but there's something in her voice that has him hurrying to obey while a slow dread settles in his stomach. The TV flickers on and images as if taken from a war zone flit across the screen with reporters describing the devastation. At the bottom of the screen the headline: Amity Park destroyed after explosion.

I've written some of my further ideas for this AU below the cut. Hopefully my ramblings make sense and aren't too hard to follow. And please remember that this isn't super thought out.

For this AU I had the accident happen slightly later than in canon (I think?), on October 18th, only a few days before the college reunion, which I set to October 23rd.

The idea for this story was that when Danny activated the portal, it didn't turn on, it exploded. It sent a massive shockwave of ghostly energy throughout the entirety of Amnity Park and the surrounding area. The energy did some damage to inanimate objects, but all living things died instantly. Only Danny, who was at the heart of the explosion, survived. If you count turning into a halfa, surviving. Having been at the center of the explosion, Danny absorbed a lot of energy from the portal, becoming a "living" portal himself.

In part because of the nature of the energy that killed them, all of Amnity Park's residents became ghosts. That in addition to the fact that they all died at the same time, caused a new realm(?) to form in the Ghost Zone. This realm took the shape of a ghostly copy of Amnity Park. Now because everyone died at the same time, and their deaths were so quick and painless, no one actually realizes they're dead.

The government manages to keep things on the downlow for a few days, but eventually the news come out that Amnity Park has been destroyed in an explosion. The area is quarantined, as the government tries to find the cause of the explosion, and try to figure out how it killed everyone, despite doing relatively little damage. But suddenly one day, all of Amnity's residents return, and all the buildings that had been damaged repair themselves overnight. Except something isn't quite right…

Becoming a halfa is a long and painful process, it takes days, weeks. Danny was mostly unconscious, or delirious for the duration. When he wakes up he—partially because he doesn't realize what has happened—unknowingly activates his portal powers, dragging the entirety of ghost Amnity into the living world. Overlapping it over the ruins of the real Amnity.

The residents of Amnity don't notice that anything has changed, they continue to go about their "lives". Though now, because there is an open portal between the living world and the ghost zone, other ghosts start invading, and Danny, Sam, and Tucker starts hunting them.

Technically Danny himself is that portal, though because he isn't aware of this and his idea of a portal is the Fenton Portal, that's what the portal looks like in the Ghost Zone, and any ghost who enter end up in the Fenton basement. Also Danny is capable of keeping the portal open while asleep, but not while unconscious. (Amnity also returns to the Ghost Zone whenever Danny enters the zone, but Amnity's location in the zone and the location of Danny's portal are not the same. It takes a long time before Danny find Amnity in the zone).

Danny notices that the people around him, Sam and Tucker included, change somewhat after the accident. Certain aspects of their personalities become more pronounced, and they become even more driven by their hobbies and passions. He hesitates to think of them as obsessed, because that's a ghost thing, right? People also seem more easily angered and are quicker to act violently. But that's probably just stress from all the ghost attacks. Danny's certainly stressed from having to figure out his new powers and fighting ghosts all the time.

After a particularly hard fight, Danny faints, and when he wakes up he's alone. He finds himself in an Amnity full of broken and abandoned buildings, and completely devoid of life. (Not sure if this happens the first time he faints, or if he subconsciously activate his powers upon waking after the first few times. Or maybe he doesn't fall that deep into unconsciousness those first times?). Danny freaks, tries to find Sam and Tucker, anyone. He eventually makes his way home, but FentonWorks is in ruins, far more damaged than the surrounding buildings (the ops center collapsed on top of the house). Phasing into the basement, he finds the remains of the Fenton Portal, and on the floor in front of it, Sam and Tucker's bodies.

Backtracking a bit. After Amnity's residents suddenly reappeared, it became clear that something supernatural was going on. The GIW is given jurisdiction over Amnity. They try to investigate, but are of course rather incompetent at it. Also it's next to impossible to investigate the ruins whenever the ghost town is overlapping. They do discover a few things though:

The residents can see and interact with humans, and clearly believe themselves to be humans, even if all the GIW's equipment points to them being ghosts

The residents don't remember the explosion, if asked about they will either think the agent asking is joking, or that they're crazy.

If given any proof of the explosion haven happened, or that they're not alive, the resident will either still not believe it and try to leave the conversation, or they react negatively in some way (violent anger, deep sadness, etc.). They always forget within a day.

The residents have no sense of time passing. They react to the change of seasons, but not to the passing of the year. For them it is always 2004.

Spending a lot of time in Amnity when it's ghostly residents are present is dangerous. If one is not careful, one can be dragged into the flow and be trapped by the town, forgetting that the residents are not alive. (those trapped in the town get dragged into the Ghost Zone whenever Danny's power deactivates)

The last two points take longer for them to figure out.

When the ghost town disappear (either for the first time, or it's the first time it's been gone for an extended period of time), the GIW takes the opportunity to investigate the ruins. This is how they come across Danny sometime after he's been to FentonWorks. The GIW are aware of Phantom, or Inviso-bill, as one of the ghost who is actually aware that he's a ghost, and who seemingly has made Amnity his territory, but they haven't been overly interested in him. This very much changes when he's the only ghost still here. Unfortunately their policy is very much shoot first, ask questions later.

Danny for his part has started accepting that everyone is dead (accepting is maybe not the right word, he's pushing down the emotions related to the realization, and is trying to think logically about it), and by the scene in the basement, they probably died when he turned on the portal. But does that mean everything that's happened since was just a dream? But then why did he wake up in the streets and not in the basement?

One of the GIW agents says something while shooting after him that has him curious and he end up sneaking into their base of operations outside Amnity later, where he discovers that everything after the portal was in fact not a dream. It very much happened. Because all of Amnity Park has been turned into a ghost town. But what happened, why is everyone else suddenly gone?

Eventually, Danny discovers that he's the one who brought the ghostly Amnity into this world, and after some trial and error he manages to activate his power again. Not entirely certain of how he would discover this to be honest. Does he find his way into the Ghost Zone and discover it there somehow? If he's already met Vlad, maybe he has a talk with the fruitloop?

Speaking of Vlad. After hearing of the explosion, he keeps an eye on the investigation. Even more so when the ghost's starts turning up. He eventually starts visiting Amnity. He travels there as Plasmius, and on his first trip he ends up fighting with Phantom. Later he visits the Fentons, where he and Danny meets for the first time in their human guises. Depending on when this first visit happens, Danny either thinks he's simply a weird old man (if it's before Danny learns everyone is dead), or is instantly suspicious (if it's after). They both eventually discover that the other is a halfa.

At some point Vlad gets trapped by the ghostly Amnity.

Back to Danny. Once he's dragged the ghostly Amnity back into the living world, he finally has that emotional meltdown over the fact that EVERYONE HE KNOWS ARE DEAD! And it's all his fault!

After this he tries to tell Sam and Tucker. Only they don't believe him. At first they think he's joking, but he keeps insisting and they start getting angry. And then, for a moment, their human facade falls away, and Danny gets a glimpse at their true ghostly forms. They lash out at him and he runs away. He spends the rest of the day worried he's lost his friends, but when they meet the next day, Sam and Tucker act as if nothing happened.

Danny tries telling Sam and Tucker a few more times, but they always either laugh it off or get angry, and they always act like nothing happened the next day (he starts suspecting it's because they don't remember). It goes similarly when he tries telling Jazz. The only ones who don't forget are the ghosts from the Ghost Zone. Not sure how much of the situation the other ghosts understand/sense/believe.

Time passes, Danny grapples with the guilt he feels over everyone's death, and the loneliness of not being able to tell anyone the truth. He comes to the realization that the changes he's noticed in the people around him are not caused by stress, but rather their ghostly nature. Tucker's love of electronics, Jazz's passion for psychology, Maddie and Jack's drive for ghost hunting, they've all become obsessions.

I was thinking at some point some of the people in Danny's life start suspecting that something is off, and eventually realizes that they're dead. And it's important that the they figures it out themselves, as it's the only way the knowledge will stick and they remember. Val and/or Jazz are both good candidates for being first. Though it could be interesting if it was Paulina, Star, Kwan, Dash, or even Mr. Lancer. Sam and Tucker should of course figure it out at one point, but I don't think they should be first. (I'm not too familiar with Wes Wesley, but I guess he gets really close to the truth pretty early? Though he never quite manages to realize he himself is a ghost?)

The Amnity ghosts are rather weak ghosts, without many abilities. They all appear human, though they have a true, more ghostly form.

Danny in this AU is immensely more powerful than most realize, though he hasn't clocked on to it himself either. Of course most of the time, a rather large portion of his power is used to anchor ghost Amnity in the living world. But when he lets go of Amnity…

Not really sure how to end the story.

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The original idea for this story was actually a crossover with the MCU. Though I'm not sure how much I like that aspect of it now.

The idea was that Amnity had existed in its ghost town form for almost fifteen years when the Snap happens and all ghostly activity ceases. Of course the ghosts disappearing for a few hours, or a day or two wasn't unheard of. But this time it lasted for more than a few days. For the next five years there was no ghostly activity, and then when the Snap was undone, Dannny Phantom was sighted for the first time in five years. Shortly after, the rest of the ghosts reappeared.

This catches Fury's attention. Shield had of course been keeping an eye on the Amnity situation, but as long as the ghosts have mostly been contained within Amnity, they've let the GIW think they're in charge. But if the town's ghostly invasion was affected by the Snap, then surely someone alive must be at the heart of it. A potential very powerful someone. And Phantom is the prime suspect for now.

Shield takes over the investigation of Amnity. They try to send agents to talk to Phantom, but though he remains civil as long as they don't threaten him, he gets very cagey when they try to pry into the secrets of Amnity. Eventually Fury decides try sending in Peter. Since Peter is around the same age as Phantom appear to have been when he died, Fury figures they might get along. And he's right. Peter eventually manages to get Phantom to give him a hint. Phantom claims that in the basement of FentonWorks, there's a camera that holds the answers.

Some research into FentonWorks reveal that the owners of the building, Jack and Maddie Fenton, had in 2001 received a grant to build a portal into the afterlife. How the GIW never figured that out in twenty years, or at least seemingly didn't find it important, no one know.

Didn't really have much of any idea beyond his other than I wanted Peter and Danny to become friends.

I wanted the story to start with three scenes.

First the Vlad scene from above, dated October 23rd 2004.

Then a scene dated September 19th 2004, that introduced Peter as a sophomore at Casper high. This was in part to make it seem like Peter was in Amnity Park when it exploded, or at least had been there shortly before it happened. In truth the scene takes place in 2024, but as mentioned earlier everyone in Amnity still think it's 2004.

The final scene was to be dated November 2nd 2024. It was going to have Natasha and Steve (I was ignoring a lot of End Game canon) on the mission to retrieve the camera from the ruins of the FentonWork basement. In the basement they would find the broken portal as well as the skeletal remains of Sam and Tucker. The camera would either be next to Sam or still around her neck. Extracting the memory card, they would find pictures of Danny, Sam, and Tucker, the last few clearly taken in the basement. Including photos of Danny in the hazmat suit climbing into the portal. The final picture was taken at the moment of the explosion (either Sam pressed the button by accident, or the shockwave caused the camera to go off), Danny partially visible in the center.

#good intentions wipfest #dp #danny phantom #danny fenton #sam manson #tucker foley #vlad masters #danny phantom au #danny phantom ghost town au #my writing #major character death #ask to tag #it's been a long time since I've shared my writing #so i'm a bit nervous #especially since these are rambling half finished ideas

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carmypen · 3 years

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Hello! And happy Seto Kaiba’s birthday, everyone.

To celebrate, and also as a way to participate in the awesome @goodintentionswipfest, (a special event to celebrate incomplete works) I decided to post a short, Kaiba-centric fic that I had stored in my drafts.

Please enjoy!

#yugioh #seto kaiba #my stuff #good intentions wipfest

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roselightfairy · 8 months

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I wish I were the sort of person who could have a WIP folder. Like, all those memes that go around asking for lines from your WIPs - I don't have WIPs. I either have one project that I'm frantically working on in the hopes that my speedwriting and enthusiasm will outpace my inevitable stopping-never-to-start-again (I'm a very inert person, in the sense that once I get going I can go for awhile and once I stop it is almost impossible to start me again) OR the stubby starts of stories where I didn't even get to the juicy bits before losing energy and which will probably never be resumed, no matter how I fool myself. Those aren't really WIPs; there needs to be some P in there for that to apply. Posting a story chapter by chapter as the chapters are written? Could never be me.

However, we are coming up on @goodintentionswipfest time again, so that's some solace at least!

#my wips #good intentions wipfest #i miss writing haha can you tell #i did come up with a VERY vague idea for an ots sequel today but i dunno if i can sustain it

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goodintentionswipfest · 7 months

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Ten more days!

Reminder that the posting day for this year's Good Intentions WIP Fest is October 31st! Show us the skeletons in your closet! Free yourself from your haunts! Let your dead come out to play on Halloween this year when you post your unfinished WIPs for the world to see!

Full fest description is here, but just a simple reminder of the basic steps:

If you use AO3, post your abandoned WIPs to this AO3 collection with the tag "Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued"

If you will be posting on Tumblr, use the tags "good intentions wipfest" and "good intentions 2023" - and please @ or "mention" @goodintentionswipfest so I'm more likely to see and reblog them

Check the blog and the collection to see if anyone else has posted anything you might like to read!

Your WIPs deserve to be read, and the world deserves to see them. Let them be free!

#good intentions wipfest #good intentions 2023

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iamwestiec · 4 years

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fic I want to see: five futures Tony/Rhodey/Pepper deserved but never got

Hey there friend! I'm going to take advantage of the @goodintentionswipfest to finally answer this ask by posting what exists of the fic I totally never finished writing you for this prompt before I burned out real hard on writing last year. Hope you get a little bit of fun out of what's here. <3

1 - MIT meet, 100% less drama

Tony meets James-call-me-Rhodey Rhodes at MIT. In other universes, they were on campus at the same time, but the whiz kid playboy tearing up the mech-e department and local bar scene seldom crossed paths with the steady grad student getting a masters in aircraft design courtesy of the Air Force.

In this one, they are inseparable.

Rhodey's got a way of following his train of thought that Tony's never encountered, and his intuitive understanding of flying machines outstrips Tony's own. (Tony is determined to catch up, but Rhodey never makes him feel bad for having to. Entirely unlike Howard, he thinks, and feels disloyal for the thought.) They bounce ideas off each other and make each other sharper, better, and it's a feeling of belonging Tony never expected to find. When they build an AI - a Turing-complete AI!! - Tony jokes about them becoming parents without ever going on a date, and the look of wistful fondness on Rhodey's face is all the encouragement he needs to finally ask him on one.

After graduation, Tony owes years to SI and Rhodey owes years to Uncle Sam, but they keep in close touch, with plans to go into business for themselves one day. Times being what they are, no one asks, and no one tells, but he and Rhodey both know that the much publicized dates with various eligible ladies are for maintaining appearances and nothing that will really come between them.

When Howard and Maria die, Rhodey must cash in every favor he has to get the leave, but he's there for the funeral. Tony is pretty sure his steadfast support is the only reason he could stand to be sober those first couple weeks. Stark men are supposed to be made of iron, but Rhodey's always been the one with a core of steel.

Rhodey never trusts Obie much, and - continued relationship with Tony notwithstanding - Rhodey is an impeccable judge of character. A few years later, an internal audit proves his instincts right when Stane is caught laundering company assets to sell weapons on the black market. Terrified at the thought of his weapons in the wrong hands, Tony quietly begins to diversify SI's business model - clean energy, healthcare, [THIRD THING] - things that can build the world up instead of tear it down.

Eventually Tony is able to hire Rhodey away from the military to be his chief airframe designer and personal test pilot. They move out to California to oversee the autonomous search-and-rescue drones they're developing, and set up in a preposterous mansion overlooking the ocean in Malibu, with their ever growing family of bots and JARVIS to make the huge place feel full.

Despite having no qualms shout their personal AI butler and robotic lab assistants, Rhodey calls him bougie when Tony brings on a driver, Harold-call-me-Happy Hogan, and a personal assistant, one Ms. Virginia Potts. Happy's a solid driver and a cheerful guy, but Ms. Potts is a downright revelation. She's the second person he's met now who has no trouble keeping up with his mile-a-minute mind, and though her competencies lie along a different line than his or Rhodey's, he quickly realizes they are no less remarkable. He also plain likes her in an easy way he so seldom clicks with people. Tony might be a little bit smitten.

After a while he realizes Ms. Potts-call-me-Pepper (and seriously, did Tony miss a memo on alliterative nicknames?) seems smitten too, though not with him. Rhodey's no longer active duty, but old habits of discretion die hard, so she has no way of knowing when she strikes up a flirtation with the airman that he and her boss are more than just business partners. Rhodey's flustered, and Pepper's embarrassed, but Tony's always had a big heart, and he loves nothing quite so much as making the people he cares about happy. He can see the way his honeybear smiles when she's around, and it's obvious how much she lights up with him, and he's a genius, right, but he doesn't need to be to see that they'd work. So he tells them to go for it, as long as Pepper doesn't mind sharing and Rhodey doesn't mind being shared, and they look at him like he's grown a second head because what they want is all of them together.

They totally work.

2 - IM1, BUT HAPPIER?

They meet when Lt. Rhodes is assigned the Air Force liason to Stark Industries. Warned in advance, Rhodey was expecting brash, crass, and totally out of control, but what he found in Stark, Jr. was someone with a passion for machines and an excitement for invention unlike anyone he's ever met. When they realize they'd been on campus at the same time, Tony (“please, Mr. Stark was my father”) declares them the Brass Rat Pack, which makes him roll his eyes, but doesn't make a Sammy Davis, Jr. joke, which bumps him up a couple more points in Rhodey's estimation.

3 - IM2 BUT WITH SOME DAMN COMMUNICATION

Rhodey was always going to get a suit. Tony's best friend, the best pilot he knows, AND one of the few people in military he actually still trusts? Of course. He offered Pepper one too, but he seemed to expect her to turn him down, because then he offered her the position of CEO. Insisted, really.

So Pepper becomes the head of Stark Industries while Tony and Rhodey become Iron Man and War Machine. The military brass doesn't love having one of those suits and all of their secrets in the hands and head, respectively, of such an unpredictable element, but knowing that Colonel Rhodes is liasing most of his activities goes a long way toward quieting the grumbles. The men's joint testimony on just how far off any imitators, foreign or domestic, are from duplicating the technology convinces Congress that Team Iron Man's op-sec, while unorthodox, is effective.

Rhodey takes some well deserved R&R and joins Tony and Pepper in Monaco. It's new still, this thing between them all, but it's good.

4 - POST-IM2

AVENGERS FAM DAMMIT

Aliens invade New York, and Rhodey is so glad he stole that damn suit.

5 - POST-IM3

IN WHICH WE AVOID CIVIL WAR

RESCUE HAPPENS

Rogers and Romanoff bring down SHIELD, and Pepper is horrified to realize how close she came to being murdered by the state. After Killian, after Extremis, she knows she could be considered a threat, but seeing her name, and Tony's, and Rhodey's, on the kill list in the data dump is chilling.

+1 - After Everyone Lives

"Meguna Petunia Stark-Potts-Rhodes, out of the lab and inside for dinner!"

Morgan laughed. "Not my name, Dad - and anyway, wouldn't it be Potts-Rhodes-Stark, alphabetically?"

"You know, you'd think that, but your pops actually called dibs on the anchor leg years ago…"

"A relay's got four legs, Dad."

"What did I ever do to deserve a jock for a daughter? Tell you what, find us a Q who doesn't run screaming, and we'll consider it."

"What are we considering, Tony?"

"Morgan thinks our polycule needs to be a quadrilateral, apparently, and I'm blaming the track team. I've told her we're only considering candidates with Q last names; we're so close to a straight."

"Tony, you've never been close to straight in your life."

Mom gestures at the two bickering and pleads, "Just not another guy, please, darling, I'm outnumbered already."

"I dunno, you usually like tha-"

"Tony!" Mom and Pops shoot him identical stern looks.

Family. She wouldn't want it any other way.

If anyone made it this far, thanks for reading! @allofthefeelings I'm sorry the full fic never made its way out of my brain, but thank you for the prompt anyway! And thanks again to the Good Intentions WIP Fest!

#good intentions wipfest #bring out your dead #tony/rhodey/pepper #tony stark #james rhodes #pepper potts #westie writes

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