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cyhyr · 2 years

Text

Summer of Whump - Experimentation

Fandom: Naruto

Rating: PG

Pairing: Kakashi/Iruka

WC: ~1200

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply; SEE NOTE

Additional Tags: established relationships, seals master Iruka, accidents, experiment gone wrong, brief reference to potential suicide, de-ageing magic/jutsu, whumpfluff

A/N: This is the first part of an ongoing idea that I've had in my head for a while, the second part of which will be up on Day 9. Going forward, this Verse will have warnings for Underage sex, so please feel free to ignore this fic if you'd rather not have to deal with the moral gray area that is a de-ageing situation where the character has retained their mental faculties.

If you want to be added to the tag list, comment below or send me a message!!

Tagging for Summer of Whump: @atereal @summer-of-whump @stupidbadgers

Iruka grins, walking around the edges of the large scroll unrolled on the table while the small team of scientists continues filling in the scroll with various seal scripts. On the other side of the room, a small team of medics are on standby, waiting for one of the scriptists to cause the scroll to blow up in all of their faces. Still, Iruka watches over the case carefully—he’s one of the few experts in this field, and volunteered to oversee the finishing touches when Kakashi had mentioned the project over dinner a few weeks ago. He’d much rather be at the Academy, of course, but there’s only so much actual teaching he does now that he’s the vice-principal.

“Are we just about ready to test?”

Iruka turns and grins at his spouse’s voice, new to the room. “Just about, Kakashi-sama.”

Kakashi shivers dramatically. “I’ve told you not to—”

Iruka steps around the table to stand beside Kakashi, leans in to kiss his cheek. “Yes, yes. Spouse of the Hokage shouldn’t have to address the Hokage so formally, you’ve said your piece.” He leans in and murmurs in Kakashi’s ear, very quietly, “But what if I like addressing you as such?”

Kakashi shivers again for a different reason, sighing lightly. “Later, My Love,” he murmurs back.

The team gathers around the scroll and Iruka takes his own place at one of the edges. He wasn’t originally supposed to be a part of the testing team, but he’s since been very involved and requested to assist in seeing this project through. One by one, they each put their hands on the scroll and begin slowly channeling chakra through the scroll, making the script light up as it’s activated. Iruka gives Kakashi one last glance from over his shoulder, one more bright smile, before also putting his hands on the scroll and adding his chakra to the mix.

For a few moments, everything seems to run smoothly.

Iruka’s the first one to feel that something is wrong. The seal is fighting back, something isn’t right, and he winces and turns to the woman beside him and says, “Back down.”

She nods, and passes the message on before slowly retracting her chakra and then fully pulling away and stepping back. The other three scientists around the table also pull away, but Iruka—

“Love, it’s going to—”

Iruka shakes his head. “I know,” he says. “Evacuate the room. Now.”

No one wastes any time getting out; no one’s sure what could happen if this seal were to implode. Kakashi is the last one, along with Cat and Boar, and he stands beside Iruka and studies the seal quickly. “Iruka—”

“It shouldn’t…” Iruka takes a slow, steadying breath. “It shouldn’t kill—”

“Don’t,” Kakashi whispers fiercely. “Don’t fucking talk like that. We’ll get you out of here. There has to be a way to shut this down.”

Iruka smiles sadly. “Once a seal has power, that power has to go somewhere, My Love. The script has its job to do. And it was never designed to kill.”

“That doesn’t mean it can’t backfire. Please, gods, let me at least… I can take your place.”

“No,” Iruka shakes his head. “You and your ANBU need to leave, and then I’ll release the seal. And whatever happens, happens.”

“I can’t lose you.”

Iruka leans back a little so his nose is against Kakashi’s temple. “You won’t. I’ll always be with you, okay? Through death and beyond, so long as love may last.”

Kakashi hugs him tight, rocks them both a little. “I’ll follow if you go,” he murmurs.

“In your own time,” Iruka says back softly. “I’ll wait for you, I promise.” He kisses Kakashi quickly, but Kakashi takes down his mask and turns the kiss into something hungry and deep and wet, pressing one hand into Iruka’s lower back and using the other to keep Iruka’s lips where he can kiss them. As Iruka kisses him back, he wishes desperately that he could also hold Kakashi in turn, but he can’t move his hands from the scroll without risking the seal imploding—or worse, exploding.

Boar clears his throat. “Rokudaime. I must urge you to listen to your spouse and evacuate.”

Kakashi leaves him with one last kiss on the cheek, a soft stroke of his fingers along Iruka’s face, and then he follows Boar out of the room. Cat moves to follow Kakashi, but Iruka speaks quickly and softly.

“Yamato?”

Cat stops, turns, lifts his mask. “Iruka, don’t—”

“Stop, just.” He takes a deep breath. “Don’t let him do anything rash. Please.”

Yamato frowns. “Ensure it yourself. You’ll be alright, I’m sure.”

“Yes, most likely I will be. But if I’m not…”

“Then we had all best hope that Naruto is ready to take over.” Yamato shrugs. “But it’s not going to happen because you will be fine, Iruka.”

Iruka nods shakily, and then Yamato replaces his mask. Cat follows his Hokage out of the building, and then it’s just Iruka and the scroll with the experimental seal, overloaded with chakra that he’s barely controlling.

He closes his eyes and lets go, hoping for the best, and knowing that he’s as prepared as he can be for the worst.

Kakashi has hardly stopped outside the laboratory when the explosion of chakra washes over the evacuated scientists. They all stop their soft chatter, stunned silent, and Kakashi’s stomach drops as he lurches forward to try and go back inside. Boar grabs him around his chest and Cat stops him with both hands on his shoulders.

“Trust him, Sempai,” Tenzo whispers, but once the flare-up is done and the air is calm again, Kakashi is flickering out of both of their holds and running back inside.

He barely registers going through the hallways of the laboratory, only searching for the room that they had been in before and hoping against all hope that Iruka is still alright. The door is shut tight, sealed from some combination of heat and expressed energy.

Chidori needs the Sharingan to aim. But at a point-blank range, does it really count as aiming? He lights his palm up and shoves it through the tempered glass. He climbs through the new opening in the door and looks around the lab, shouting for his spouse, “Iruka?!”

He goes around the table and finds—

“Oh, fuck, Iruka.”

—a smaller figure, swimming in the clothes that Iruka had been wearing. He’s careful as he turns them over, and gasps as he recognizes the facial scar, the softness of his hair, the sweetness of his features, but… but this is a child, someone in their teens; not the thirty-year-old man he is married to.

Iruka stirs in Kakashi’s arms, groaning and twisting his face up as he begins to wake.

“Iruka?”

He opens his eyes, and smiles up at him. “Kakashi,” he murmurs. “Is everything okay?”

Kakashi glances down at Iruka's much smaller body, back up to his clear and cognizant eyes, and realizes that although he may appear to be a teenager, Iruka remembers. And he decides to honor his promise to never lie to his spouse, whatever form he may take.

“No, Love. I don’t think so.”

#summer of whump #summer of whump day 7 #experimentation #umino iruka #hatake kakashi #kakairu #my writing

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hood-ex · 4 years

Note

Can you give any pointers for fanfiction writing? It's something I've considered trying, but I've never done creative writing and it's a bit intimidating. I'm mostly interested in writing Nightwing, and maybe having other characters (Batfam and Titans) but still always having Dick as the center.

Welcome to Fanfiction 101! I’m here to keep you from making the same mistakes I’ve made in the past.

Pre-Writing Process

There are some people who enjoy outlining the shit out of their story, and then there are people like me who just kinda make the story up as they go. Whatever you decide to do, try to at least have an ending planned out. That way while you’re writing, you can start to craft the pieces you need to get to the ending you have imagined. You can even work backward and plan your story out from end to beginning.

For example, let’s say I want my ending to be Dick and Damian hugging in a hospital. Okay, what pieces do I need to get to that point? Well, if they’re in a hospital then one of them needs to be hurt. Who do I want to hurt? Let’s go with Dick because I want this story to show how much Damian cares about Dick.

Great. Now how does Damian find out that Dick is hurt/how does he save Dick? Let’s say Damian is in the cave when the batcomputer gets an alert from Nightwing’s suit. The alert shows that Dick’s vitals have gone haywire. Damian panics, tracks down Dick’s location, and then both him and Alfie take the flying batmobile to save Dick. They find Dick and take him to the hospital.

Cool but how does Dick get hurt in the first place? Hmm, well, Dick usually always rides a motorcycle, right? So let’s say Dick gets into a motorcycle accident. How does he crash his bike? Maybe it’s because of the weather or because a baddie crashes into him. I don’t want to write a huge action scene so let’s say Dick accidentally drives over black ice, spins out, and crashes in a ditch.

And there you have it. A whole story right there from end to beginning. You can plan things out in a more detailed way before you jump in and write if you want. A basic outline like that ^ is usually enough for me to go off of. The details just come to me while I’m in the process of writing. Try and see what works best for you.

One-Shots vs. Multi-Chapter Stories

If you haven’t done a lot of creative writing, I would suggest you start off by practicing with one-shots. Now, one-shots can be shorter content, but on the flip side, there’s also one-shots that are like 50k words. Totally depends on what the author is willing to put into it in terms of plot, description, character development, etc.

I personally have a hard time finding the motivation to finish multi-chapter stories, which is why I usually stick to one-shots. Short one-shots can be easier because they don’t have to be super fleshed out. The action is quick, the dialogue is impactful, and the scene is memorable.

You can also just jump into the action when it comes to one-shots. You don’t have to do as much build-up. For example, I could jump right into a scene of Dick having trouble breathing like this:

Dick’s having a hard time making sense of things. Vaguely, he can hear Bruce shouting for Alfred. He can feel hands on him. His vision is going in and out. Then, suddenly, there’s silence. Dick wakes up, confused. Tim is sitting at his bedside, holding his hand. Bruce is close by, and when he realizes Dick is awake, he immediately goes over to him. Bruce explains that Dick had a bad reaction to a drug he was injected with. Bruce cards his hand through Dick’s hair to comfort him, and Dick reflects on when Bruce used to do the same thing when Dick was a kid.

End scene.

Okay, so, obviously a real story would have way more description than that, but you get what I’m saying, yeah? That whole scene could be the entire story and it would be enough. But if you have the motivation to do way more than that with a ton of character development and what not, you totally could prolong that one-shot into 50k words. Or just break everything up into a multi-chapter fic.

The problem with writing one chapter at a time for a multi-chapter fic is that it’s hard to keep the motivation to keep writing each chapter. You write one chapter and then put the story to the side for a few days, and suddenly, you keep making excuses about why you don’t want to write the next chapter. To be fair, this can also happen with a basic one-shot, but yeah, tis the life of a writer. Don’t be discouraged if it happens to you. Trust me, it will at some point.

Character POV

Listen, I love writing in first person. In other fandoms, I used to write a lot of my stories in first person POV. I’ve got some bad news for you, though. Generally, people don’t like to read fanfics that are in first person POV. They just don’t. Nowadays, even I tend to skip over stories that are written in first person POV.

Third person POV is going to be your best friend. Get comfortable writing it.

Admittedly, sometimes it’s easier for me to grasp a character’s voice if I first write the story in first person POV. I then go back and change all the “I’s” and “me’s” to he, his, her, hers, etc. That’s just a little trick I do sometimes if I’m having a hard time getting a story started.

Characterization

If you’re not 100% sure how to write a specific character, try and figure out a few facts about them. Like if you want to write Dick then think about some key qualities of his. Sprinkle those traits throughout the story to make the character sound more authentic.

For example, I know Dick doesn’t like cucumber sandwiches. Sometimes I’ll have him or other characters mention this in the story. I also know Dick can struggle with perfectionism. I can make that something he has to struggle with in the story. It doesn’t have to be what the whole story revolves around, but if I just throw in some things here and there about how Dick is mad at himself for failing about something then that makes him feel more in character.

Character Interactions

At first, writing multiple characters interacting at once can be really difficult. It can fuck up the pacing of your story, it can be hard to insert each character enough to make sure they aren’t ignored, and it can be hard to make sure each character is getting a chance to speak.

If you find yourself struggling with this, try and just stick to two characters at first. Once you’re comfortable writing a conversation between them, try adding in another character. And another. And another.

The more you practice, the more you’ll be able to write multiple characters interacting in a scene in a way that feels more natural and realistic.

Genres and Tropes

When it comes to figuring out what you want to write about, you need to know what kind of content your audience wants. For example, fantasy niches (fairies, vampires, etc.) can be harder to “sell” in this particular fandom. There are people like myself who enjoy those niches, but just know that they may not be the most popular niches within this specific fandom.

What are some niches that the majority of fandoms do like? Hurt/comfort, sick fics, whump, fluff. Those kinds of fics are always in demand. People love it when their favs get hurt. People love it when other characters worry about their favs. People love it when their favs get hurt while protecting others. People love it when their favs are getting along and being affectionate with one another.

Go on AO3 and sort the fics in this fandom by “most comments” or “most kudos.” Now look at the most popular fics that come up and look at the tags they use. See what kinds of things those authors are writing about. Read their summaries and try to get an idea of what the stories are about.

Once you get an idea of which kind of genres and tropes are most popular, try and write a story that includes those genres/tropes. People will be more likely to read stories that have tropes they usually like to read about.

Now, of course, you can also just write whatever the hell you want without trying to appeal to your audience. This is what I do a lot of the time. Turns out that the things I like to write about tend to fall more in line with the tropes that are already popular in this fandom.

Spelling and Grammar

People really hate to read stories that have tons and tons of spelling and grammar mistakes. Make sure before you post anything, you put your story in Word or Grammarly (I use the free version) to check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. Trust me, your readers will thank you for it.

Practice, Practice, Practice

I’ve been writing creative stories since I was 11 years old. The stories I wrote back then are absolutely shit compared to the stories I write now. So please don’t get discouraged if you write a story and you don’t feel like it’s very good.

Keep trying! Just like with anything else, the more you do it, the better you’ll be at it. There are so many things you’ll learn as you continue to write. Seriously, just recently, I realized I wasn’t always putting a comma in my compound sentences to break up the independent clauses. But hey, hey, now I know.

Pacing, characterization, and plot are also things that will improve the more you write. Writing drabbles (stories with maybe just a few hundred words) will help with this. It will help you learn to choose the most important scene or dialogue and write it in an impactful, emotional, and compelling way.

Okay, class is dismissed! If you have any other questions then feel free to send me another ask!

#writing #writing advice #fanfics #batfam

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