#now if i could write coherently this would be written as a fic but im stuck writing too long textposts

[treasureplcnet]

also quite obsessed with karl being as detached from the story as he is. there's nothing that makes him have to be the detective that has to be involved, but he unknowingly dooms himself by agreeing to work with the KYAL cult. every other detective basically deals with elias head on except weissman, who only meets him right before he kills him. like he's right when he says "by my choices" because everything that leads him to being mixed up with the mannix cult is himself. it's the gambling debts and the choice to do the dirty work for an organisation he knows nothing about. he's the only one that doesn't encounter that body doing police work and it's specifically because he's told to cover it up. he gets himself into the mess and eventually fixes it but the fact that esther always dies in the doomed timelines and he's always too late even if he starts wanting to change things ("till this child. esther.") it just makes me very ill

#sorry jane who heard this on her dms but now im posting it to tumblr cause im having a category 5 woman moment. AND ALTERNATIVELY: #i am also EXTREMELY obsessed with how its a time loop and the idea (so sorry tumblr user whose post i have lost and was inspired by) #weissman was just so fucking hard to deal with that they made sure that he was in their pockets. i just like the idea of the loop-- #--having like. fixed points that elias would need to ensure the dystopia (body is covered up/the investigation closes/etc) but #how they get there is a slightly slower process and the earliest loops were the messiest/most unpredictable #and what we see in the show itself is like. the most streamlined version over hundreds of loops and attempts #so karl specifically. lonely that he is and determined to survive. AND with a cruel streak against people he doesn't like #kept nearly blowing their operation so they began to incorporate him in it instead #there's also another tragedy in there if /esther/ is what they realise works best against him.. #just love and kindness for a girl that weissman comes to see as family and they immediately exploit it after learning during an early loop #im ignoring specific plot points here (polly seemingly panicking when esther shows up at the station) but I DO NOT CARE. #THERE'S ANGST HAPPENING RN. IM CREATING SCENARIOS TO HURT ME #now if i could write coherently this would be written as a fic but im stuck writing too long textposts #karl weissman #bodies 2023 #bodies netflix #sorry to the other detectives. weissman in particular is my babygirl who i devote most of my brainpower to #personal

[oakleaf--bearer]

hi!! sorry if this is rude or weird or anythin, feel free to delete it if you don't want to answer, but- do you ever plan to update "how to bend not break the rules"? and if not, would you be open to someone making a continuation fic of it?

hey! absolutely no worries!!

i am sorry for how long the hiatus for htbnbtr has been, it was not at all planned to be like that. to cut a long story short, a lot has happened in the last year that has meant that writing has been extremely difficult, so i have been focusing those spoons on other projects such as my book instead (which!! might be being published next year!!!). i shouldve probably explained this earlier, but i genuinely didnt know when i would be back for it. burnout is a bitch, and it got to the point where i didnt know who i was writing for anymore

however, i did a reread of htbnbtr a few weeks ago and it reignited my love of it. theres still some notes left from before the hiatus that could become future chapters or spin off fics (college au anyone?), or i had been potentially floating the idea of a rewrite with a more cohesive plot! i do want to return to it, i owe it so so much at this point, and if there is still an audience for it then i would love to fulfil yalls wishes - htbnbtr has always had such a great community that i would want to do right by you all. i want to write for the readers, this time not out of an obligation but out of a mutual love for the work.

also,,, there is now a real possibility of having illustrations in some of the future chapters.....

that being said, if i can shake my brain back into gear and get these notes coherent again, i will seriously consider posting these chapters even if there isnt readers. writing is so so fun

in terms of continuation fics, im down for that!! these characters are fantastic and i love that people are inspired by them. all in all, so long as there is at least an attempt to credit me for the characters, then im okay with it! my only boundary is that i am not comfortable with smut being written for them - they are children, please dont be weird.

tldr! htbnbtr may be returning for 2024!!!

#anon ask #my inbox #yall are literally the best readers in the world and i have been so so lucky with yall #create away!! if theres a story you wanna write then write!!!

[santhropomorph]

Hi!! Love your fics!! I hope this isnt an odd question, but I wanted to ask, since you've shipped hobmurphy/dreamling since before the tv series came out and the ship definitely has more attention now than it did before--have you noticed any differences in how the morpheus/hob dynamic was written/viewed by the fandom before the netflix show vs afterwards? anything about the ship that newer fans might overlook? im deathly curious about that evolution and thought it might be worth asking about :)

Aww, thank you for reaching out! I'm so glad you like my fics☺️

👀You wanna know the pre-show dreamling story? Oh boy, am I happy to talk about that! (no seriously, I vent about those dark ages to anybody willing or unwilling to listen)

So I'm not your oldest sandman fan, I read the comics about 2 years ago and started shipping dreamling/hobmurphy at the same time. I read Men of Good Fortune (dreamling's first issue) and left off shipping them like a maniac. Two guys meeting each other every hundred years, the slowly developing affection, the fucking break-up, the reconciliation at the end, I was HOOKED. So I looked on ao3 for fics...

In a 30 year old fandom, there were FOUR (4) dreamling fics. One of them an introspective drabble, and another one barely shippy, just a lead up to desire/dream... And all those fics were dated 2003, 2006 and 2010. On Tumblr? There were about 30 posts under the tag Hob Gadling, 3-4 of them shippy. There was ONE (1) fanart of dream and hob together. One!

As for the dreamling fandom? Nonexistent. I can count on one hand the number of people I could talk to who shipped them, and I raided the fucking internet... I was literally going around 5 different socials like an idiot, begging people to ship them with me! I nagged my beta (bless you, Roonie) to read the comics, so that I could have somebody to yell at about dreamling!

I wish I could tell you the difference between the shippy content now and back then but it would be a chore cause I was literally the only person actively creating said content (plus ThePlatypussPrincess whom I managed to rope into my agenda and nagged into writing a Glorious fic😘). Those few interactions about them I managed to have were all very similar to the dreamling conversations I have these days.

I think a lot of this was a product of the differences in the source material. I picked up on the dreamling ship fast because it was right up my alley with friends to lovers and slow build of trust and affection. But a lot of other people seemed to have missed that potential i guess which still baffles me. Then the bloody show came around and Hob and dream spent 8 whole minutes staring into each other's eyes, saving each other from Constantine and a million other things so glaringly obvious that there was no way for anybody to miss it. And I was left standing there in the corner like... PEOPLE, THE QUEER WAS ALWAYS THERE, IT JUST DIDN'T WHACK YOU OVER THE HEAD WITH A BAGUETTE!!

Okay I can try comparing differences I guess but those are just the result of the show's additions: there was no Hob jealous of Shakespeare and no Teacher!Hob. And dreamling all in all was perceived in 90% as platonic...

Fuck I'm getting depressed, anyway, the way this ship blew up after the show was fucking insane, I'm still recovering from it.

Hope this was coherent enough!

#hob gadling #the sandman #dream of the endless #hobmurphy #dreamling #dreamgadling #dream x hob #sorry for the rant

[nuatthebeach]

2022 Wrapped

Tagged by @corneliaavenue! You're a lovely thing <3

Oof, it's already 2023, isn't it? Oh, well.

Post the top 5 works you're most proud of that you released in 2022 (not necessarily your most popular)

it's gonna be 4 now lol.

persist and resist the temptation to ask you - this one is perhaps the most authentic, soul-pouring fic i've ever written. and the one i'm most proud of because of my growth in writing prose and pacing overall. there were many times i would huddle with a blanket in a dark room (💀) simply because of how much i was feeling in the moment. it was the most visceral experience i've had writing so far.

like passing notes in secrecy - i would say that when i finished persist, i was in this writing craze/high in that i simply wanted to write anything since i finally felt like i was on a roll, but that wouldn't do this fic - and my work - justice. because persist was so angsty, i desperately needed to write something that was light and fluffy in consequence for my own sake. i'm very happy about the banter and humor i was able to apply to this OTP; it was pure serotonin, and i hope it was the same for others.

Midnight - my first hinny smut!! aka i took my headcanon of switch!hinny and really ran with it. though i no longer have the same exact headcanon about the two of them, i'm still really proud of how steamy this turned out. and i have a feeling all the private bookmarkers do too 👀

you knew that i'm a mastermind, and now you're mine - man, the sheer power tswift holds on all fic writers everywhere. the aim was to use this song ("mastermind") in irony to show how the wizarding world perceives ginny relative to her relationship with harry. and because ginny is such a force of nature, she and the press manage to come to a certain albeit amusing level of agreement (a true mastermind har dee har). it's a bamf character moment for her, and she owned every second of it.

your top 4 current WIPs that you're excited to release in the new year

you reminded me to open up my google docs for the first time in a month! phewww.

premed hinny!rivals to lovers fic - snippet here. my final fuck you (and extremely reluctant thank you) to undergrad in the form of my OTP. fic is fully outlined and ready to be written if only i could give it the time of day 😭. but now that i have a lot of time opened up for me in the next several months, i'll finally get to it! fingers crossed

anniversary hinny smut - hinny roleplays as strangers in a bar, and let's just say we'll stick the art of acting to the shitty movies. a whole ass page written so far, so i take that as a win!

a somewhat angst, somewhat crack fic... i uh... have the most written for this wip so far of all my wips and im both proud and mortified by that. let's just say it's a story of how hinny finds themselves back to each other postwar... and the path is not exactly a straight route. playlist is a wip as well.

another crack fic because apparently that's all @takearisk-ao3 and me are on... though it's more accurate to say i helped to brainstorm and Hannah, the brilliant Executioner. to quote Hannah's post... "no comment."

im adding a fifth one because why not. hinny!vampire au. though there's only been half a page written for it so far, and hence a lot of white space, im so, so ready for the tools of creativity to lead me to more crackheadery that ive yet to discover. (like i needed more to start with.)

your top 3 biggest improvements in your writing over the past year

i think my writing comes off a bit "cleaner" now? there's more of a coherent plot, resolution to my fics than most of the simple "slices of life" that i wrote more of last year.

i'd like to think the dialogue comes off more natural now too. im finally getting the hang of doing more "showing" than telling and implementing symbolism and metaphors when trying to display a broader theme/concept.

im able to sit with fics and be at ease with the fact that im not going to have the right answer immediately. that i have to wait before i can post to make it better. i started prioritizing quality over mass production - and while this is still something i struggle with a lot of the times - i feel like this is a bit of a step up from last year. and most importantly, i learned that rewrites - not just editing - may be necessary too, and that is okay. that does not make me a bad writer but (hopefully) a thoughtful one.

your top 2 resolutions (ways you wish to improve your writing/blog) for the new year

to not constantly compare myself to other people's writing. focus on how i can improve myself without being intimidated by all the works of the many amazing writers in the fandom. to finally put words on the page fearlessly and authentically, like i felt i did with persist.

to take more risks. keep putting my characters in uncomfortable situations and testing out how they can grow from them. to not feel limited in my writing just because in my young age i havent experienced them. to push my boundaries more. (i thank @fairsquare16 @takearisk-ao3 and @narukoibito for encouraging this and the first goal every single time i feel even the slightest bit down about it; they're also the reason im still entertaining all these crackfics so put the blame on them when they eventually come out)

and your number 1 favorite line you've written this year

my fucking answer to this changes every two seconds...not for any other reason except that it's my biggest conspiracy theory that i have early, early onset dementia and can't for the life of me remember. here's one for now:

Like the story, the moral is just as simple: love unconditionally, act irrevocably. One shouldn't fear wearing their heart on their sleeve if the alternative is to never plant, water, and bathe it with the light of day.

After all, what are mistakes if not signs to grow?

Tagging

@narukoibito @heartstopping-waves @ashotofogdensoldfirewhiskey and whoever else would like to do it (i truly mean that)!

#2022 wrapped #nu's writing tag #hinny fanfic #harry x ginny

[rollercoasterwords]

hi rae!! i was wondering if you could tell us more about your writing process :)) im very curious about it. like, do you brainstorm then write or write whatever flows or both. do you painstakingly line edit after or just give it a glance for any mistakes. im mostly curious about atydsp bc its so exceptionally well written and it absolutely boggles my mind that you were posting a ch a day. how much of your time for atydsp involved editing/scrapping & rewriting/etc? xx

hi sure i'd be happy to!! gonna put this under a cut tho bc it got long lol

for atydsp (+ my captive prince rewrite) my process was pretty different from my other writing in that i basically descended into a feverish haze of obsession and literally abandoned all other hobbies just to write bc i loved the story so much lol. for atydsp especially that thing was like...my only hobby for half a year like i was not reading or watching tv or movies or playing video games etc bc the only thing i wanted 2 do in my free time was. write.

when i'm rewriting a story from another character's pov i usually have the ch of whatever i'm rewriting open next to word doc and just kinda go 2 town. i think it's much easier when you aren't having to do the heavy lifting when it comes to plot and are following an outline, bc obviously you aren't having to do much story planning urself--although for the later chs of atydsp where i sort of broke off from the og version + the chs where r + s are separated + i had to write new scenes for s i did have to spend more time planning, writing, editing, etc, but i didn't start posting the story until i'd already written the first 20 chs so. i had a pretty large buffer and that combined with the obsession combined with the shorter chapters + outline to follow is why i was able to post so frequently.

when i'm writing a new fic there's much more brainstorming involved bc obviously i am having 2 come up w a whole new plot!! but bc i'm only writing fic for fun i don't really take it too seriously and usually i just cobble together a couple of fun scenes or tropes that i like and then sort of...fill in the blanks? like if i'm like "ok i want to write a scene where x happens and then later a scene where y happens" i usually end up figuring out a plot/how to keep the story moving between those two scenes, rather than vice versa (having like...a coherent plot and then coming up with fun scenes that fit into it). like my current wip started as just a single idea of "ooh what if there was a werewolf fighting ring" and then it become a voldemort-won au bc i was like hmmm in what situation would r + s meet at a werewolf fighting ring...and then i decided it would eventually turn into a horcrux hunt bc i was like "ok if r + s grew up in a voldemort-won au...what would james be doing...." and now the story is continuing to change as i continue to have ideas of like "ooh what if i incorporated this trope" or "ooh this would be such a fun scene to write." like lily + james's entire dynamic in this fic basically grew out of an idea that i had for a single argument that i wanted to write lmao

anyway when it comes to actual writing process i usually go into a ch with just a vague outline of a few bullet points, and if i'm stuck on something i send a voicenote to my sister just like...talking through my thoughts + what i want to happen + usually by the end of the voicenote i'll have figured out what direction i wanna take things. or sometimes i'll ask her opinion (the ending i'm planning rn for atwmd changed completely after one such consultation...had an idea but then talked myself out of it but then my twin was like wait....i think that idea works better than what ur currently planning....and i was like damn maybe ur right....). so most of my planning + brainstorming is basically just me daydreaming + then talking 2 myself lmao.

when it comes to actual writing i'm pretty slow because i'm too much of a perfectionist and i need everything to sound right. immediately. like i have heard the advice so many times "just get something down on the page then go back and edit it later" but i am like. incapable of following it lol i will write a sentence and then read over it three times to decide if i like it before i move on. the plus side to this is that my chs usually need very little editing; i generally just read over them once or twice and make a few minor tweaks and i'm good to go!

anyway. i have had some similar inquiries abt my writing process etc in the past so i'll tag this ask w 'writing tips' bc i think that's what i've used b4; hopefully this satisfied ur curiosity!

#writing tips #<- not really tips but tagging w this bc it'll take u back 2 similar asks abt writing process etc i think #ask

[raven]

this is only somewhat related i guess but i had a similar revelation about writing something original a while ago. i wrote some fanfiction online and i got really attached to the story, and at some point i realized the plot is far removed enough from the og source material that i could literally just change character names and make small tweaks and it could be just a regular book. currently working on editing/getting it published atm and it’s going well so!! :]

(also, while i agree that fanfic is not inherently made for serious critique/meaning and it shouldn’t be treated as such, i view writing fic almost the same as regular writing, just in a different context and working off another piece of media, and i’ve read a lot of fics that at leasts i consider to be genuinely good and well crafted. some of the most talented writers i know personally started out writing fanfic or *still* write it, so i don’t know if treating the entire concept of fanfic like it can’t be art at all is fair. but of course that’s just personal opinion!! i don’t think it matters much lmao but i just respectfully disagree w that part)

I hope that goes well! i know a lot of people dont like it when fanfics get published and i agree on most levels but ive read at least one (as a kid, so maybe im just remembering it as better than it was, but whatevr) where i was like the only thing about this that is somewhat similar to the source material is the character dynamics and obviously the names, like what are you doing just make it completely your own.. ok heres the thing. published r*ylo (or any star wars fanfic lol) is like garbage and trash and already overdone. but i would read, like, a published sasunaru fanfic. havent even seen/read naruto but i would read it. its just the literal nerve of publishing straight fanfiction. (the finnpoe one that people made fun of a few months ago also looked bad but everything star wars is kind of straight to me, and also bad) sorry if what you're writing is straight and especially if it's star wars but if it is do keep these words in mind.

anyways. i think it can be a useful tool in practicing writing (although there are some bad habits that are very prevalent in fanfiction) Also btw sorry the edible just hit so this migjt be less coherent. And ive read some that i enjoyed, some that were well written, etc, but its just. theres something to me that is just kind of . Self centered? and i say this as someone who has read fanfic recently like the vibes i get from the authors and myself as a reader. it's just like... Things You Like. its Stuff You Enjoy. its kind of like . its so self indulgent. (even if its like well it can be used to explore mature themes etc etc Listen on some level You Like It and its not because of its social commentary! or whatever.) Maybe i spoke too quickly on saying its "not art" but i. Well. Hm. i cannot vocalize this right now im sorry. Anyways. if u want to continue this conversation do not be afraid to dm me, these posts are just getting long and probably annoying and the edible did hit right in the middle so i didnt give it all of my best work. im like super high right now sorry bye

#long post

[notcatherinemorland]

this one is about my incredibly explicit gay lawyer fic lol

a) migraine :(

b) wrote a solid 1k of gay lawyer men today

c) i am at the crossroads of making this pwp canon-coherent from an emotional standpoint or taking out the canon-coherency entirely to keep it tonally consistant with the silly tone i have written it in and its just two lawyers fucking in a stationary cupboard 5cm apart because they are gay.

d) for a smutfic honestly this really isn’t like. sexy at all. unfortunately i am incapable of writing genuine human emotions that aren’t consciously performative bc i read too much wilde as an impressionable teenager & now i cant talk about lawyers railing each other without the veneer of sarcasm and emotional detatchment. unfortunately the case im writing about is 1-5 which is pretty much a) a hamlet style tragedy from the perspective of horatio b) point-blank sad for every single character. naturally this is the case that i think gay sex would really add something to.

e) i could just write a fucking regular pwp like everyone else on this site. but no. why would i want to write anything other than a genuinely explicit gay lawyer version of the htn bone scene. it wont be anywhere near as good as that bc there’s no bones but the boners and its actually abt the smut. but its very important to me, specifically, that i have it on record that my inspiration for the fucking awful 3rd scene that’s only smut mechanically or if you’re especially generous, is the htn bone scene.

f) migraine bad :(

#me meta #oh fuck i didnt put my laundry on :( #but i did misspell the lawyer men's names 5 different ways each today which is almost impressive #anyway. this says nothing of value

[youreyeslookliketheocean]

i finally got the time and motivation (adhd smh) to finish LIFLL!! it was so fucking good esoecially the poem :D. i feel like it rounded it all out with wil actively hating poetry writing one. it was super full circle things!

ive been in love with this au idea sicne you first talked about it. i remember sitting in math class just letting the idea of this au rotate in my brain for a little while and im so glad i got to see it in a fic i was so happy when the math scene was written as a fellow math hater. this fic is so fuckign poggers and i could talk about it for hours if i could actually form coherent words when im excited about things lol

ty for making this and i hope school goes well :D im off to go read the nascar one now im super excited

Omg thank you so much!!!! :D

I’m also a math hater, so the math scene was one of my absolute favorites to write. I used to cry over my homework at the kitchen table, and my mom would have to come help me figure it out, so I just… projected that onto LIFLL!tommy😂

I’m glad you liked the fic! And I’m so excited for the nascar one - it makes me all jittery to think about it (in a good way!) - so I hope you like it!

#kat speaks #asks #dream smp #dsmp #dream smp fanfic #LIFLL #l is for (loser) literature

[delicrieux]

☆ﾐ 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚜𝚊𝚢 “𝚘𝚑”

PART 23: PRETTY BOY

emotions run wild when everyone is drunk and hardly coherent. quackity is always loud, but tonight is a full on assault on the senses (the ears, in particular). bretman simps for corpse too much for your liking. rae is happy for once. there’s a confession of love somewhere in there. sister james makes a very good impostor, but that’s old news, the real question is who gave you a knife? a new persona emerges that leaves the roaches quivering in their boots.

─── corpse husband x reader, a lil bit of everyone x reader (because she’s a queen) ─── soc. media + written fiction! ─── word count: a lil over 7k.

author’s note: it’s the way i can’t follow a fucking calendar for me. sorry guys, i swear to god i thought i had one more day before thursday . the idiot award goes to me and i accept it with pride. anyway, i was excited to write this for a while! quackity is in mexico, that’s why he drinks, too. my fic, my rules, he’s too funny not to include. im also working on an extra w dream and mr quack so look forward to that, too! hopefully u like this part ily xx and as always lmk wat u think!!

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The outfit for today was picked with care and consideration. Hot, as always- you had forgotten your roots, your hoodie and sweats lay hidden in the bottom of your drawer never to be worn on stream again. You’ve changed. Clout really does that to people. Some viewers, naturally, find your hotness near insulting: how dare you rub your beauty in their faces, and so unabashedly, too?! If only you had a twinge of self-awareness, perhaps you would tone it down. But you don’t, and whether that’s by choice or not is the mystery the whole internet tries to solve (ARMY has been working diligently, and you admire their effort, though in the end their tireless labor brings no tangible results). 

You went from hot to hotter. In all truth, the fires eating away at California can be blamed on you. You carry this burden in stride, in your platform overpriced shoes some girl scammed you on Depop with, in your fishnets, in your skirt, in your corset, in your rings and necklaces and chains. You woke up today and chose violence. Decided your existence will be a plague to the rest of the populace, and meant it (that, maybe, you took inspiration from a certain faceless Youtuber that so happens to be your boyfriend or whatever). You feel powerful. Like you could step on the world and the world would let you. You decide that it’s the way it should always be. 

The smile on your lips informs of nothing good to your quaint, small audience of 40k. You change the lighting in your room from the soft cherry blossom pink to menacing violet. As fitting for a villain.

Perhaps California’s hellish sun has finally purged you of your bubbly, docile nature (arguably, you had never possessed it to begin with); perhaps it’s the forth mimosa you’re mixing as people slowly trickle into the lobby. Who knows?! Not you, definitely. What do all of those boring dead white European philosophers say? Embrace the unknown? Cheers, you’ll drink to that.

In stark contrast to your appearance, your room is a fucking mess. A war-zone of epic anime scale. Everything is scattered, well, everywhere. A perfect representation on what’s going on in your mind, always. You don’t like how people focus on your surroundings-- you’re the main attraction, hello? Are you not enough to sustain them? Must they beg for more?! Totally ungrateful. You shake your head in disappointment, as if a mother scolding her children. 

noooooo! mom pls forgive me i will never ask abt anything ever again T_T

yall looking at the room? lol couldnt be me

feels like im five and my mum just told me i cant eat a pretty rock i found on the pavement:(

You can’t contain your sly grin. Eyes twinkle with a purplish hue, appearing all the more menacing. You tricked them once again, oh how absolutely evil of you. In your blind delight you accidentally spill champagne on your lap.

“-Oop, fuck.” You snort.

why does she sound like goofy 

The scandalous drunk Among Us stream is about to start. You had been eerily silent through the greetings, and those that chose to approach you were met with a cold shoulder and minimal replies. All on purpose, of course. You wish to plant a seed of unease within them, and so far, it’s working. There are questions unanswered, jokes unsaid, Quackity unteased. It breaks your heart, but it must be done. You look into the camera, all vulnerable and devout, as if to say: I’m doing this for you, all for you.

pack it up yandere simulator

idk whats going on but i think im into it?

villain arc villain arc villain aRC VILLAIN ARC

“Hey, guys,” Corpse’s voices rings in your headphones, and not a blink later his astronaut appears in the lobby in a cloud of smoke, “Hi, Y/n.”

More sharp, excited hellos follow after. You merely hum, though give no further reply. As Corpse strays to your side, Charlie steps in in front of him, “BDA access only. You have a permit, bitch?”

“Y/n is being quiet-she’s being quiet, guys!” Quackity helpfully informs, as if the rest failed to notice your cryptic silence, “Don’t be sad Corpse, man, Corpse don’t be-she didn’t say shit to me either.”

“Y/n has decided to not waste her breath on the SDS.” Charlie voices, “And you know what? I actually agree with her for once.”

“SD-what now?” Dream questions.

“The Small Dick Society.” Charlie explains, noting Dream’s whine of protest, “Oh no, don’t give me that shit, weren’t you bitching about not being invited and not belonging to exclusive clubs? Congratulations, you’re finally part of one.”

“Wait!” Quackity interjects, “Am I part of it too?”

“Guess, Sherlock.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Corpse says. You nod to your audience, like he just spoke the God honest truth, and follow in his example. Your tentative sip unexpectedly turns into a greedy gulp, but you’re not complaining. The only slightly coherent thought that rings in your mind is drink tasty.

“Ignore them,” Rae chimes, “Y/n’s probably plotting something and using Charlie as a cover up.”

“I’d never.” The words slip past your lips before you can stop them.

“Well you sure are very quick to deny it.” You can hear her smirking, can hear the proud lilt in her voice, like she caught onto your silly little scheme, like she has you all figured out. Your eyes narrow dangerously. The night behind your window pools dark, with far away city lights glimmering before they, too, seem to dim. 

Your roommate is back on your shitlist. How her name was missed among the rest.

“I’m defending my honor.” You yelp, the playfulness back in your voice along with your sunny smile, “I can’t have my wifey slandering me online. At least do it in private, geez.”

If Rae’s such a good detective, you’ll give her a good chase. Perhaps you’ve been laying it on too thick. Made her too suspicious. She can’t out you yet--not when your plans are so grand, so fun. It would be a waste.

“Why weren’t you saying anything then?” Quackity questions.

“Do I need a reason not wanting to talk to you?” You shoot back. Your friends laugh and he tries to shriek something past their cackle. You lean back into your chair, the tension from Rae’s confrontation finally easing. You wink at the camera and bring a finger to your lips. The roaches swear to secrecy, elated by your wickedness. As appropriate, they spam devil emojis and various renditions of evil hohohos and hehehes. The apple truly does not fall far from the tree. You had raised them well. You raise your glass in solidarity. A few donations fall into your pocket, easily summed up as: make them suffer.

Muting the discord call, you give a single response, “Oh, I intend to.”

i hope this doesn’t awaken something in me

^already too late for me bro

As caught up in wreaking havoc among your viewers as you are, you miss Sykkuno’s entrance, though from what you can tell, Charlie gave a stern warning to back the fuck off to him, too. He’s playing into your plan so beautifully. Truly, you couldn’t do this without him. Back to stalking the chat you go.

Your eyes flicker to the game upon Bretman’s signature drawl and “Hi, daddy.”. You have no time to get offended at Corpse’s sweet “Hi, honey” back, because the next person to join the discord call and the lobby leaves you speechless. You knew, of course, you had been informed of the line-up, but still, you had never expected yourself to be so close to Jomes Chorles himself. You make a weird gesture with your hands, half wave half excited wiggle, as if you’re telling the audience to calm down, when, in fact, it is you that needs calming.

He goes saying his hello’s like doing a public service, name by name, before, lastly, uttering, “Hi, Miss Y/n. Loooove the vids.”

He’s a roach in disguise, who could’ve known?! Your audience is so diverse and unexpected, gosh, you’d shed a tear if the mascara wasn’t so expensive.

“Hi!” You reply with a grin, and it’s genuine this time, a glimmer of your old self, “Hi, I love your videos, too. It’s like, really cool to finally meet you.”

“Oh my God, you too!” Is his enthusiastic reply, “Okay, the energy in the studio today? Love it.”

“Is this all of us?” Quackity asks.

“Sadly.” James says with a note of disappointment.

“HEY!”

“Okay, guys!” Ash chimes, “Let’s do this! Proximity Among Us, round one, go go go!”

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

Luck does not shine upon you during the first round- you are stuck as Crew Mate, your life cut short by Bretman who had the audacity to bite your head off. You’re positive Ke$ha wrote her hit single Cannibal about him, and if she didn’t, she definitely had a That’s So Raven moment and predicted it. It’s also insanely suspicious as after you are eliminated he sticks real close to Corpse, feigning innocence (and this is a controversial opinion you do not endorse) better than even you. It wounds your pride, having been picked off so casually, so quickly, and now stuck a ghost you roam the halls of the dying spaceship, lost, confused, heartbroken.

Charlie runs past you, not once even glancing in your direction. “Brother...” You mutter sadly, “Do you not see me here? Do you not feel... the loss of your twin’s heartbeat...?" Damn, these mimosas really are making you emotional. You sniffle and take a sip to calm the storm within you. No rage, just sadness. You are still processing your own tragic demise.

Suddenly, a meeting is called. There’s a horrible red X on your astronaut. You are the only one dead so far, and of course the rest won’t vote out the fucker. How bitterly you sit! With your arms crossed over your chest and your glare sharp enough to cut through glass. Fuck the sad shit, now you’re just angry. At the very least, the second Impostor could’ve given you some company!

“I knew something felt off.” Charlie is first to speak.

“Who the fuck killed Y/n?” Corpse questions, and his voice ignites a whole discussion that lasts much too short. The others skip, having no suspect yet. It’s much too soon to start pointing fingers, but you still feel like they should have at least tried. Pouting, you fix yourself another drink.

“Stop drinking!?” You gasp, exasperated at your chats demands, “I’m dead! What else should I do, the tasks?! Nah, fuck that. I’m done. I’m out. Charlie better employ his fucking detective skills because if the Impostors win, I will literally quit the game--yes I will, no I’m not bullshitting, fucking watch me.”

Thankfully, Bretman was caught venting, and you didn’t have to end the stream prematurely. The second Impostor, your roommate (oh, the betrayal, Rae, how could you?!) was voted out due to Corpse’s suspicion. Victory to the Crew Mates! The game restarts and you find yourself back in the lobby.

“Miss Y/n,” Bretman says, “I am sooo sorry for killing you first, baby. It was just too easy. I couldn’t pass it up.”

Giggling, Quackity chimes, “Sister slaughtered.”

“Oh my God,” James groans, “shut up!”

“Yeah, Y/n.” Charlie speaks, and there’s an accusatory note in his calm voice, “Why the fuck did you allow yourself to be eliminated first? Real noob shit, I expected more of you.”

“HUH?!” You frown, “What’s with the victim blaming?! I literally was doing my task and Bretman snuck up on me. It’s not like I had a weapon to defend myself!”

“You have been avenged,” Corpse states, “and that’s all that matters.”

“Thank you, Corpse!” You say, “At least someone cares.”

“Hey, I helped, too!” Dream pipes up.

“No, you didn’t.” Corpse shoots him down, “I was the only one.”

“You were not--”

“Literally was. Isn’t that right, Sykkuno?”

“Uhhhh-” Sykkuno trails off, “Well, we-we all helped!” You can hear his shy smile, and you just know he’s bobbing his head up and down at this exact moment, “We all helped. Team work!”

“Team work!” The rest echo, save for yourself, Corpse, Charlie, and the two Impostors. Silence speaks more than a thousand words or whatever. You pray to any higher power willing to listen to finally assign you the role of the villain, the one you were born to do. 

Sadly, higher powers must have either shitty customer service or are in need of hearing aids, and you almost scream in frustration when your astronaut appears along with the others, the bold CREW MATE title chipping away at your master plan.

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

“Hey, Y/n, hey! Hey, Y/n!” Rae finds you in Cafeteria, where you, metaphorically, are eating your feelings. Not that she needs to know, of course. She sounds chipper, a bit ditsy, and that must mean she’s sufficiently tipsy. You store that information for later, and forget about it as soon as you notice Dream and Sykkuno, like her very own personal bodyguards, trailing after her, “Wanna play a game?!”

“Is this Saw?” You inquire, somewhat lazy. You’d be lying if you said the alcohol wasn’t affecting you, it’s just instead of making you bubbly, it makes you mellow. This was supposed to be fun, you were supposed to terrorize everyone and laugh as they perished by your hand, yet here you are, wallowing in self-pity. The roaches start worrying. The donation jingle chimes.

BEATINGS & SLUTATIONS yns_fishnets donated 5$ mom just wait it out & dont worry youll get your vengeance soon lead them on!!!!

Your fishnets have a point! 

“Saw?--No, no, haa, no it’s a drinking game.” Dream sounds like he has had one too many rounds of this mysterious game, and naturally, you are intrigued.

“Where we drink!” Sykkuno clarifies. Right, well that explains everything! If you had any questions, you surely have none now.

“Okay, so, name a category, and you have to, like, say a word associated with it...Or something along those lines.” You hadn’t even agreed and Rae is explaining the rules already. She knows you too well. It’s both a blessing and a curse, “Can be anything! Okay, Y/n, Y/n, Y/n start!”

“Uhh--” If only your brain computed as fast as she spoke! “Song lyrics! Wait--who drinks?”

“You fail, you drink!” She hurries, “Choke me like you hate me but you love meeeeee. Syk, go, go go!”

“Uhm, ah, I don’t wanna feel like this, uh, fuck?” He laughs--it’s a raspy, embarrassed little sound, “I don’t...wanna look like this? Dream, now you!”

“Wait, we’re singing Corpse’s songs?”

“Any song!” You urge him quickly, “Hurry! Or drink!”

“She say I kill her cat like I'm Luka Magnotta--”

“Hey! That’s cheating! You can’t use my song!” Rae protest.

“That wasn’t in the rules!” He counters.

“Y/n! Time’s running out!” Sykkuno exclaims.

“Oh, uh, will-will the real Slim Shady please stand up!”

NOT EMINEM WHAT THE FUCK

MOOOM WHT THE HELL THIS ISNT 2008 T_T

“Ra-Ra-Rasputin, Russia’s greatest love machine--”

“All...All the other kids with the pumped up kicks better, uhh, run better run, faster...-faster than my gun?”

“Uhh, shit--fucking hell.” Dream laughs, and Rae practically screams at him to keep going, “Alright! Okay! I’m singing--uh, you’re so golden, na na na na?”

“I tell you what a woman loves most,” You chime gleefully, “it’s a man who can slap but can also stroke.”

finally, the mother mother representation we’ve all been waiting for

i aint exactly gay but i aint exactly not gay >:)

the bis won

“I steal a few breeeeaaaths from the woooorld for a minute--”

“Mitski?!” You question, eyes bulging, “Baby, who hurt you?”

Even if you can’t see her, you know she’s waving her arms around and shaking her head, “Not the point! Sykkuno!”

“Uh, I-I, uhm, I don’t--”

“Drinnnnk!” You all chorus. 

“It was a good concert,” You say, “Syk, I’ll drink with you.”

“Thank you, Y/n. That’s very kind of you.” He says softly, with a smile lining his lips. You grin.

“Oh, fine. Everyone, bottoms up!” Rae decides, and no one protest. A moment of silence passes, then, “Well, GG, GG, let’s do some tasks?”

Your enthusiastic Ariana Grande-esque “yuh” is cut short by the second meeting of game two being called. The first one to go had been Ash, voted out during a bathroom break as a joke, and you still feel a bit bad about that. Now, you notice Charlie has been eliminated. A sense of righteousness fills you--while you mourn for your brother from another mother and father and family tree, you feel like this is divine punishment for slandering you before the start of this round. Karma. Nothing much is discussed, and the meeting ends shortly with everyone skipping. 

You spend a good ten minutes wandering around with Dream, who’s mission appears to be convincing you to join his Minecraft server, and really, there was no need for him to try so hard. You failed to provide him with a concrete answer only because it would've been to humiliating to admit that you agreed instantly upon hearing the word Minecraft.

That’s when things get fucking weird. Another meeting is called whilst you’re in the middle of fixing lights, and once the board with the members appears you audibly gasp. There had been 8 living, breathing astronauts rushing around the map, and now only 4 remain. You, Corpse, James, and Alex. 

“What the fuck--what the fuck?!” You screech alarmed, noting Dream being among the perished crew, “I was just with Dream fixing the lights, I was just with him, what the fuck--”

“Okay, no one panic.” James says, “Let’s figure this out. Okay? Okay. Who else is close to Electrical?”

“I’m at Nav.” Quackity says.

“I’m at Cafeteria, but Y/n--” Corpse starts, “kinda weird that Dream died when you were with him?”

“I didn’t fucking kill him, I swear to God, Corpse, why are you accusing me?”

“Don’t be so defensive.” He says smoothly, “I’m just pointing out the obvious. We all have a reason to be sus, no? Considering you were right with him.”

“...It is suspicious.” James agrees, and a part of you dies inside. You understand their hesitance to trust you, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating!

“Guys, I didn’t kill him, I swear. He invited me to play Minecraft, I wouldn’t do that to him, not after that!”

Corpse merely hums, and it brings no comfort what’s so ever. The situation is spiraling, and not in your favor. Trying to salvage your chances at freedom, you try again, “Wh-James, James, you called the meeting, right?”

“Yeah, I found Rae’s body near Medical.”

“So I couldn’t have killed her and Dream at the same time!” You latch onto that piece of information, hoping it will save you.

“You could’ve vented.” Corpse points out, “Plus, there’s no telling how old the body is.”

“Killing five fucking people? It’s the work of one person, or else the game would have already ended. As it stands, I am no way sober enough to think all of this out.”

A brief silence hangs in the air; your lungs constrict from tension, from spilling words so hotly. You grasp your glass, as if for emphasis, and take a shy sip. It taste sweet, a bit too sweet for your liking. Must be your nerves. You drink again to wash the taste out of your mouth, which, surprisingly, doesn’t work. You whine a little, stomping your feet like a child about to throw a temper tantrum.

“...I believe her.” Quackity says. You breathe out a sigh of relief.

“Alex, thank youuuuuu!” You gush, batting your lashes as if he could somehow see you and that would somehow portray your innocence, “I knew I liked you for a reason!”

He mutes his mic, his spill of words lost to your ears, but chat helpfully informs that he’s screaming because you don’t hate him. 

y/n out here collecting men like pokemon cards

Now all that’s left is to convince the others. You start with the one you know will work, “Corpse,” You address him in your sweetest voice.

“Y/n,” James warns, “don’t you dare--”

“Baby, I didn’t kill anyone, I’m crew mate, you gotta believe me.”

“She's innocent.” Corpse declare, thoroughly convinced.

“Oh my fucking God, you fucking simp!” James laughs, “She’s obviously manipulating you!”

“No, no, she isn’t. She’s innocent, I agree with Quackity. Now, it’s either you or him.”

“Could be you for all we know!” Alex accuses.

“Guys, time’s running out.” You mutter fretfully, noting the seconds tick by from white to red. 

“I’m voting Alex.” Corpse says.

“What?! Fucking traitor! Fine, I’m voting for you.” Alex hisses.

“Ugh, hate agreeing with Quackity, but I’m also voting Corpse. Sorry, hon, nothing personal.” James says. The VOTED icons pop up beside their characters and you panic, pressing your mouse idly but it’s too late, there wasn’t enough time, and you cry as Corpse is thrown into lava. The chat spams F, and it feels like salt on a fresh wound.

In a second you’re back in Cafeteria, shell-shocked and trembling, and Quackity cusses because the Impostor is still among you. His frustration doesn’t last long as you watch in horror as Jams Chortles, beauty guru supreme, murders the only other crew mate in cold blood and all you can do is gape and let his cheerful laughter fill your ears. The screen bleeds red, informing of Impostor victory, the second one being Ash. Looks like you voted her off for the right reason, but little difference did it make.

“Corpse!” You yell past the cacophony of voices, all in varying forms of excitement or anger, beelining for his in-game figure, “Corpse, I’m so sorry, I panicked, I tried pressing the button but I wasn’t quick enough--”

“It’s alright, baby. Don’t worry about it.” He’s so calming, so gentle, you might burst into tears again. What did you do to deserve him? You wish he was with you so you could smother him in a hug. Alas, all you can do now is say “I kith you, mwah!” and rush to the other side of the lobby, as if to hide from such a bold display of affection, even if it was a joke (it wasn’t).

yall say corpse simps for y/n but the reality is y/n simps for corpse harder

queen stop its embarrassing

bhaddies can simp!! i wouldnt but its her choice <3

More deliberations, commentary, and short breaks. Once everyone has returned, the countdown starts. You’re still reeling from the chaos of emotions, the five stages of grief you experienced in 1 second upon Corpse’s unjust demise, that it takes you a moment, a single heartbeat to realize what you’re seeing on screen.

The letters IMPOSTOR hang above your astronaut, with Dream standing just behind you as your newly appointed partner in crime. And suddenly, all the sadness and the tenderness and sympathy vanish with a curt exhale. You slowly turn your head to the chat, muting the Discord call, your soft chuckle of disbelief turning into a full blown laugh.

it’s happening!!!! 

omg omg omg omg

VILLAIN ARC VILLAIN ARC VILLAIN ARC

You slap your palm over your lips, trying to contain your wicked smile, to tone down your broken giggles, “N-No, I can’t laugh yet,” shaking your head softly, you look into the camera, “they’re all going to die.”

pack it up light yagami

this has awoken something in me.

^ same

The crew mates go their own ways, rushing to do their tasks like the diligent little workers they are. How adorable. Their grim fate is still miles away from them. The shit you’ll pull will be for the history books. Much like your outfit, which you picked keeping in mind your newfound thirst for blood, you had devised your plan of action with care and consideration. You had been mulling it over all day, drawing on paper like the absolute madwoman you are; hell, you even made sticky notes on who to go for first and what to say. Sure, being moderately drunk hinders your memory slightly (an understatement of the century), but you got a feel for what you’re going to do. It’s nothing short of evil.

Dream and you don’t exchange words, you merely nod at him-- which he, of course, can’t see-- but your criminal bond enables telepathic communication. You can hear his thoughts, ones that strangely sound like drink drink, drink drink. And really, who are you to refuse such an enticing offer?! As he fucks off to stalk his victims, or play pretend, you take a sip. The cocktail is still sweet, but this time it’s not the icky sweet you had tasted prior. You glance at your sticky notes, ones the roaches can’t see, and nearly spill your drink for the second time today as you jerk.

“Fuck!” You exclaim, shoving your headphones off and spinning in your chair. You hastily stand up, wobble -- the world is pleasantly funny right about now -- and giggle. Stepping past the mountains of abandoned clothes and pillows and blankets and anime plushies, you maneuver your way to your bedside table and yank it open, nearly taking out the whole drawer with you. In the mess of old diaries and bad drawings, pencils, jewelry, and stickers, you fish out something you should not be wielding in your inebriated state.

It’s a knife.

In midst of teenage angst you had ordered it off of Amazon with your mom’s credit card, all the while whining that it’s not a phase, mom, and it’s what all of my cool kid friends with fried hair have, and don’t you want me to fit in, don’t you want your daughter to be happy?! You think it’s about that time, the time of too much uneven eyeliner and black eye shadow, that she took to calling you little raccoon. Trash rabbit was your personal favorite, but she used it sparingly. When you presented your Macy’s outfit, holding up a fucking butterfly knife, to your dad, asking if it was a look, he glanced up from some boring business magazine all boring business dads read and said, with a bright smile might you add, “It’s a something!”.

Oh, how it gleams in the lilac light. You used to do tricks with it, back in eight grade maybe, and--what the fuck? Why did you parents allow you to buy it in the first place? Well, because you’re the only child, the only one important, of course they got it for you and clapped enthusiastically at your performances, because why wouldn’t they? The whining they’d face otherwise would’ve been harder to endure than a whole dance number to Panic! At The Disco’s greatest hits. Broadway looked so fucking shabby in comparison. Your mom said so, so it must be true.

Stumbling back to your extremely confused viewers, you take your seat, feeling a bit more grounded now that you’re not standing on your platform shoes anymore. Putting on your headphones, you grin at the chat that starts swimming, and not from too much drinking either. You do a quick flick of your wrist, one that thankfully doesn’t end in injury, and the sharp tip of the exposed knife points upwards, glimmering. It’s a rainbow colored one, because one, it’s pretty, and two, you weren’t hardcore enough for the jet-black or straight up military ones the other emo kids had. Cute and dangerous, just like you.

So you just sit there, holding it up, looking somewhat sly as the roaches capture this momentous moment with screen-caps. Someone definitely clipped you trudging past the obstacle course to obtain a weapon of mass destruction. You must be already trending on Twitter, though you can’t exactly log on and confirm your suspicions. You just feel like you might be, like you should be, because your audience wouldn’t let this slide. Thankfully, your friends don’t have time to check social media, or you’d be outed in an instant.

“Y/n?” Your roommates voice booms from your headphones, and you perk up with a stupid realization that you completely forgot about Among Us. Stuck at the start, at the lobby where Dream had left you, you see her astronaut waddling to you, “What are you doing here? Wait--Have you not moved from the beginning?” She can barely finish the sentence without giggling. 

You grin, “I was looking for something.”

Your voice is soft, too calm for your usual frantic spill. You gently set the knife down, hand coming to rest on your mouse, fingers idly, slowly, bouncing on the buttons.

“...What were you looking for?” She’s none the wiser, the numerous drinks consumed tonight numbing her sharp mind. She would have noticed. Your eerie composure would’ve given it away in a heartbeat, or at least hinted at something being objectively wrong. But she sounds curious. Poor girl, hasn’t she heard? Curiosity killed the cat.

“A knife.”

“A knife?!” There’s something about her tone that implies a mental clicking, the puzzle pieces falling together, “You have a knife?!”

“Yes.”

“No!”

You think it would only be appropriate that the random sequence of killing animations renders the backstabbing one. You grin, biting your lower lip with a quiet snicker.

i love women

if evil bad...why seggy?

You take your time leaving her there -- in true serial-killer-to-be fashion, you stick around for a bit longer, admiring your handiwork, or more like the chat singing your praises. You joined today with the intent of making an interesting stream. You have no doubt in your mind that now it will be legendary.

You move down the hallway, and you let your imagination wander: you can almost feel the stuffy air of your helmet, can almost hear your loud footsteps echoing in all this hush, can almost see your reflection in the spotless tile floor. It’s not long before your second victim makes an appearance, running circles in Cafeteria. You hear his voice first before you see him, recognizing Alex by his unhinged screech of “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s goooo!” 

“And what’s got you so excited?” How cool and collected you are, gosh, you barely contain the quiver of excitement that threatens to slip out. 

“Y/n!” He exclaims, rushing to your side like a lost puppy--he’s really making this easy for you, he’s not even trying, “You just missed--Oh my fucking God, you just missed James, he-he called me tall, he called me fucking tall! Let’s go, let’s gooooo!”

“Well, you are tall, aren’t you?” You chime sweetly, almost as sweet as the drink that lingers on the tip of your tongue, “Real 6′3 energy, no?”

“Yes, yes, exactly! You get it, you fucking get it--” Once again, his mic goes mute, and you glance at the chat for help.

hard to transcribe what hes saying but hes taking shots and yelling that he loves you good job mom

hey, queen! girl, you have done it again, constantly raising the bar for us all and doing it flawlessly

mom plz dont kill alex hes too cute hes all uwu rn

Oh, how you’re about to break his poor little heart. If you had any good left in you, you’d spare him. You don’t, and you’re not taking requests at the moment, so all you do is smile at your chat and they know. They just do. Hive-mind shit, you’re all two-faced little fuckers.

You giggle, and it sounds a tad fake, “You’re so weird, Alex,” You start, and he’s back in the call, a sound of confusion echoing in your ears, “but I get it, you know. You’re weird. You’re a weirdo. You don’t fit it, and you don’t want to fit in. I mean, really, has anyone even seen you without your stupid hat?”

“...Do--” He sputters, bellowing a laugh, “Do you have that whole fucking monologue memorized?!”

“Is it because you’re bald?”

“I’m not fucking bald!” His giddiness is quickly replaced by anger.

You hum, pretend to think, lastly barking a “Liar.” before you kill him. His scream is cut off, leaving only deafening silence at it’s wake. Unlike with Rae, you don’t stick around. You didn’t appreciate how little he enjoyed your recital.

You run into James near Navigation, most likely on his way to Cafeteria. He ends his song mid-note, and you breathe a sigh of relief, “Finally! Someone! I’ve been looking all over, where the hell is everyone?” You question, blocking his way, lest he accidentally stumbles onto the crime scene and easily pins it on you. You’re not done yet.

“Honestly? No clue. I’m searching for them myself, like, everyone’s scattered. I hope no one died.”

You smile. You tried not to, but you can’t contain it, “Me, too.” You echo the sentiment, urging him to join you, and he does. Too trusting. Everyone in this game is too fucking trusting. You lead him back to Nav, feigning that you have a task here. As you pretend to move the spaceship, you can’t help but ask, “Hey, James?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s your favorite scary movie?”

A beat of silence passes, “Oh no, fuck that, I don’t like this at all.” He states, about to spin on his heel and bolt like he should do, but you’re quicker-- killer instincts and all-- and he’s dead before he makes it out the doorway.

“See, after your No More Lies video, I figured you’d only tell the truth.” Yes, this is the part of the anime where the villain monologues, only the hero in this case is an astronaut cut in half, and not exactly alive to listen to you. You hope James’ ghost sticks around, “Case in point, why the fuck did you tell Quackity he’s tall?” You eye the chat, which’s mostly spamming W and comparing you to Ryo from Devilman Crybaby. “Such a shame...” You murmur, pressing the REPORT button.

“What?! How are so many people dead?!” Ash gasps, her kind voice tinted with fear and confusion. Your three kills, like military stars on an uniform of a distinguished officer, are displayed on the board. Dream appears to be slacking, having yet to take a life.

“Someone’s been real fucking busy.” Charlie observes. It’s true, you have been.

“I found James in Nav, but holy shit--” You begin, exasperated, “--what the fuck, guys, how did we miss this shit? Where is everyone?”

“I’m at Electrical.” Corpse voices.

“And I’m with Corpse.” One sentence is all it takes to figure out your next target: Bretman. Revenge for being killed first in the first goddamn round, and for spending so much time with your boyfriend.

Eep!!! Boyfriend boyfriend boyfriend!!! The word even makes you forget your thirst for blood, that’s how whipped you are. Sadly, it’s time to return to reality, to this grave situation.

“And what have the two of you been conspiring?” You keep your tone level, but that alone is enough to set everyone off. The unease you had planted within them before the game started is starting to bloom. However, if they suspect you, they don’t speak up, not yet.

“Fishnets, mostly.” Corpse says.

only partly a lie he was mostly talking abt u queen <3

corpse simping for y/n is the sweetest thing ever

the times corpse used y/ns name when talking abt y/n: 1. the times he used baby or my baby: infinite

“I’m wearing them right nyoooow.” Bretman drawls.

You hum, “What a coincidence. I am, too.”

“Wait--For real?” That seems to catch Corpse’s attention, because of course it does, you picked them with him in mind, after all.

“No peeping.” You tsk, obviously referring to his tendency to hop onto your stream unprompted. Whether he actually listens to your demands is beyond you, “Peeping means cheating.”

“For the love of fuck all, can we get back to the three dead bodies, please? Because I’m about to have a second coming of Christ moment and taste my consumed, digested beer for the second time.” Charlie interjects.

“I mean, anyone have any ideas who’d do this?” Dream takes hold of the conversation. Quiet, disappointed nos greet him. They have nothing to go on, no clues, not even a subliminal message. With everyone scattered, there is no way of locating the actual bodies and drawing a long red trail leading back to you. 

You’re too good at lying, and Dream is too good of a publicist. People tend to trust his judgement, which is his main asset (besides his calm demeanor of course). When the Among Us gods chose you as Impostor, they made sure you had every advantage. 

“Who-Who do you think it is, Dream?” Ash questions, “I trust you. I do. Just know that.”

“No fucking clue.”

“Y/n?” She tries again.

“Same. I’m a bit worried, though.”

“Let’s, uhhh, let’s skip?” Sykkuno offers. The consensus is to start voting at six. Your new mission is to make sure you dwindle the numbers down drastically before that can happen. You have no qualms about sacrificing Dream in order to meet your goals, either. Absolutely cold blooded.

Back at Cafeteria, there are words exchanged about Quackity’s body just laying there, forgotten. Blame is shifted: how come we didn’t notice sooner? Where’s Rae? And you mindlessly go along with their mourning, not really paying attention. Dream leaves with Charlie and Sykkuno, Corpse requests you stay with him and you sprout fake apologies. Not his time yet. Us girls need to stick together!, you sing, following after Ashley and getting further and further away from him, going deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of the spaceship.

You find yourself in Security with her, her cute astronaut pressed to the cameras, watching the live feed, “Let’s lurk here, okay? Maybe we’ll see something.” If only she saw who was standing behind her. 

“Who do you think is the Impostor?” You ask, standing in the doorway, “Or, more like, who are the Impostors?”

“Honestly?” She ends her word with a little sigh, “I think it might be Corpse and Bretman. I haven’t seen them at all this game.”

You smile, raising your brows, tilting your heard, and you sound so kind, like a dear old friend about to deliver a tender message, “...Have you seen me?”

“SHIT!”

Too late. In one smooth motion she joins the afterlife. You cut the lights, venting mindlessly till you spot Corpse and Bretman panicking in Weapons. Your existence is still a mystery to them.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck--” Corpse mumbles, “Bretman, don’t you dare fucking kill me right now.”

“I’m not Impostor!”

“Okay, I’ll drink to that.”

They rush out of Weapons, most likely on their way to Electrical, and you trail after them like the Grim Reaper itself, biding your time till you can deliver the killing blow.

“Corpse?!” You call out, mild panic ringing in your voice, “Is that you?”

“Shit, Y/n? Where are you?” He questions. Crew vision is so sad, so small, how can he not see you standing almost right next to him? “Where’s Ash?”

“I dunno,” You say, “when the lights went out I ran. Please don’t kill me.”

“I’d never do that, baby.”

Too easy. They’re all too fucking easy. You bite your lower lip, trying to stop the laugh bubbling in your chest, to stop the lightheaded dizziness that overcomes you with a rush of excitement. 

“Thanks, pretty boy.” You mutter, and it sounds a bit lower than you intended, a bit darker, something sinister lurking underneath cotton candy words. It instantly clicks in Bretman and he makes a noise, something like a whine, and you see him backing away, “I know I can always trust you.” 

Whether Corpse notices the odd shift in tone, he doesn’t show it, “I like it when you call me that.” Is all he says, and you hear the smile in his voice, the appreciation. The trek to Electrical is all but forgotten. You slowly make your way to Bretman, “Where are you? Come here.”

“Just a minute,” You say cheerily, “I just need to kill Bret first.”

“Holy shit.”

“N-” Your victim’s sentence is cut off in a second, and you can’t contain your manic cackle this time, because the screen bleeds red, the words VICTORY splattered on it, depicting yours and Dream’s sneaky astronauts. You’re still laughing as the voices of your fallen friends ring in your ears.

“Y/n, what the fuck, you’re an actual monster.” Dream says, but there’s no actual weight behind his words, each syllable punctured with a laugh.

“I knew the second she asked me about my favorite scary movie that I’d get the chop.” James states.

“Wait, Y/n, did you kill everyone?” Corpse questions.

“She fucking did!” Dream answers for you, “I got Charlie and Sykkuno, and barely at that. What the fuck.”

“I’ve been waiting so fucking long for this.” You admit, giggling, raising you glass, “I toast to you, Dream. My perfect partner in crime.”

“I didn’t really do shit, but cheers.”

Quackity heaves a heavy sigh, “Y/n, Y/n, you don’t actually think I’m weird, right? Right?”

“No, she does.” James chimes.

“WHAT THE FUCK DID I EVER DO TO YOU, DUDE?!”

More commotion, more noise, and you just sit there, buzzed, snickering, reading the chat as the rest agree to play another round. You thank the people who donated that you had accidentally missed among the, you know, murder, reply to a few questions, bow dramatically to the many praises and invisible flowers you receive for such beautiful assassin work. When you look back at the screen, you throw your head back with a maniacal laugh.

Impostor again, only this time it’s with Charlie. Family bonds are often restored when united under a common goal. You’re so happy. So happy. You weren’t done terrorizing your friends yet.

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

tags (in italics is those i couldn’t tag! make sure all’s ok w your settings!) : @littlebabysandboxburritos​ - @fairywriter-oracle​ - @tsukishimawh0re​ - @ofstarsanddreams​ - @bbecc-a​ - @annshit​ - @leahh19​ - @letsloveimagines​ - @bellomi-clarke​ - @wineandionysus​ - @guiltydols​ - @onephootinfrontoftheother​ - @liamakorn​ - @thirstyfangirl​ - @lilysdaydreams​ - @pan-ini​ - @mxqicshxp​ - @tanchosanke​ - @yoshinorecommends​ - @flightsandfantasy​ - @liljennyx3​ - @bingusmode - @unknown-and-invisible​ - @sinister-sleep​ - @fivedicksinatrenchcoat​ - @mercury–moon - @peterparkerspjsuit​ - @unstableye​ - @simonsbluee​ - @shinyshimaagain​ - @ppopty​ - @siriuslystupid​ - @crapimahuman​ - @ofthedewthesunlight​ - @mythicalamphitrite​ - @artsyally​ - @corpsesimpp​ - @corpsewhitetee​ - @corpse-husbandsimp​ - @hyp-oh-critical​ - @roses-and-grasses​ - @rhyrhy462​ - @sparklylandflaplawyer​ - @charbkgo​ - @airwaveee​ - @creativedogs​ - @kaitlyn2907​ - @loxbbg​ - @afuckingunicornn​ - @fleurmoon​ - @yeolliedokai​

more tags are in the comments bcs tumblr only allows me to tag 50 people max 💙

#corpse husband #corpse #corpse husband x reader #corpse x reader #corpse social media au #corpse husband x y/n #corpse husband fic #corpse husband social media au #social media au #myso #make you say oh #quackity #dream smp #corpse x y/n #imagine #imagines #reader #xreader

[bones-of-a-rabbit]

Do you have any plans to make your fic spicy at all?

AW GEEZ i mean. originally, no?? when i first started it was on a total whim and entirely bc i wanted soft fluffy fanfic abt sweet goofy robot bois being in love w an idiot and that was the one and only thing on my mind

but. i mean its kinda taken off in a (very slightly) different direction than that, so?? i mean ive,, never actually written anything spicy bc i get too flustered n jumbled up to write anything coherent, but ur the second person to ask this now and im sweatin bullets over it sjfhjsfkhk

but. but. if it gets to a point where it seems like it could happen and im feeling esp audacious,,,,,,,,,,,, maybe,,

then again im big dumb ace so idk if i would even have th wherewithal to write smthn like that so. heck man idk i just work here sdfjshdfjksh

#fanfic rambles #asks #anonymous asks #i wish i knew how to answer this im so sorry #if it ever does happen ill put a bunch of warnings/notices all over the chapter so hopefully anyone who wants to can just circumvent it #but that is a HUGE if #skdfksjdfkjsk im sorry yall im too dumb for this idk who gave me the right to make a fic sjdhfsjdfhksjdhfj

[wwilloww]

maybe a bit late but i wanted to participate anyways. i started reading fanfics when I was around 13 in a mexican forum that no longer exists lol. of course, I was obsessed with one direction so that was the only thing that I enjoyed reading. later on came justin bieber and then 5sos lmao. now it's just bts, but i have to confess that I only read smut, I seriously get bored with fluff fics. I like angst to but yeah i just care too much about sex 😭😭

I have written like a million fanfics but I only published like 5 when I was 14 and could barely write coherent sentences. I still write to this day tho, but only to make myself feel better, to "materialize" my fantasies or something. I write about people I know, men I like, and make it 100x times more nice than it is in real life. obviously I disguise them as kpop idols so I dont feel guilty about writing about irl people lmao.

im currently writing a story w jungkook. OF COURSE its got to be smutty, friends to enemies to lovers type of thing. I'm obsessed with him tbh, wish I could make that man come to life.

anyways, thanks for reading or not. not sure if you'll get this lol. sorry about my grammar, english is not my first language as you can tell.

ps: thanks for your lovely writing, already excited for the next chapter in sh.

first of all, your english is beautiful and there's never a reason to apologize for this on my blog! second of all, no such thing as late on this blog either!

i absolutely loved reading through this, it's so incredible to hear y'alls journeys with writing and reading. and OMG YOUR STORY SOUNDS AMAZING! friends? to enemies? to lovers? this is my shit. and jungkook is always such a fun character to write, the only problem i ever run into when writing him is that sometimes he's just a little too perfect. which, is that even a problem? i don't think it's a problem 😂 if you ever post it on here, please please tag me. i would love to read your writing. i am a whooore for f2e2l stories and even more of a whore for getting to read other writers on this site.

ps: thank you and here is a secret: i think we're getting a new chapter of sh. this weekend

how did you get into reading and or writing fanfic?

#mailbox #anon

[katierosefun]

creator tag

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works! 

thank you @kckenobi​ and @pandora15 for the tag!! <3 so here are the works, in no particular order and also oh gee i am so sorry this got so painfully long you can tell i’m procrastinating on my final + also i just tend to run my mouth when im talking about writing asdffd

to these memories (After Darth Sidious is defeated, everything changes. Some for the better, others not so much. Mostly better though. (Or: Anakin becomes a dad. Rex rehabilitates clone troopers who no longer want to be a part of the army. Ahsoka gets a call from an old friend. And maybe Obi-Wan finds out it’s not just his enemies who don’t stay dead. Basically, everyone gets the happy ending they deserve.)

so this was my first major longform tcw fic, and i just. i have a lot of feelings about this fic, mostly nostalgia and lots of gratefulness. first of all, i think i met a lot of super cool people through this fic, and i also? just? idk, this was a major project that i kind of worked on to cope with post-tcw sadness + also just. general sadness about the world’s situation. writing this story was actually super healing for me, mostly because i just. really wanted to have something where happy endings existed. 

so this really...was an experience, and i’m so super grateful for everyone who read along. to this day, whenever i get a comment about this fic, i feel super happy because it makes me feel glad to know that there were some people who took comfort in this work, because i really wanted this fic to have that kind of effect on people. :’) 

there they are (Right before Ahsoka leaves for Mandalore, Rex distracts Bo-Katan so she could give her family a proper goodbye. (There's hugging. We just needed our trio to hug.)

i think this was one of my first tcw fics of 2020, and. i just remember impulse writing this after watching old friends not forgotten because i was just. so sad that we didn’t get an anakin and ahsoka hug or a trio hug or anything. i understand why they didn’t--like, i really, really do, but. but i think if there’s a theme i’m going through this year, it’s ‘this was sad, so i’m gonna make it happy!!!’, so...as my masterlist puts it, ‘dave filoni said no trio hug, so i said fine, i’ll do it’. 

uhhhhh, how very unusual of me, but!!! probably my working on a new original story. i’ve got the fourth draft of another story siting in the background, but. this other story idea came at me, and five outlines later, i started this story. i’m about three chapters down now, but. a snippet of the prologue: 

“Well…it’s also a rather important story,” Rosalind said. “Do you enjoy stories?”

“I want to be a writer,” I blurted, and I stopped at that. I fiddled with my mug, heat that had nothing to do with the hot chocolate or the fire rushing to my face. Silly, oversharing me—oh, what a young, lonely child I was back then. So desperate for conversation that I had grown out of practice and resorted to sharing details that the average stranger would not care for.

But then again, these were not the average strangers—although I’m sure you’ve figured that for yourself.

“Yes,” I said meekly. “I enjoy stories.”

“Well,” Dae said after some time, “it’s good that you’re a writer.”

I lifted my head, and this time, I saw Dae and Rosalind smile at each other. A softer smile, one that made me feel suddenly dreadfully, dreadfully lonely.

“You might want to write this down,” Rosalind said at last. 

And so I did. 

*and cue the actual story* i won’t say too much because adsfsdfsfd talking about my original work makes me feel awkward + also i am constantly in fear of people stealing ideas even though,,,even though i know the only person who can write this story is me, anyways, but uh. i will say that i have a plan for a five-part series that’s basically about a witch and a princess. there’s a prophecy in the background. there’s magic. there’s rivals to friends to enemies to lovers. there’s father figures + big sister figures + found family + ancient kingdoms + the real world blending with the fantasy world + uh i’ve said enough okeee bye that’s it

the moment was enough (The war ends. Ahsoka and Obi-Wan try to work things out since the last time they actually saw each other.) 

it had been a long while since i had written anything that was really just about ahsoka and obi-wan, but. i think everyone knows that i really love my grandpadawan and grandmaster duo? idk, this fic really made me feel things because i was thinking a lot about how obi-wan and ahsoka had left things. i wanted to make it pretty clear that they both clearly care about each other a lot, but like. also. there’s still some hurt there. i just had so much fun writing this, because obi-wan and ahsoka are such an underrated duo and i love them :’) 

loose stitches (The discovery and aftermath of Maul. Anakin and Ahsoka find themselves pacing in front of the Council chambers multiple times. They might have taken Obi-Wan to Dex’s. Something might have unraveled, only to be stitched back together.) 

kasey before you say anything pls know that i would talk about this fic until literally the day i die i am sorry if i am making you feel self-conscious--but anyways this was a collab with the ever-talented, ever-wonderful @kckenobi. so uh, quick story which mayhaps i might not have told anyone before, but whatever, i’m listening to evermore and therefore have no choice but to be emotional huh--this fic was like...one of the first collabs i’ve ever done? in general, collaborations were always something that made me nervous because it required lots of vulnerability and honesty, and there’s a side of me that’s very obsessed with having this image of Neat Writer Who Has Coherent Thoughts (which,,,doesn’t even exist so why was i obsessed? no idea). so that said, this collab was just. so wild + wonderful because it really was, first of all, such a cool, magical experience. there’s something so amazing and insane about passing words back and forth and like, even a screen apart, there’s something magical about like. sitting down at a laptop at the end of the day and feeling like you’re about to step into a portal where it’s just two people trying to spin a story. writing with kasey was just such a wonderful, absolutely magical experience, and i’m really glad that we got to write this story + the many more that we did. just. there’s something really personal and beautiful about writing until 1, 2, 3 am when the world’s asleep. anyways. magical. 

asdfsdfd i’m very sorry that this got so incredibly long, but!! that said, 2020 was a hard year for lots of different reasons both personally + because of *gestures at the world* but. like. i’m really, really glad that i got back to writing clone wars fic this year, because i’ve met so many wonderful, wonderful, wonderful people here, and. yeah. y’all are my serotonin suppliers, and i do refer to a lot of people here as ‘oh yeah, my friend and i were talking the other day about...’ and ‘why are you smiling?’ ‘oh, just something a friend said--’ and. yeah. i hope y’all have a wonderful, wonderful rest of the year + also a wonderful life because y’all are simply the best :’)) 

no-pressure tags: @lightasthesun @meandmyechoes @soplantyourownflowers @ilonga @sonderwalker @mytardisisparked @60sec400 and really, honestly, anyone else who wants to!!! <333 (like. i mean it. literally. just tag me and lemme scream encouragements at you.)

#tag game #thank you!! #caroline stop writing essays challenge!!!! #i cannot and will not stop writing essays i guess adsfsdf

[goldrushzukka]

1, 2, 7, 8, 9. (Sorry, i know that's like...all of them)

1. what themes would you like to write about that you feel don’t get explored very often?

i love writing coming out storylines. it’s not really that they’re uncommon, i just find a lot of catharsis in them. 

2. what are some common elements of stories you are tired of seeing? what would you avoid writing about?

i tend to avoid writing sibling dynamics bc i’m an only child and therefore not really. qualified. i love reading it though!! 

7. favourite description in your WIP?

it was really hard to pick one so i have a few answers for this bc i love to talk about myself so. (under the cut bc JESUS this got long but spoilers for and i’ll do anything you say (read it here!) ahead!!!)

- from chapter 2:

Sokka looks at him, a fantasy come to life, and takes off his stupid sweatpants.

He throws them at Zuko’s head, and earns himself a short burst of that real laugh, shocked and unguarded.

“You asshole,” Zuko says. He sits up and grabs Sokka’s hand, pulling him down on top of him. Something comes alive under Sokka’s skin where Zuko’s fingers graze his wrist. He calls it lust and ignores the fact that it feels nothing like it.

Zuko kisses him, his mouth still in the shape of laughter, and the alive thing screams for his attention. Sokka buries it and hopes it won’t deafen him before they’re done.

im very fond of this whole chapter (i think it’s probably my favourite? it was definitely the easiest to write) but i really love looking back on this part particularly now that we’re in the angsty part of the story bc this is where it all started. yes technically it started in chapter 1 but this is when sokka starts to fall for zuko. this is the beginning of all those pesky non-casual feelings that he’s going to pretend don’t exist until someone else calls him out on them.

- also from chapter 2:

He’s forty-five minutes late already, and when he knocks, a woman made of pursed lips and sharp angles answers the door. She looks elegant and expensive the same way a skyscraper does. Or a cache of medieval weaponry.

“Oh,” Sokka says, digging into his pocket to find the map on his phone. “I must have the wrong place, sorry -”

She looks him up and down, her eyes narrowed in a way that feels violent and practiced, and her smirk turns distasteful. Sokka risks a glance down at himself, at his torn up jeans - not distressed, just torn - and the Madonna t-shirt he’s pretty sure actually belongs to Katara, and thinks she might have a point. The bag in his hand feels heavier when her eyes land on it.

“Zuzu,” the woman calls into the apartment, “your dinner’s here.”

“I didn’t order -” Zuko appears in the doorway, bitter frustration in his expression as he looks at the woman.

His eyes fall on Sokka, though, and his face clears into a light-pollution smile.

this is technically two so i will start with: i love azula. i haven’t found any room to bring her back yet but believe me i am LOOKING. she’s hot and mean and gay and i LOVE HER. oh also insider scoop but suki’s date from earlier in this chapter.......WAS azula. they probably won’t see each other again because once azula met sokka and connected his face to the Best Friends Forever picture frame on suki’s desk she stopped answering the phone.

pt 2: i’ve had a couple of comments mention the “light-pollution smile” line specifically and i am always so happy to read them bc yeah. YEAH. i’ll admit it. that line HITS. 

- from chapter 4:

He sets his phone down - only, he doesn’t. He misses the table by a mile, and in his scramble to catch his phone before it breaks on the hardwood floor and wakes Momo on the cushion beside him, his hand finds the lip of his cereal bowl, and then that’s falling, too. He manages to catch the phone, but something in his head gets lost in translation on its way down his arms, and he ends up with a boxers-only lap full of soggy Cheerios.

Momo gets a splash of milk on his back and hisses at Zuko for his crimes, and somehow that’s the worst part of it.

haley @fruitysokka said that this passage reads like an action movie and i think about it all the time. (thank u haley i love u)

- lastly this extended metaphor from chapter 6:

The soup is good, once the heat of it clears him up enough to taste it. It’s thick and warm and there’s enough pepper that Sokka gets a kick from it even in his condition. He feels it all the way down his throat and into his stomach, where it mixes with the prickly nervousness he’s feeling from Zuko’s attention.

He sets the bowl down on the table and asks, eyes stuck on his hands in Momo’s fur where he’s climbed into his lap, “How was the date?”

“It was good, actually,” Zuko says. “Jet seems like a nice guy. He’s very - uh - passionate, I guess you could call it? He’s a climate and human rights activist.”

The spines of Sokka’s nervousness turn to daggers.

...

“I said yes. We’re getting lunch on Sunday.”

The daggers are swords now, and Sokka’s heart sinks down, down, down, right to the hilt.

...

“I’ll text you when I’m home,” Zuko promises, and Sokka’s heart skewers itself on a second sword.

Zuko’s smile when Sokka says, “Thank you for the soup,” is a third.

The door closing behind him is a fourth.

The silence as Sokka shuffles back to bed is every single one that remains.

something something canon swordsmen something pride comes before the fall something chivalry fell on his sword from eden by hozier. you guys get it i dont have to explain myself

8. favourite dialogue in your WIP?

ok so i cant share my actual favourite dialogue bc it's a spoiler for chapter 8 and i technically haven't written it yet (it's in my brain just.....plaguing me) but it's GOOD i SWEAR so. once again i have more than one answer bc actually? i love this fic and im proud of it. deal with it.

- from chapter 1:

“Hey, stranger,” Sokka says, still watching him in the mirror. The corner of Zuko’s mouth ticks up.

“You’re not following me, are you?” Zuko’s tone is seductive, endlessly so, and Sokka wonders while he dries his hands if he has to put it on or if he just sounds like that.

“You give a guy one compliment and he thinks you’re stalking him,” Sokka mutters, and Zuko laughs, low and enticing. Not the genuine, endearing laugh of this morning, but one with an agenda.

Well. Sokka always likes a plan.

“Are you following me? ” Sokka asks. He spies a miraculous dry patch on the sink bank and tries to be casual about the way he hops up to sit on it.

“I might be,” Zuko says, and at Sokka’s raised eyebrow, he continues, “I saw you at the bar and I wanted to talk to you. Sue me.”

“You wanted to talk.”

“Amongst other things.”

as a chronically awkward person i am INSANELY proud of the flirting in this fic. no idea if it would work in a real life situation. excited to never find out bc im not about to use lines from my fanfiction on real women. 

- from chapter 2

“You must be Suki,” Zuko says. He meets her gaze, and his fingers go still under Momo’s chin.

“And you’re Zuko,” Suki replies, her smile all different shades of intimidating. “I’d shake your hand, but I know where it’s just been.”

i wrote this entire scene just so i could have suki say this. im not even joking. suki is my favourite part of this entire fic and its not even ABOUT her.

- from chapter 3:

When Sokka crosses the room and slips under the covers beside him, Zuko says, “I can leave, if you want. I can go home.”

...

He asks, still barely hovering over Zuko, “What if I don’t want that?”

Zuko swallows. “I can stay.”

“So stay,” Sokka says, and lays his head down on Zuko’s chest.

i just think it’s sweet. i like it a lot. makes my heart hurt a little when i think about it. 

- from chapter 4:

[Suki // 15:13] there is a LOT of chmpagrjn

[Suki // 15:13] cahpmhagne

[Suki // 15:13] chsanpghn

[Suki // 15:14] alcohol :)

once again: suki is the best part of this whole fic. i love her so much. she is the reason the word bestie exists. im really proud of the texting in this fic bc it’s my first time actually including it in fic and it’s turned out really well!!

- ok last one bc i just realised this is turning into a novel. from chapter 4:

“How’s my baby?”

Zuko glances down at Momo, batting at the untied laces of his shoes with one determined paw. “He’s doing just fine.”

“And how’s Momo?”

“He’s - what?”

are there better written, more narratively important and emotive lines in this fic? yes. is this the best part of the entire thing? also yes. i invented the jin/yue wedding because i needed a reason for zuko to have a key in what became chapter 6, but sometimes i think the entire fic exists just for this exchange. best dialogue i have ever written.

9. what scene was the hardest for you to write and why?

the start of chapter 6 of aidays was difficult. i kept wanting to skip ahead to the meaty parts - i.e, zuko and his soup - but i didn’t want to do sokka a disservice like that. it was also really hard to maintain the balance of accurately describing the delirium of illness while still being coherent for the reader? so that took me a couple of days to get right.

#dreamrena #ask game #this got AWAY from me #anyway. #theres.....that #asks #mine #and ill do anything you say #might as well go in the tag since its all i talk about in this #uhhh. enjoy? #i have more thoughts on literally all of aidays so. at the risk of sounding even more in love w myself than i do in this already. #if theres anything else anyone would like to know more about (excluding spoilers obv) i am MORE than happy to talk about it #sam winchester voice The Lore

[softtofustew]

an odyssey | afterword

rating: T

pairing: Hwang Hyunjin/Han Jisung

summary: Somewhere in the galaxy of the Stella Primum, Lieutenant Han is the best fighter on his team, a real ace shooter, with five gold stars to show. Too bad Second Lieutenant Hwang is not only great at battling the Ordinem, he’s also got disgustingly perfect looks to match, and now Jisung’s stuck in the same spaceship with him for possibly the most impossible task of their lives. Or the one where a rivalry is brewed across the skies and stars, until Jisung realises what there is to flying beside Hyunjin on a mission to save the galaxy.

if you haven’t read it yet, read here.

this is an afterword to ‘an odyssey’, where i write about the origin of the story, the characters, and my struggles of writing :’)

(i) The Origin

I’ve had this work in my WIPs since, believe it or not, January of this year. I’ve had this idea for so, so long. I wrote it intermittently throughout this year, with a scene or two in September, then October. 

Due to my exams, though, I couldn’t write as much as I wanted to. That’s why I only really started writing ‘an odyssey’ back in mid-November. The good thing was that I had more time to plan this out, because frankly, this is perhaps the heaviest fic I’ve written in terms of plot so far. 

I can’t for the life of me remember where this story idea planted itself in my head. All I knew was that I like space AUs, I adore Hyunjin and Jisung’s friendship, and I love enemies to lovers. Realising there weren’t any fics out there that combined the three, I knew it was my time to shine. Or something. 

(ii) The Plot

The plot was the trickiest to pull off. I’ve written an urban fantasy here and there, but I’m pretty sure if I reread them thoroughly, I’m bound to find a couple of plot holes. 

There were a lot of elements to cover: the Prophecy. The five gems. The push-pull relationship between Jisung and Hyunjin. The journey to discovering the whereabouts of the last Gemma. The last boss fight with a Governor who could wield the Force. There was!!!! So!!!! Much!!!! Going!!!! On!!!!!

Perhaps if I reread ‘an odyssey’, I might find another plot hole or two; who knows? For now, though, I feel quite contented with this work of mine. Considering it’s my first time writing something as long as this (50K+ are you kidding me?), I feel this is a first step for me to continue expanding my horizons when it comes to writing, to continue to challenge myself to write something different, something bold. Something new.

(iii) The Characters

I rewatched the Two Kids Room and One Kid Room episodes so many times, over and over again. There’s a reason why this story is centred around Jisung and Hyunjin, and why it’s written from Jisung’s perspective.

Their relationship is, after all, something coherently interesting. They really said “enemies to friends but make it irl”. I guess I took that concept and sort of exaggerated the extent of their ‘hate’ for each other, which isn’t exactly hate to begin with. The further you read on, the more you’ll realise that they don’t exactly hate each other — they just got off on the wrong footing, and have never tried turning back to start over once more.

It’s written from Jisung’s perspective because personally, I wanted the story to be told from the eyes of someone who was prideful, who was eager and determined, and who wanted to show his worth to everyone else. I feel like perhaps I didn’t expand on characterising Jisung to the fullest advantage possible, though, which remains a slight regret of mine. 

Another reason why I wanted this to be written from Jisung’s POV is because we can find out how Jisung feels about Hyunjin throughout the story. When he realises whose son Hyunjin is, he’s torn between wanting to pity Hyunjin and keeping things between them the same as they always have. (If I were in his position, though, I don’t know what I would have done lol.) It was hard to try and interpret his emotions, but there’s that.

Someone commented once asking if we’d ever get Hyunjin’s POV. Sadly, one of my biggest turn-offs is the switching of POVs in stories when it’s not entirely necessary haha. As much as I would want to know what Hyunjin is thinking when they’re arguing, or when they’re fighting, I like to keep on the suspension line. It gives you the feeling of immersing yourself as the Jisung in the story, of only seeing things from one perspective. 

As for the other characters, there wasn’t enough time to expand on all of them (for example, I mentioned Seungmin several times throughout the story, but really, he speaks only once haha). And as your fellow StayDay, it was definitely fun for me to include a few members of Day6. (please don’t ask me why I thought of ‘PJ and Honey’ while writing. I was probably hungry.)

I don’t know if I’ll continue to expand on the characters in this same universe, but it would be fun to think of the other relationships, for example Chan and Felix, or Changbin with Minho and Seungmin. (someone please save the seungbinho tag!!!!!!)

As far as characterisation goes, I’ve still got so much to learn. For now, though, I hope you enjoyed the dynamics between the characters and how Jisung and Hyunjin learnt to grow within a span of six chapters.

(iv) The Writing Process

Granted, the writing bit was a little easier in the beginning, but as I delved myself deeper into the story, I found it harder and harder to express the emotions I wanted to deliver in the story. One of the hardest chapters for me to write by far was the last chapter. I wrote two versions of the last chapter, simply because I felt the first version was too lacklustre for the ending of such a long story haha.

I had a clear outline of my story, but I did end up extending it from the initial 5 chapters to 6. For the first time, though, I didn’t add any random elements to the story, unlike how i wrote this story last year haha. The lesson I’ve learnt is that I should ALWAYS have a brief outline of the plot — detailed enough to cover the entire story, but brief enough to give me some creative freedom mid-writing.

The excitement of writing honestly wore off near the last few chapters. I’ve realised the importance of reading unfinished works in this way. Writers really need some form of motivation to keep them writing their chaptered works. So if you’re one of the real ones who started reading this even before it was completed, kudos to you. I really appreciate it.

Overall, writing this was fun. Hopefully I don’t need to do this again though; I absolutely hate writing chaptered fics because of all the time and effort put into them. I’d much rather be a ‘One-Shot Hotshot’ lol.

(v) The End (?)

I left a bit of wondering for the readers in the last chapter. If Atkins was able to wield the Force despite the false pretence that there was no longer any Force-wielders left in the universe, how many more of them could there be? 

That leaves an opening for me if I ever wish to return to this alternate universe sometime in the future. The Universe is ever-expanding, and so is our imagination.

(vi) The Inspiration

Obviously, I need to thank Star Wars. I also need to apologise because I absolutely butchered their universe. Fun fact: there was one huge plot hole I had to cover up halfway through writing. 

If you’re observant, you might remember the scene where Hyunjin asks Jisung why they didn’t just jump into hyperspace to reach Ilsanis. That’s because I was watching an episode of The Mandalorian where the Mando was forced to fly a ship without a hyperdrive engine, and I almost freaked out right there in the middle of the living room realising how weird that would be if I left the issue unattended in my own work (yikes). 

Long story short, I drew elements from the Star Wars universe and created a story of my own. I’ve been asked how I came up with the idea of the Prophecy. Frankly, I don’t know. My brain farts sometimes, I guess. Brain Farts = weird ideas that somehow make sense sometimes.

(vii) Lastly

If you have any more questions you’d like to ask (or plot holes to tell me about *shudders*), do leave me a question in my CC, or holler at me on Twitter (I’m hardly alive here on Tumblr haha). To anyone and everyone who has read ‘an odyssey’, I thank you.

This year has been a funky year, and even worse, it’s the year I had to take my IGCSEs. Writing has always been a way for me to create my own universe and release my tension and emotions, so not being able to write as much as I used to was a little tough. 

Writing will continue to be a medium for me to express my emotions and my thoughts while creating stories of my own, so simply by giving my fics a read, you’ve already fuelled my reason to continue to write. Thank you for all the support in ‘an odyssey’! 

(why did i write this entire monologue like i’m giving a speech at the Oscars or something lol im so dramatic :”))

#mycommentary

[monimmortal]

My Immortal is the quintessential piece of bad fanfiction, a story so notorious that the very concept of badfic immediately brings up mention of it in virtually any circle. Much like a discussion about bad movies inevitably breaks down into someone screaming quotes from The Room into the middle distance in a terrible impression of an even worse accent, My Immortal is a guarantee whenever bad fanfiction comes up. It’s risen above the entry-level masterworks like My Inner Life and “the Goku/Anne Frank” fic, and with its sheer fame completely obscured the deep cuts of a 4 AM fanfiction.net binge where you learn things about yourself that you were much better off not knowing. Regardless of a person’s fandom or even how into fanfic they are, they understand the story to be the utter distillation of everything terrible about fanfic. There is something for everyone, whether the dark specter of a writer’s own teenage shames or something to cackle quotes from and spiral off into dramatic readings of. No fanfic has ever united people across barriers of fandom so easily.

And it’s all a lie.

Several months ago, I wrote a rather long-winded explanation of how My Immortal is not the creation of a teenage girl embodying the very worst in fanfic writers, but in fact the most masterfully-constructed piece of troll fiction ever conceived, which has, for going on nine years, managed to fool the internet at large into believing it completely genuine. But I was left unsatisfied with the initial result, which didn’t delve as deep as I would have liked into the points it raised, and missed quite a few important parts. So I’m making a second pass on the, hopefully concisely enough that I don’t need to make a third, because after writing a second essay about My Immortal, heaven knows I’m miserable now.

Special thanks to oisiflaneur for proofreading this 14,000+ word monster.

Preamble: People Who Are Young And Alive

For the purposes of best understanding everything I’m about to talk about, I suggest going and reading My Immortal first. ‘Context’ might not be the best way to explain what you’ll get by knowing what I’m referring to, but familiarity with the source material will make this a much easier read. Due to it having been long-since purged from fanfiction.net, you can find it reposted across the internet, in particular here. It is quite a read and I greatly reccomend it, although I do so as somebody who has read through countless times and liked it enough to write thousands upon thousands of words about it.

However, it’s certainly not an easy read for some people due to its clusterfuck of misspellings and incomprehensibility, so in addition to the quotes and excerpts I will provide to illustrate my points, I will briefly give a quick rundown of the major players in our tale.

Our heroine, Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way’s own words sum up her existence better than I ever could:

Hi my name is Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair (that’s how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my mid-back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Amy Lee (AN: if u don’t know who she is get da hell out of here!). I’m not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie. I’m a vampire but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I’m also a witch, and I go to a magic school called Hogwarts in England where I’m in the seventh year (I’m seventeen). I’m a goth (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow. I was walking outside Hogwarts. It was snowing and raining so there was no sun, which I was very happy about. A lot of preps stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them.

This paragraph is the first of the story, and it is also the longest of the story, saying so much and yet so little about our protagonist. We know almost nothing of the personality that she is alleged to possess, but we do know that she wishes to be familially related to Gerard Way because she finds him attractive, and presumably has an incest kink that will never be touched upon again in the story. The rest of this thesis will touch on all of the other woeful elements of this monstrous violation of ‘show, don’t tell’, but now you have the definitive look at who and what Ebony is.

Ebony is in love with Draco Malfoy, who save for a few minor elements remains largely unchanged in My Immortal. The same cannot be said for Harry “Vampire” Potter;

In the Great Hall, I ate some Count Chocula cereal with blood instead of milk, and a glass of red blood. Suddenly someone bumped into me. All the blood spilled over my top.

“Bastard!” I shouted angrily. I regretted saying it when I looked up cause I was looking into the pale white face of a gothic boy with spiky black hair with red streaks in it. He was wearing so much eyeliner that I was going down his face and he was wearing black lipstick. He didn’t have glasses anymore and now he was wearing red contact lenses just like Draco’s and there was no scar on his forhead anymore. He had a manly stubble on his chin. He had a sexy English accent. He looked exactly like Joel Madden. He was so sexy that my body went all hot when I saw him kind of like an erection only I’m a girl so I didn’t get one you sicko.

If nothing else, it’s certainly a nice change from the usual traits about his mother’s eyes and taped-up glasses. In this story, Harry goes by ‘Vampire’; he used to date Draco Malfoy and they got tattoos with each others’ names, he is gothic and now part of Slytherin for reasons never elaborated upon – these two traits go hand-in-hand for every character in the story– and resembles the lead singer of Good Charlotte for some reason. Thankfully, our author also notes that the character who was born, raised, and lives his entire life in Great Britain happens to have a “sexy English accent”.

“Satan” is the name that Tom Riddle went by when he was a Hogwarts student. In the 1980s. And gothic. We’ll touch on him a little later. There’s a lot of trainwreck going on here, in case you haven’t noticed.

The two meta players to what is one of the greatest internet performance art pieces ever created are our author Tara Gilesbie, and her best friend/beta reader Raven, noted in the story by her own self-insert Willow. I have a lot to say about these two, who are characters in their own ways and who the understanding of is vital to seeing My Immortal as something greater than it appears to be. Tara is a budding teenage writer, Harry Potter, and goth, who doesn’t like that people keep ‘flassing’ her story and threatens self-mutilation as retribution for it, because if there is one thing the mid-2000s internet was, it was caring and serious about such issues. She plays it rather loose with things like literary devices or the English language, as we shall see.

Part 1: Bigmouth Strikes Again – Matters of “Da Story and Spelling”

Upon reading My Immortal for the first time, one of the most egregious and clear issues with the story lies within the spelling and grammar: they’re fucking abysmal. You can see it in the author’s notes right away, and it slowly trickles into the story itself. It starts with ridiculous run-on sentences that seem more like lists than the placement of words into a coherent and complete thought, delivered in a halting and completely jarring cadence. Allegedly, Tara’s friend Raven is editing the story until chapter 15 – more on her later – but even under her tenure as beta, little slips become more frequent. The job of trying to edit something so terrible would certainly be taxing and likely require intensive rewrites of whole chapters at a time, and it’s understandable that perhaps someone would simply be past the point of being able to handle this, and would get sloppier in their job. Chapter eleven, where the author’s note explicitly stated Raven helped, contains of the most infamous and brilliant mistakes in the entire work; ‘Loopin’ 'masticating’.

Once Raven leaves as Tara’s editor, the story nosedives even further into a death spiral of spelling and grammar. Typos become common and any lip service paid to writing words out fully is discarded. Without a beta, we see the depths of Tara’s unfettered lack of shits given for her story to come off as anything resembling presentable. And it needs to be this way, because one of the hallmarks of bad fanfiction is being incomprehensible. Not quite as much as it once was in the days before My Immortal shook the scene up, but it’s a clear indicator of the writer being unprincipled and very young, which are all vital to the character of Tara. The story needs to be poorly written, because if it isn’t, a site like fanfiction.net which, let’s be honest, doesn’t have very high standards–or really any at all–won’t react with all the venom and vitriol the story is meant to induce. It would merely fly under the radar as another mediocre story in the ever-swelling Harry Potter section, which even years after the fandom has cooled off, still moves faster than any person can possibly read through completely. That’s why the author’s notes are so terribly formatted; the very first thing a reader will see upon opening the story is, “Special fangz (get it, coz Im goffik)”.

And it is that word 'goffik’, my darlings, that marks the first place in My Immortal where Tonstant Weader fwowed up.

Everyone who types regularly can see certain little flubs and bad habits develop in their words; muscle memory kicking them in the ass and accidentally writing an incredibly similar word, or having some consistent errors that come through very clearly. And she does have a few, such as “jacket” as “jackson” (chapters 26, 37, 41, 42) and “converse” as “congress shoes” (chapters 24, 39, 41, 42), but they are few and far between in a dizzying array of random misspellings as chaotic as the story itself. They’re just layered beneath what is already a no-shits-given typing style that was back then incredibly commonplace within the subculture presented in the story, but they can be made out clearly if looked for beyond using Z in place of S or 'da’ for 'the’.

The easiest case to make in this regard is with names. Nobody has their names consistently spelled correctly, but they aren’t even consistent in their incorrectness. Our main character, Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, is referred to as Enoby, Enony, Egogy, TaEbory, Ebony, and Evony, among others. Hagrid’s name is spelled correctly a grand total of zero times, but can be noticed as Hargrid, Hairgird, HAHRID, Hargirid, etc. Is her boyfriend Draco, or is he Drako, Darko, or Drago? Voldemort has almost as many misspellings as he does appearances; Volfemort, Vlodemort, Volxemort, Voldemint, Volremot, and Darth Valer, to name a few. Sirius Black becomes Serifs, Series, Sodomize, Socrates, and my personal favorite, Spartacus. Professor Slutgorn, Cornelia Fuck, Dumblewhore, Preacher McGongal are also highlights.

But there’s  perhaps too much convenience in how words become other words so easily. From Loopin’s mastication and the pointing of his womb, to being sent not to Azkaban but to Azerbaijan, to recording a sex tape on a caramel, to Dracon being hung like a Stallone, the story is littered with mistakes that seem almost too good to be true. Not all of this can be explained away as just a stray finger. Some of them defy keyboard logic in how they came to be, and somebody who could be that sloppy with a keyboard would be incapable of making sentences that could even be pieced together by someone intent on understanding what was meant by them, which as it stands is already how much of My Immortal is written. Sort of like Finnegan’s Wake, except the analysis of it is performed by significantly sadder people.

Matters like Azerbaijan and caramel might be explained away by spellcheck, if there was even the slightest evidence that Tara spellchecked any of this. It’s very, very apparent that she didn’t, because these passages are surrounded by misspellings that have gone unedited and unfixed, which means that she had to type out these words to the full extent manually.

Could it be some kind of celestial alignment that leads to there being so many absolutely perfect typos? It could be. But I believe that the typos not in fact  the meanderings of someone who doesn’t care, but in fact a labour of love from someone who cares far, far too much. Poor typing habits and a lack of care for what’s being put down are hallmarks of bad writing, and My Immortal strives to push it to heights that become almost impossible for an actual human being to accidentally make. Words are put into the story that aren’t even in the same neighborhood as the ones they’re supposed to be, and names steadily spin out of control in ever-escalating insanity like a Fibonacci sequence from hell.

In the chapter 4 author’s note, Tara notes “her name is ENOBY nut mary su ok!” In chapter 12, hot off the heels of Loopin masticating is the line, “Who MASTABATED (c is dat speld rong) to it he added silently.” What are the odds that she misspells the words on the two occasions where it matters most? In particular the latter one, where you’d think she would bother looking the word back over first to make sure it wasn’t, in fact, misspelled. Raven doesn’t pick up on it either, even though as we’ll see later she is most certainly capable of spelling words properly. It highlights the character of Tara’s hubris and incompetence, that she points out that she spelled a word correctly when she in fact had not. Someone who cares enough to show up the haters mid-story, but not enough to make sure they’re actually doing so.

Accompanying the more clearly intentional mistakes is the steady clumsiness that grows with the word count. Misspellings become more prevalent and less attention is put into trying to look like words, and while the tipping point is certainly Raven rescinding her service as an editor, it’s also a measured and slow degradation. We’ll go over this in more detail in part eight, but it is rather damning that the story doesn’t just plummet right through the floor once Raven isn’t working on making it presentable, as it reasonably should. Instead, it s a careful and measured breakdown. For comparison’s sake, let’s take the opening of chapter 15, which is the final Raven-edited chapter before the breakup:

“Ebony Ebony!” shouted Draco sadly. “No, please, come back!”

But I was too mad.

“Whatever! Now u can go anh have sex with Vampire!” I shouted. I stormed into my room and closed my black door with my blood-red key. It had a picture of Marylin Manson on it. He looked so sexy in a way that reminded me of Draco and Vampire. I started to cry and weep. I took a razor and started to slit my wrists. I drank the blood all depressed. Then I looked at my black GC watch and noticed it was time to go to Biology class.

And chapter 16, where their relationship reaches its peak and Raven has left as editor:

We ran happily to Hogsmede. There we saw the stage where GC had played. We ran in happly. MCR were there playing ‘Helena’. I was so fucking happy! Gerard looked even sexier than he did in da pictures. Even Draco thought so, I could totally see him getting an erection but it didn’t matter cuz I knew know that we were da only true ones for eachother. I was wearing a black leather minidress and black leather platinum boots with red ripped fishnets. Draco was wearing a black baggy MCR t-shirt and black baggy pants. Anyway, we stated moshing to Helena. We frenched. We ran up 2 the front of the band to stage-dive. Suddenly, Gerard pulled off his mask. So did the others. We gasped. It wasn’t them at all. It was.,……………………….. Volsemort and da Death Dealers

There are certainly a few more typos in this sample, and we see 'da’ and 'cuz’ slip through without Raven’s guidance, but overall they don’t seem too far apart. 'Volsemort’ is the only thing that is clearly down to a typo rather than laziness. But let’s jump into Morty McFli’s “tim machine” and see how chapter 26 opens:

A few mutates later Vampire came 2 da tree. He was wearing a blak leather jackson, black leather pants and a Good Chralotte t-shirt.

“Hi Vampire.” I said flirtily as I started to sob. Draco hugged me sexily tryont to comfrot me. I started to cry tears of blood and then told them what happened.

“Oh fuck it!” Vampire shouted angrily. He4 started to cry sadly. “What fucking dick did that!”

“I don’t know.” I said. “Now come on we have 2 tell Dumbledor.”

We ran out of the tree and in2 da castle. Dumblydor was sitting in his office.

“Sire are dads have been shot!” Draco said while we wipped sum tears from his white face. “Enoby had a vision in a dreem.”

Dubleodre started to cockle. “Hahahaha! And How due u aspect me to know Ebony’s not divisional?

It’s night and fucking day. Raven’s presence was clearly not the only thing keeping Tara’s spelling in check, because she started off just fine without her, but somewhere along the next ten chapters clearly lost her way. But hey, just for comparison’s sake, let’s see if ten more chapters supports my claim. Chapter 36:

I loked around in a depresed way. Suddenly I saw Profesor Sinister. B’lody Mary, Socrates and Draco, Vampire and Willow were their to.

“OMFG Sorius I saw u nd Samaro and Snip nd everyone!11111 I kant beleev Snap uzd 2 b goffik!111111”

“Yah I no.” Serious said sadly.

“Oh hey there bitch.” Profesor Trevolry said in an emo voice dirnking some Volxemortserom.

Hi fuker.” I said. “Lizzen, Satan asked me out to a gottik cornet and a movie so I need a sexah new outfit for da date. Also I’m playng in a gothic band so I need an ootfit for that too.”

“Oh my satan!1” (geddit lolz koz shes gofik) gasped B’lody Mary. “Want 2 go to Hot Topik to shop 4 ur outfit?”

“OMFS, letz have a groop kutting session!11” said Profesor Trevolry.

“I can’t fucking wait 4 dat but we need 2 get sum stuff first.” said Willow.

“Yah we need sum portions for Profesor Trevolry so she wont be adikted 2 Volxemortserum anymore nd also………….sum luv potion 4 Enoby.” Darko said resultantly.

It’s almost difficult to believe they’re from the same story we saw twenty chapters ago, and it’s sure as hell not because Tara has improved her craft. Within the confines of the story itself, it seems so gradual that you might not even realize it, but laid out in chunks like that, can you really say it’s not someone trying their best to destroy as many words as they possibly can?

Part 2: It’s Gruesome That Someone So Handsome Should Care – Matters of Identity and “Goffikness”

At the very core of My Immortal is what Tara believes being a goth to be. From the very first sentence of the first author’s note we learn this fact, and the first paragraph in the story, which is also the longest, is devoted to showing that Ebony is as well. Whether or not one is a goth becomes the most important character trait for the entire cast and defines their relationships with one another. Throughout the story, we are regaled with all the evidence of band fandom and other ultimately superficial traits that assure us that these characters are indeed true goths. The only things that receive anything approaching description are the clothes Ebony wears, all black and leather and band t-shirts. Nothing matters more than being a goth.

In this strange world, Ebony’s lifestyle is supported in ways that are beyond belief. Merchandising is so invasively ever-present that you can buy just about anything branded with her interests. In chapter 38, Satan smokes a Nightmare Before Christmas cigar (over a decade before The Nightmare Before Christmas came out), capes can bear Avril Lavigne’s face on them without anyone raising an eyebrow, and cars have pentagram decals all over them. Although band t-shirts are perfectly normal – and if I’m anything to go by, having pretty much nothing but band shirts isn’t unheard of – Ebony also has a wide range of band-branded everything, like skirts that have 'Simple Plan’ written across her ass.

Ebony looks like Amy Lee, and any boy she thinks is attractive will invariably be compared to the lead members of bands she likes, because those positive associations are marks of her dedication.

In the world of My Immortal, being a goth or a prep is not down to musical choices and circles of friends, but instead a sweeping statement about where you fall in matters of good and evil. Everyone she approves of fits her lifestyle whether it makes sense for the character to or not, radically changing their personalities to fall into the box she wants them to. The Golden Trio, alongside Ginny and Neville all goth up and convert to Slytherin, because as the 'dark’ house it is the only logical place for goths to go be. She does not have any friends who aren’t goths, because to not be a goth is to a prep, and preps are evil. Preps have middle fingers put up at them when they do nothing wrong, because on mere principle they must be hated and despised.

Which forms one of the many problems with the plot, but one that is not specific to the madness of Tara Gilesbie. At almost no point do characters coded as preps actually do anything wrong. Britney is consistently insulted and called a 'fucking prep’ in every appearance she has as though 'prep’ is an earth-shattering slur. Her presence consists entirely of being in a room, sometimes with middle fingers put up at her, and in one case, singled out by Professor Trevolry to do extra homework, because Trevolry is a goff teacher, which means she punishes preps for being preps. The only time Britney does anything wrong is in the final chapter, when it’s revealed that she released Snap and Loopin from Azerbaijan.

Britney is also the only actually preppy character in the story. We know this because she wears pink and little else, due to the lack of dialogue or character shown. But other people are referred to as preps constantly, including Snoop, Lumpkin, and Valmont. As are everyone who criticizes the story. We receive no indication for these, and often they are completely baffling for how decidedly un-preppy these characters truly are, but it’s vital to the narrative and the division of the cast that everyone Ebony does not approve of is a prep.

It’s not an uncommon attitude among teenagers, especially those with interest or belonging to subcultures out of the approved mainstream, to draw lines and assume everyone who falls into divisions other than them are inherently opposed to them. The idea that anyone who isn’t different must assume that difference is bad is so pervasive that it often comes to define works of fiction taking place in high school, even when written by grown-ass adults, because it provides cheap and easy conflict. Most teenagers grow fairly quickly out of this, but because of its convenience as a device, it persists. Tara is far from the only person to ever believe this, but the degree to which she takes it is a little further than most do, lumping the world into only two categories, but defining 'them’ as a one-dimensional army of preps even when they’re the opposite of preppy.

Which makes it an incredibly mockable and therefore desirable  angle to write her plot through, doesn’t it?

Once again setting herself up for incredible failure is the fact that she’s completely off the fucking mark about what a goth is. With favorite bands ranging from My Chemical Romance, Evanessence, and Linkin Park, to a bizarre interest in pop punk through Simple Plan and Good Charlotte, her taste in goth music is a lot like her taste in klezmer; it doesn’t fucking exist. This is not the musical taste of a broody, dark goth, it’s the stock standard taste of a teenaged rock fan in 2006, which is exactly what it’s supposed to be. To believe this is all to be pure, gothic music is to be so disconnected from the entire concept of the goth subculture that Tara would have to have not even given it a cursory Googling to discover what sort of music goths listened to.

This 2006; 'emo’ was already a word so pervasive that it was insufferable, but had TaEbory identified as emo, she would have lost one vital piece of the puzzle. Merely being wrong or incredibly forward about one’s identity isn’t enough; she had to be both simultaneously. Her fervid defense of what it is to be a goth, paired with being so off the mark, turns her into a hypocrite and a fool, a strawman whose every word is only making worse her whole case. It makes her stand out as a special and egregious case, an author so wrong about everything and whose self-insert only looks worse off for it. And this is how My Immortal rose to the top of an ocean of mediocre, bad, and downright terrible fanfiction.

Dubious musical categorizations aside, another element of the gothicness that pervades the story is authenticity. Among the more snobbish and elitist of any subculture since the beginning of time, the desire to be seen as authentic and real is an incredibly pervasive element that My Immortal predictably lingers on quite heavily. “Poser” is a word loaded with as much venom as prep is, because in the false dichotomy Tara instills upon the world, to have airs of goffikness while not truly being a goff is just as evil as wearing pink is. Perhaps even more so, because these fakers are infiltrating her circles. When Tara and Raven cease being friends, Raven’s stand-in Willow is referred to as a poser. When Draco feels betrayed upon discovering that Voldemort has tasked Ebony with killing Vampire, he refers to her as a “poser muggle bitch”.

While we can’t hold My Immortal to a rigid understanding of proper Harry Potter canon, it does explain a lot about Tara’s worldview. Draco Malfoy has spent his whole life of privilege being taught about the importance of blood purity by his parents, who — we’re all adults here, right? We can accept this? — are fucking wizard nazis. A lot of his early character is specifically centered around his beliefs on blood purity and his use of slurs like 'mudblood’ toward Hermione and dismissals of families like the Weasleys as blood traitors. Such traits are so surface level and blatant that even someone like Tara could pick up on them, which makes the inclusion of 'poser’ in his insult, a triple threat along with fantastical racism and straight-up sexism, into something very telling about just how important it is in her version of the Harry Potter universe to be seen as genuine.

You can’t simply become a goth, you have to already be one. You have to shop at the 'real goth stores’, which are known only to goths. Any attempt to learn of them is met with derision, because goffikness is not something you can attain, except for all the characters who are noted in their new backstories to have become goffs in their transfers over to Slytherin.

Simmering underneath this obsession with being seen as authentic, with a narrative that constantly asserts with very insecure undertones just how much Tara wants to be seen as a real goth, is how shallow her interests really are. She prattles off lists of the clothing she and her friends wear like she’s Patrick Bateman, a laundry list whose obsessive detail forms the only proper description anything in the story receives. And much like in American Psycho, the narrator’s obsession with clothes comes off as remarkably phony, a desire to fit in with a group they desire to be a part of through a series of checklist points, although while Patrick Bateman is deranged within the narrative, you must go one level of abstraction away from the character’s portrayal in the universe, to look on a metafictional level into the delusions of Tara to see where she gets it all so wrong.

We’re told in the narrative that Ebony is depressed and suicidal time and again, but despite slitting her wrists in lieu of an afternoon snack, we never truly see actual depression. She uses 'depressed’ in ways that don’t really make sense, such as to describe the movie Corpse Bride, coloured contact lenses, and makeout sessions. Chapter three even contains the passage, “'Hi Draco!’ I said in a depressed voice.” Given how wonderfully the entire world caters to Ebony and the fact Tara seems to not really understand what it means, it comes off not like Ebony is a character that actually has depression, but instead that since depression is gothic, she must therefore possess it. She isn’t somebody who wears black on the outside because black is how she feels on the inside, she just says she’s depressed because it’s all a part of the goth package.

As is Satanism, which Ebony is apparently an adherent of. Much like being depressed, a vampire, listening to Simple Plan, and being a Slytherin, it is vital to the gothic identity that you are a Satanist, even if you don’t know what Satanism is. That you sometimes refuse to acknowledge the words 'cross’ and 'god’. It’s so casually mentioned and without even the slightest bit of conviction that it feels thrown in by someone who doesn’t really care, but, once again, wants to fit in.

The end result is an all-encompassing, story ruining obsession with ensuring the reader know and believe that Ebony–and by extension the author she is an avatar of–is the most true and devout goth in the world. Setting herself up to be so very, very wrong on this account is an easy way to discredit Tara and add another layer of pure mockability to the story. She is truly the greatest poser of all, and her entire worldview comes crumbling down around her under the slightest scrutiny, all by design.

Part 3: Just a Miserable Lie – The Impossible Mistakes

This news may shock and surprise you, so make sure you are very securely strapped your seat.

My Immortal is not entirely consistent.

Certain little things creep out of the woodwork in both the narrative and off to the side, hidden amid all of the craziness around them, that I believe are little winks at the camera on the part of the author. Hints meant to clue you in as to the fact that this whole thing is, in fact, one big joke. A lot of them have gone rather unnoticed, it seems, but let’s start with the most noticeable of all.

In chapter 31, we meet Tom Bombadil. I’m not fucking with you, here, it really does happen.

Suddenly I was in fornt of teh School. In front of me wuz one of da sexiest goth guyz I had ever seen. He was wering long blak hair, kinda like Mikey Way only black. He had gren eyes like Billie Joe Amstrung and pale whit skin. He wuz wearing a blak ripped up suit wif Vans. It was…………………….Tom Bombodil!1

Now, some of you may be asking who the balls Tom Bombadil is, and that is my point entirely. Deep in the first half of Fellowship of the Ring is god of the forest and walking filler arc Tom Bombadil, whose three-chapter appearance leaves most readers wishing for a violent end to existence for how long it all drags. For the express reason that his appearance is so incredibly pointless, he appears in no major adaptations of the series, which means for Tara to know about him, she’d have to read Fellowship of the Ring, a book that is done no favours by Tolkein’s incredibly dry and long writing style, not to mention an entire chapter chronicling the genealogy of Hobbiton.

To be a teenager at a reading level high enough to tackle Tolkein precludes you from being capable of doing something like My Immortal genuinely. Tara would know how words are spelled and that, hey, stories are considerably better when you give a quarter of a crap about typing them properly. The levels of literacy involved in Tom Bombadil and writing My Immortal are so far removed that these two traits are mutually exclusive, impossible for Tara to possess if she’s genuine. After all,

I dntn red all da boox! dis is frum da movie ok so itz nut my folt if dumbeldor swers!

But wait.

Among the many baffling changes Tara makes to the canon, one of the weirdest and most damning to me is Professor Sinister/Trevolry/Sinatra/Siniater/Relory. This bizarre composite of professors Sinistra and Trelawny is a half-vampire, half-Japanese goff, and the only teacher in the school Ebony likes, because she dresses like her and assigns the preps extra homework, complete with a pun about doing an 'exorcise’ in the book. Her presence is bizarre, for being the only positive authority figure in the story, and for the utter perplexity involved in picking the two professors as a composite goth character at the expense of more conventional fanfic fodder like Snape and Lupin, who are both obviously villainous preps in this story.

Professor Trelawny is a strange choice whose incongruity I feel is another one of those expectation-defying twists meant to seem strange as an indicator to the audience where a more mainstream and believable choice would have been to romanticize Snape as so much of the fandom has, but the real headscratcher is Professor Sinistra. Her presence in the canon is entirely off-screen, mentioned by Hermione as a teacher for a course that Ron and Harry don’t take; she has no lines or purpose anywhere, and even in the movies is only a background character identified by virtue of there being an actress credited as her. Her absolute lack of lines makes her presence here troubling, because if Ebony’s reference base for this is the movies, where this dialogueless character coming from?

Of course, there’s also the aspect of how fluidly she switches between names bastardized off of the two professors which, unlike the matter of Hagrid being Cedric but not really, is so consistent and ever-present that it again seems like a level of sloppiness entirely beyond human capability. Two completely disparate names that are way too far removed to be keyboard fuckery, with bastardizations of both used in each scene she appears as though there is a quota on how many of each get used in a chapter for full effect. Because there absolutely is; here’s the introduction of the professor in chapter 24:

Well we had Deviation next so I got to ask Proffessor Trevolry about the visions.

“Konnichiwa everybody come in.” said Proffesor Sinister in Japanese. She smelled at me with her gothic black lipstick. She’s da coolest fucking teacher ever. She had long dead black hair with blood red tips and red eyes. (hr mom woz a vampire. She’s also haf Japanese so she speaks it and everyfing. she n b’loody mry get along grate) She’s really young for a teacher. 2day she was wearing a black leather top with red lace and a long goffik black ripped dress. We went inside the black classroom with pastors of Emily the Strong. I raced my hand. I was wearing some black naie Polish with red pentagrams on it.

In the tweet-sized morcel from “well” to “Japanese”, Tara has already methodically sank this character’s introduction, making someone paying even the slightest attention to what’s in front of them look back up to that previous line to see if they lost something somewhere. Trevolry is used to refer to her next, and then Sinister again, which are the only four mentions of this character in the chapter. Tara’s handle on the chaos of her own story is perfect, and the entire existence of the professor in this chapter serves as a massive wink to the camera.

Also a strange decision is to note that Professor Sinister and B'loody Mary “get along grate”. They don’t interact, as is expected from a narrative that marginalizes everybody except for Ebony and her love interests, relegating all of the friends to satellite roles where they interact only with her, but it’s perplexing for the way it’s made note of out of nowhere. I feel it goes beyond a strange decision to include more female friendships in the background of her story, and serves as a one-two punch of running afoul of “show, don’t tell” and of the canon itself, as in the original series the teacher that Hermione clashes with the most, to the point of dropping the class altogether, is Professor Trelawny. And yet here they are, besties in gothhood. Another subtle note that indicates how carefully woven this entire mess is.

For someone with the reading comprehension of a microwave-made baked potato though, she has an oddly prescient view on the series endgame in chapter 42’s author’s note.

AN: omg da new book iz kumming out rlly soon I kant wait!!!1111. I fink dat snap will be really the same person as Volximort koz dey are both haff-blood so dat will explain y he kild dumblydore and he hated hairy!!!!!1111 nd den hairy wil have 2 kommit suicide so voldimort will die koz he will rilly be a horcrox!!!!!111

On one hand, the idea that Snap and Volximort are the same person is so unfounded and bizarre that you kind of dismiss what comes next, but despite retaining nothing beyond the most surface-level details about the canon, she somehow managed to make the connection of Harry’s abilities and scar as evidence of him being a horcrux. It’s not a massive leap, and many in the fandom saw it coming, but for someone whose grasp on the canon simply doesn’t exist, it’s suspect.

I’ve unfortunately already blown the “big deal of a revelation that is fairly obvious” joke, so I won’t bother setting it up again, but this revelation is genuinely a noteworthy one. Contained within My Immortal is one reference that is unambiguously and inarguably gothic. Not one of the borderline cases like Marilyn Manson where it depends on who you ask, but a genuine reference to a piece of gothic music. From chapter 28,

We went in2 a blak room. The wallz were blak with portraits of gothic bands lik MCR, GC and Marlin Mason all over them. A big black coffin was in the middle. Red vevlet lined da blak box. There were three chairs made of bones with real skullz in dem. I wuz wearing a blak corset bar wif purple stuff on it, fishnet suckings and a blak leather thong underneath.

It’s so subtle and unexpected a reference that even if you know what it’s from, you may not pick it up. “Red velvet lines the black box” is a lyric from Bauhau’s 1979 song Bela Lugosi’s Dead, which is generally considered to be the very first gothic rock song ever written, thus making it the only genuinely gothic sentence in this entire tale. However, devoid of teenage angst or guyliner, it makes no sense that such a reference would be in the repertoire of somebody who believes that Marilyn Manson was a band from the '80s. In fact, it is impossible to believe that a Tara taken at face value would have ever so much as encountered the song, because the collision of matter and anti-matter annihilates both. However, it would be the fodder of somebody who, baffled at how easily people have accepted their work as a genuine offering, got bored and decided to throw a wink to the camera that couldn’t have possibly slipped under the radar.

Littered among the litany of showy, “look at how goffik” I am references to things, as though My Immortal were a PSA about the goth cred of Tara Gilesbie, are a few rather suspect notes. Tara is somebody who can’t mention certain names without indicating her undying hatred toward them, and yet,

“I love you!” I said and then we started to kiss just like Hilary Duff (i fukin h8 dat bitch) and CMM in a Cinderella Story.

We are apparently to believe that Tara, somebody who is so slavishly devoted to her identity and to a dichotomy that has coloured the entirety of a fictional universe, not only watched A Cinderella Story in spite of her hatred of Hilary Duff, but then drew a comparison to it in how she and Draco kissed? Drawing comparisons to things the author is interested in is a rather frequent amateur move for young fanfic writers who merely draw the blunt comparison to something rather than learning to describe the individual features themselves. Tara is not a good enough writer to describe the facial features of her favorite band leads, so she just mentions that people look like Gerard to indicate that the absolute pinnacle of human attractiveness is this.

The only comparisons she ever draws are to her favorite things, because it’s a way to prove that her life is so goffik that everything around her draws its existence from her interests. And yet she cites a Hilary Duff movie that she quite frankly should not have even seen, if she is so diametrically opposed to being perceived as a prep, which veering so far off of the beaten goff path and into would most certainly indicate. Something doesn’t add up about this.

On what I believe to be the intentional cliffhanger that chapter 42 ends on, we hear another mention of goffik cinema right before the very end of the story.

“Save us Ebony!” Dumbledark cried.

I cried sexily I just wanted 2 go 2 the commen room and slit my wrists with mi friends while we watched Shark Attak 3 and Saw 2 and do it with Draco but I knew I had 2 do somefing more impotent.

“ABRA KEDABRA!!!!!!!!!!!11111” I shooted.

For those not in the know, Shark Attack 3: Megalodon is a phenomenally bad direct-to-video monster movie whose sole claim to fame is in being so laughably bad that it’s found an audience in bad movie circles. And while one could make the fairly weak argument that on the basis of some super edgy “I love watching people dying” attitude, a movie like Shark Attack might appeal to Tara the same way slashers and gorn like Saw and “Hoes of Wax” appeal to her, it’s so bizarre in its sudden presence at the very end that I believe it yet another wink, but this time a more final one. The second-to-last sentence in the story makes mention to a notorious bad movie to draw the connection to the story, a final and overt declaration of a joke that you’re supposed to be in on. The last punchline before the music hits and Porky Pig bursts from out of the big drum to say, “That’s all folks.”

Part 4. What Difference Does it Make? - The Desecration of Canon

Calling out My Immortal for distorting and twisting the Harry Potter universe into something unrecognizable and monstrous is like calling out a bear for shitting in the woods, but it’s impossible to explain how carefully crafted a piece of perfect trollfic it is without examining just how many 'liberties’ Tara took with the canon.

All of the characters that Tara seeks to lionize convert to Slytherin, because apparently people can just do that if they decide they really like black lipstick. But that’s not enough to make them more 'like her’. Backstories are revised to include a quite frankly startling volume of sexual abuse backstories and characters secretly adopted by abusive parents. Vampirism is not a trait anybody received through the narrative, but instead a species inherited by birth that somehow, people don’t know they have, showing no signs or hunger, until they learn about their parentage. Characters all receive new, gothic nicknames like B'loody Mary, Vampire, and Diabolo.

What Tara has done is remove everything about the characters one may think noticeable about them in the slightest. Everyone now resembles Tara’s favorite artists. Harry’s iconic lightning bolt scar, a symbol of the series, has been changed by makeup and magic to instead be a pentagram, because that is a design change of her choice, visually reclaiming the character from Rowling. The only character whose visual traits at all line up with the canon is Voldemort.

Then all of a suddenly, an horrible man with red eyes and no nose and everything started flying towards me on a broomstick! He didn’t have a nose (basically like Voldemort in the movie) and he was wearing all black but it was obvious he wasn’t gothic.

But then it gets stranger. Hagrid becomes a member of Ebony’s band Bloody Gothic Rose 666 and a “little Hogwarts student” (chapter 11). Although she appears to retcon that in chapter 12 with,

AN: stop f,aing ok hargrid is a pedo 2 a lot of ppl in amerikan skoolz r lik dat I wunted 2 adres da ishu! how du u no snap iant kristian plus hargrid isn’t really in luv wif ebony dat was sedric ok!

Although she seems to take a strange “whatever I want” approach to her own retcons like the most hackish of comic book writers, since we get in that very chapter,

Anyway I was in the school nurse’s office now recovering from my slit wrists. Snap and Loopin and HAHRID were there too. They were going to St. Mango’s after they recovered cause they were pedofiles and you can’t have those fucking pervs teaching in a school with lots of hot gurlz. Dumbledore had constipated the cideo camera they took of me naked. I put up my middle finger at them.

Anyway Hargrid came into my hospital bed holding a bouquet of pink roses.

“Enoby I need to tell u somethnig.” he said in a v. serious voice, giving me the roses.

“Fuck off.” I told him. “You know I fucking hate the color pink anyway, and I don’t like fucked up preps like you.” I snapped. Hargrid had been mean to me before for being gottik.

Hagrid is in this canon simultaneously a pedophile and presumably grown-ass adult, but also a Hogwarts student who may or may not be Cedric Diggory, who not only survived the events of Goblet of Fire, but also managed to fail two years at Hogwarts to join Harry as a seventh-year. He is also a poser who is mean to Ebony for being 'gottik’, but is also in her gothic rock band which sounds like “a cross between GC, Slipknot and MCR”, which as we all know would make it the most authentic gothic rock band since Mungo Jerry.

Except in chapter 14 a Death Eater is referred to as “the fat guy who killed Cedric” so maybe HAHrid really is Hagrid after all?

Then there is the odd decision to align Lupin and Snape as pedophilic voyeurs in the service of Voldemort while bizarrely championing Professor Trelawny, in stark contrast to a fandom that especially in the golden days of Harry Potter fandom, where people would dick ride Severus Snape all the way to the moon on the weight of how 'misunderstood’ he was. A pale man who seems conventionally 'dark’ in his interests and mannerisms is the perfect place to begin projecting on when you’re telling a story about how you’re the exact same things, but it seems almost too obvious a decision. Like the rest of Professor Siniater’s composite existence, she’s so odd a choice that it startles you, and I believe within that shock value is the decision to buck expectations.

A trip to the past begins to paint an even more bizarre picture, as apparently the parents of our heroes all went to school in the 1980s, alongside Voldemort and Hedwig. They were also all Slytherin goffs who at some point seem to have just turned into poser preps whose children had to re-convert out of Gryffindor and into gothhood. This timeline yet again causes a great many headscratching tears in the fabric of space and time, but the most vital and important of all is Hedwig.

In the canon, Hedwig is Harry’s owl, female and not much of a doer, speaker, or goth. But in the horrible alternate universe that My Immortal takes place in, Hedwig is a bisexual human male who is very much a goth, the ex-boyfriend of Tom Riddle, whose dumping of the boy starts his descent into becoming Volxemort. It is a change that is so wrong, so removed from not only the canon but from the possibility of anything ever being accurate to the canon, that it can’t be accidental. One cannot fuck up that badly by accident.

Voldemort himself is a great many things. In the past, he is Tom Riddle, gothic musician at Hogwarts and love interest to Ebony, but also Tom Bombadil, the master of wood, water, and hill. But in the present time, he is both the Bark Lord, as one may expect, but also potentially a young, thoroughly goffik employee at a “punkgoff” store in Hogsmeade, Tom Rid. Tom Rid is described as “OMG HOTTER THAN GERARD EXCEPT NOT CAUSE THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE“ and, like every other guy in the story, is “bisezual”. Tom Rid is never the setup for Voldemort’s secret infiltration of the goth subculture, but nonetheless seems to be a template earlier in the story for the later time travel storyline and Tom Riddle as a love interest. It’s another nonsensical “mistake” thatjust doesn’t mesh with any fathomable stupidity. It would be like introducing a character called Harry Pot and having him be completely disconnected from Harry Potter in any way.

Littered with iPods and anachronistic pop culture that manages to miss its mark in two different time periods, the only reason we know that this is the same world and not just one with suspiciously similar names is the fact that it’s fanfiction. Not a deep AU that interestingly adapts elements into a different world to see how they work out, or which shows characters and how they might develop under different circumstances. This is a mangled mess where muggle bands play concerts in Hogsmeade, seemingly well aware of wizards’ existence. There must be panic on the streets of London.

The big question is “why”. Why would somebody do this bad a number of canon, accidental or not? And the reason is simple.

Part 5. Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want – Wish Fulfillment

By changing the context of everything except for the most basic connections of who the characters are 'supposed’ to be, they cease to be J.K. Rowling’s. They instead become Tara’s playthings. The canon is so distorted that it may as well not be fanfiction for how few things that remain intact, and yet it is vital that the world be the world of Harry Potter, at least nominally. Tara needs to turn a world that she loves, as off the mark as she may be, into a wonderland in which to self-insert, to mold into a countercultural paradise that centers completely around her.

We can’t speculate on the life of Tara – who this entire paper of course serves as a document meant to disprove the very existence of – but we can very clearly see the desires of this alleged person. Ebony is the single most important person in My Immortal, supplanting Harry as the only one who can kill Voldemort, whom every attractive character and even many unattractive ones profess their love to and fight for without provocation. Her interests are catered to on an unrealistic level and divine karmic justice makes those who sit culturally opposed to her suffer undeserved retribution solely for existing.

Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way is, even by those who see her as an entirely genuine creation, often held up as the ultimate self-insert. On top of very clearly existing as an author avatar who holds the exact same interests as her creator, her very presence distorts and twists the canon around her like an eldritch abomination tearing the very fabric of the reality she occupies. One of the more criticized elements of self-inserts in fanfiction is of course the ease with which a narrative becomes wish fulfillment for the author, and My Immortal has this in droves. Ebony is the most important character in the world not because she’s the protagonist or the narrator, but because she has supplanted Harry as the only person who can stop Voldemort, and whom everybody’s 'motivations’ center around.

Ebony is loud, angry, and has access to a time machine. When Ebony isn’t on-screen, all of the other characters ask, “Where’s Ebony?”

The love triangle between Ebony, Draco, and Vampire begins with Vampire solely wanting to reconnect with his ex-boyfriend Draco, but as the story goes on that element is lost and replaced with him instead lusting after Ebony, as evidenced by the time they had sex right in the middle of Hair of Magical Creatures. One of the only connections that two different characters had with each other is slowly replaced with an attraction to Ebony that they fight over, because everyone in My Immortal is defined by how Ebony perceives them. Their own attractions to one another take a backseat to their lust for Ebony, save for occasions where she permits them to have sex for her enjoyment, at which point it is presented as titillation for her.

Also among the characters with stated romantic interest in Ebony are Tom Rid, Hairgird, Snope, Lumpin, Tom Riddle, and Snaketail.

Everybody who has things in common with Ebony is Ebony, essentially. Every character is so interchangeable due to the pre-packaged identity she assumes is the only authentic way to be gothic that nobody feels like an actual character. Willow and B'loody Mary both occupy the role of female best friend for Ebony, save for a brief period where Willow is killed and Lupin has sex with her corpse before her resurrection one chapter later. In fact, the only time a character Ebony isn’t sexually attracted to is complimented is when she tries to lay on really thick her attempt to suck up to Raven in the hopes she’ll return to editing. The only difference between Vampire and Draco is how many times Ebony has sex with them, and that’s not getting into the masses of other goff guys who may as well be nameless, such as Diabolo (Ron), “Crab”, Goyle, and “Dracola” (Navel). In the past, Tom “Satan” Riddle proves to be just as generic a love interest as the other two, and then more faceless characters in Hades (“Serious Blak”), Lucian Malfoy, James “Samoro” Potter, and Hedwig.

Nobody has any character, save for Ebony, because they’re not meant to be characters, they’re meant to be imaginary friends for Ebony to play with, to fawn over her and have everything in common with her. If we buy into the belief that Tara is a rather lonely teenage girl who has apparently pushed away her only friend over a My Chemical Romance poster, then her decision to basically strip away everything that makes the Harry Potter world what it is so that she could rebuild it from the ground up into her gothic paradise makes a lot of sense.

Of course, she isn’t that at all, but first we need to look at all the other things that Tara is and isn’t.

Part 6. Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before – Raven

Fifteen-year-old Eternity Demen'tia Johnson warily took a seat on the Hogwarts Express. As she did so, she heard many giggles in the air. Ugh. Stupid preps. Eternity had hoped she wouldn’t see any when she came to Hogwarts. They had made her life in Los Angeles High School miserable. Now she was supposed to put up with them here? She sighed sadly, and stared out of the window. In her mistery, she took her iPod out of her Emily the Strange bag and blared on some My Chemical Romance (A/N: Don’t they rock?). Oh great. Now even more preps were giving her dirty looks. Eternity tried her best to ignore them. It wasn’t because Eternity was dirty or deformed or anything. Maybe it was something to do with her black leather corset, or her ripped black miniskirt or her black combat boots or the metal music she was listening to. Eternity hated how people judged her like that just because she was a goth.

The above is a snippet from I’m Not Okay, written by Tara’s friend Raven. And in it, you can see a lot of the same themes present in My Immortal. Anachronistic technology, a misunderstanding of what the goth subculture is, preps hating her on mere principle, authors notes spliced in mid-sentence to herald the glory of her taste, and more description offered up for her clothes than for anything else. Throughout I’m Not Okay, we see Draco Malfoy as the gothic love interest, comparisons of characters to members of bands the author likes, and canon Harry Potter characters becoming gothic and taking on nicknames like Dracula, Sea, and Darren.

Good sense and suburban decency run screaming at the sight of a dark name like “Darren”.

Rather than shit all over preps of her own design, Luna Lovegood and Hermione Granger, two characters so far removed from the stereotype of an American high school “popular kid” that it’s almost infuriating, are turned into the superpreps to be hated. Slytherin is still so gothic a house that their common room password is “bleeding kisses” and the portrait is a woman described as the “splitting image” of the lead singer of Sisters of Mercy, an actual goth band whose frontman Andrew Eldritch is most certainly not a woman and not even particularly androgynous.

The same out-of-place theme of sexually abusive adopted parents that plagues My Immortal’s side characters returns in Eternity’s backstory. She sticks her middle finger up at preps unprovoked and veers off course to call out the shittiness of preps. Really, Eternity is in every imaginable way just Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way with a marginally better writer, as is to be expected from the editor of Tara’s disasterpiece.

The authenticity of Raven’s works isn’t in doubt, in my mind. It predates the memetic nature of My Immortal by a great deal, they co-wrote a story entitled Ghost of You that, again, features the exact same terrible tropes and bad ideas, albeit this time with Hermione Granger as the parentally abused goth hated by preps and now in love with Draco Malfoy, And, the fifth and final chapter of I’m Not Okay has,

a/n: TARA IS DA BIGGEST FUCKING BITCH EVERY AND BY THE WAY I’M A BIGGER MCR FAN AND GERARD IS MINE 4EVA SO FUCK U

Eternity was so happy. She went to class with the other fifth-years, Sea, Draco, Shadow, Darren, and Satan. That fucking retard Elvira (whose real name was Lindsay like that fucking ho Lindsay Loan) had gone all the way back to first-year and they put her in Gryffindor where all the retarde4d preps were because she couldn’t even write properly and she had to get her friends 2 do it for her.

Hot damn. That’s a far more scorching burn than being the offscreen victim of Lumpkin the necphilak.

Raven’s stories being the template for My Immortal is no coincidence. Tara aped everything she saw with gusto, imitating her friend who, while not a very good writer, could write sentences properly and gave description to things. Hell, as far as fifteen-year-old fanfic writers go, Raven is actually pretty decent, just entrenched in some terrible themes–again, pretty typical for teenagers–and does things like describe Eternity 'sadly putting her hair up’. On some level, Tara is trying to be as good a writer as Raven is. She looks up to her and, immediately after in a fit of anger killing off the character meant to be Raven, brings her back and guiltily sucks up to her with as many compliments as she can give.

Whether she is the same person as 'Tara’ or a friend in on the joke, I believe that Raven exists as sort of a proto-Tara, a precursor to the real juicy fun. Her story isn’t very good and she writes the exact same things Tara does with marginally more writing ability. They’re identical in every possible way, with the same interests, attitudes, and bizarre writing sensibilities. Almost no differences in the presented persona emerge, but as much as their obsessions with clothing and iconography bordering on disingenuous poserliness would imply that the pre-packaged nature of their identities is to blame, I believe it was all meant to deepen the character, provide a more grounded contrast to her and help make her seem more real.

Rather than existing as a nebulous beta reader who also has no prior internet history, existing solely through the character of Willow and authors notes that let their ongoing drama spill through into the story for us to see in what I feel is a brilliant piece of meta performance art, she has her own stories that make her very much a real presence in the extended saga of My Immortal. I believe that in the long term, she was meant to continue onward as a developing foil for Tara, someone whose existence helped back up her own. But, as evidenced by the way I’m Not Okay stops at chapter 5, which on the timeline of My Immortal would place it somewhere around chapter 16, this didn’t go as planned.

If “Raven” were a co-conspirator to “Tara”, it’s possible they got bored, didn’t have the insane devotion to a multi-layered and quite frankly absurdly deep prank. If Raven and Tara are one and the same, then perhaps the pressure of developing two 'different’ personas proved too much work, and decided to focus on the big one. After all, Raven’s stories are only notable through her association to Tara, the Art Garfunkel to Tara’s Paul Simon. Mediocre but ultimately harmless stories that by and large flew under the radar and aren’t even well known by people who know My Immortal. I’m Not Okay was never going to draw the same level of interest or vitriol that My Immortal did, thus making it a joke with far less payoff, even if by virtue of not being as poorly written, it was likely easier to write. This is helped by the immense disparity in productivity between the two; whether the primary actor or personality, Tara is more prolific, something that ties directly into the return on investment when it comes to how people reacted to either story.

And as it turned out, she wasn’t needed. The My Immortal Extended Universe has long since been forgotten, and yet people fell for the joke without it. People bought very easily into My Immortal as a genuine piece of work, or at least were so willing to enjoy it as a mockable distraction that nobody ever really asked. Raven became a redundant cog in the machine, and removing her freed up the effort to focus full time on making My Immortal something even more incredible than it began as.

More evidence of this lies in the fact that even once Raven allegedly returns to her role as editor, the spelling only gets increasingly worse; she’s credited as helping in many chapters, but her former sensibilities are gone, and no edits are ever made, as illustrated in the snippets detailing the degeneration in part one. It’s possible that this was meant to convey that Raven wasn’t actually helping; that she quit writing fanfic due to her fallout with Tara, and Tara merely went on pretending she still had a friend in Raven as she sank deeper and deeper into her wish fulfillment paradise. Raven never managed to gain the established foothold that Tara did, so nobody ever questioned it, and everyone was too busy having a good time to wonder how the chapters ever qualified as being 'edited’.

Curious is the fact that even though they made up, Raven never came back. She didn’t continue writing her own stories, the drama between them never resurged, and aside from her supposed beta services to Tara, is absent from the bulk of the saga in its entirety. This is in spite of the fact that in all apparent ways, Raven is not only the more skilled writer, but the one with a clearer passion for it. Her prose may be nothing special, but the bar should not be set too high for what is allegedly a teenage girl writing Harry Potter fanfic. She falls into a lot of the common holes, but her style is that of someone who loves stories and wants to write their own, and for her to so quickly vanish and never return is, to me, evidence that she was always a character too, and that her place in the 'real life’ layer of My Immortal was simply deemed irrelevant.

Part 7. Girlfriend in a Coma – That Time Tara Got Hacked

In chapter 38, a time-displaced Tara opens for Marilyn Manson in Hogsment, which is what Hogsmeade was called before they changed it in 2000. In Hogsmint, a store called Hot Ishoo will change its name to Hot Topic in the year 1998. Tom Riddle possesses future knowledge of both of these events, as well as the certainty that because amnesia potions haven’t been invented yet, he will not be affected by the one being used on his cigar branded with a movie that hasn’t come out yet, which is a shame because he wanted to use the potion on Ebony so that the time-traveling girl he loves will forget about her old life and her romantic entanglements in her own timeline with the sons of two of his bandmates sothat only her love for him will remain. His prescient, almost accepting knowledge of seemingly everything about his future up until his fall is almost tragic; he must know that Ebony’s involvement in his life is going to ruin it

On top of being the Dark Lord and Tom Bombadil, Tom Riddle may also be Doctor Manhattan. But that’s not the point of this part.

After xBlakXTearX performs its first big gig, the band immediately falls apart as, due to Lucian Malfoy playing the wrong song by mistake, Samaro Potter decides to shoot his arm off with a knife. Those of you attempting to follow the bizarre, Ebony-centric take on the universe may be surprised to learn that she is not the Yoko Ono of the band in what may be the only important conflict in the story that isn’t about her. However, since everything has to be about our goffik darling, Ebony jumps in front of the bullet–that, again, has been shot from a knife, like this is the second-worst Final Fantasy game ever made–and enters a coma.

Bear in mind, she does this knowing that Lucian survives this attack, going on to find love, have Draco, and despite two stints as a wizard nazi manages to avoid jail time and lead a life of incredible luxury and comfort. This also requires her to ignore her very important mission to prevent Tom from ever becoming Voldemort and the insane repercussions of dying in a timeline that isn’t her own, leaving behind all of her possessions that are even more anachronistic in the 80s, including a time machine that anyone could suddenly begin misusing.

All in all, an incredibly stupid decision with no purpose other than to insert Ebony and her useless ass selfless heart into conflicts that she has nothing to do with, because she’s the 'hero’ of our story.

Before we could see the resolution of that nail-biting cliffhanger, Tara’s account was allegedly hacked by a 'guest writer’, who claimed to have been able to crack her password with incredible ease. While there, the password cracker gives her own take on My Immortal, involving the death of Ebony, which undoes all of Tara’s damage upon the universe and returns everybody to their proper states, while sentencing Ebony to a terrifying ironic hell where she is doomed to an eternity of wearing infinite layers of preppy clothing brands.

While there, the hacker also shares with us the real chapter 39 as an act of kindness to those of us who were clinging onto the saga for dear life and wanted to know how Ebony was going to survive jumping in front of the knife-propelled bullet. Allegedly, this chapter was already written and waiting to be posted in the document area. It ends up being such a bizarre element of time travel that even the Terminator franchise never went there.

“What the fuk happened?” I asked dem. “Oh my satan!11 Am I lik dead now?” I gosped.

“Enoby u were almost shot!11” said Serious. “But da ballet could not kill u since u were form anodder time.”

“But fangz anyway!1” said Lucian holding oot his arm. I gasped. He had two arms!

Which opens up a lot of questions, then shoves them aside so I could wonder for a second if Lucius Malfoy was missing an arm in the canon. He wasn’t, making this another perplexing note of Tara’s that rewards a familiarity with the source material by highlighting all the ways in which it’s wrong. But then, after being told that Snap was Death Dealer, despite being the classmate of a Tom Riddle who hadn’t yet gone dark, Ebony comes across Snape raping Draco, and is so distraught by her boyfriend’s betrayal in this act that she runs to her room, takes out a steak, and uses it to slit her wrists.

Neither steaks nor stakes work like that.

The next chapter begins with her “back in Tim” due to her suicide, but the endgame plot batshit of My Immortal isn’t something we can even tackle in full yet.

There is a lot about the hacker that’s peculiar, and that’s because I believe that the hacker is Tara herself. A lot of minor elements of the breach of her account actually betray this secret, and it’s one of the few things in My Immortal I’m unsure about in regards to its intent.

The way that fanfiction.net handles posting a story involves uploading the story file to a document area, and then from the story menu selecting the relevant document. I always found it kind of clumsy personally, but what stands out about it is the fact that the chapter was allegedly written and left online for an indeterminate amount of time. There aren’t many reasons to upload a completed chapter to the website and then not post it. For someone like Tara, who does no editing and is clearly no longer sending the story off to Raven to be edited, there seems to be absolutely no reason for the story to be sitting idly in the documents area. I imagine Tara finished each chapter and immediately shoved it online in a frantic hurry to get it out there, as opposed to leaving it online to age like a fine vintage of toilet moonshine.

The original posting of the chapter was actually from the original document being copy/pasted into the one that contained the fake chapter nine. However, chapter 40 is then posted some time later as, “Chapter 40. LOL! Someone has taken my account over” by what seems to be the hacker. Which is odd, since they already pasted it into chapter 39, and posting it again from the document area seems rather pointless. It even includes an addition of, “THE IDIOT’S NOTE: Well… this was in the doc area… might as well let the whole world see what the real Tara wanted to show us… Have a nice day!” that the chapter 39 version lacks, meaning this hacker allegedly went into the doc, copy/pasted it into a new file with her chapter and Tara’s, but then edited the original document and posted it too. It’s an odd thing to do, like someone went in with very little idea of what the plan actually was and stumbled redundantly over ideas as they went.

But particularly odd about this whole thing is that Tara does nothing about it. She doesn’t delete the insulting notes or remove the fake chapter, she leaves them both there even though the author’s note of chapter 41 makes it clear that she’s very aware of her account being compromised, not only letting the mockery of herself remain, but even letting it effect the numbering of subsequent chapters. Which may seem like just Tara not caring enough and going with the chapter numbers listed by fanfiction.net, until you look back at chapter 10.

Chapter 10 was posted twice, and Tara never removed the second, identical version of it. It remained on the site up until the day the story was purged by site moderators. And yet, Tara always remained consistent in her renumbering of the chapters, always subtracting one from the chapter count when she posted it; what the site claimed was chapter 12 was really chapter 11. For a story with only the barest minimum of shits given, to properly compensate for this numbering accident for almost thirty chapters is a surprising amount of misplaced effort, but it establishes that she does care about the chapter numbers, and makes the sudden slip a lot more suspect. Why only go halfway in on her effort by continuing to count her double-posted chapter, but not this fake one that she’s allowed to remain as a part of the saga?

Part 8. That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore – Bringing it all together

I’ve prattled on for well over ten thousand words now about a myriad of My Immortal’s issues, but you could look at each individual flaw of the story and say that on their own, they hardly form evidence of trollery afoot, even if some of the more glaring issues are harder to explain away. But surely I’m going to show how they connected to form the cohesive peak of my argument, right? “How soon are you going to get to that?” you shout into your screen, not knowing how computers work.

Well how soon is now?

Tara Gilesbie wrote a story that set her up as the ultimate caricature of a teenaged fanfic writer who is just the worst in all of the best ways. All of the elements of bad writing on every level came into a perfect storm that only grew more powerful over time as it sank further and further into its own madness until it didn’t even resemble what it had started out as. From the self-inserted wish fulfillment to a startlingly creative use of the English language, it hits every hallmark of a bad fanfic one would think to roll up into one neat and tidy little ball, save for perhaps a massive panfandom crossover of everything the author has ever liked.

There is a clear story arc in My Immortal, but it isn’t Ebony’s tale of romance and destiny, it’s Tara’s slow descent into gibbering madness, like the story she had created was an eldritch being that she was unable to comprehend the sight of. As I went over in part one, the writing style breaks down steadily over time, becoming more typo-ridden, filled with more and more casual abbreviations and chatspeak until it’s become apparent that she simply doesn’t care, and while the decline in writing 'quality’ certainly begins with Raven’s absence, it is a steady drop for many chapters afterward. Tara’s character is not one that seems like she has a grasp on subtlety or moving slowly, but that’s the pace with which the boundaries are pushed.

Let’s look at the plot in a rather brief rundown. The story starts out fairly simply, with Ebony and Draco falling in love and having poorly written sex in the forest. Vampire comes in to complicate things in a love triangle that is surprising for leading to attraction angst in all possible directions. Voldemort’s introduction adds to the melodrama of the story, and it weaves in and out of slice of life romance angst and the Voldemort subplot rather strangely. Then, in chapter 17, my favorite part of the story occurs, and it signifies the moment where My Immortal jumps the shark in a way nobody would have ever dreamt of.

Gerard was da sexiest guy eva! He locked even sexier den he did in pix. He had long raven blak hair n piercing blue eyes. He wuz really skinny and he had n amazing ethnic voice. We moshed 2 Helena and sum odder songz. Sudenly Gerard polled of his mask. So did the other membez. I gasped. It wasn’t Gerard at all! It was an ugly preppy man wif no nose and red eyes… Every1 ran away but me and Draco. Draco and I came. It was…….Vlodemort and da Death Deelers!

“U moronic idiots!” he shooted angstily. “Enoby, I told u to kill Vampire. Thou have failed. And now……….I shall kill thou and Draco!”

“No no please!” We begged sadly but he took out his knife.

Sudenly a gothic old man flu in on his broomstick. He had lung black hair and a looong black bread. He wus werring a blak robe dat sed ‘avril lavigne’ on da back. He shotted a spel and Vlodemort ran away. It was…………………………………DUMBLYDORE

It’s important here to note that this is very soon after Raven left the story. and remember that this is around when the story began to stop caring about spelling and typing. After this point, everything in the plot goes off the rails. The melodrama ramps up, Ebony is revealed as the only one who can stop Voldemort, time travel is introduced, despite supplanting Harry as the chosen one who can defeat the Dark Lord she instead tries to seduce a teenaged Tom Riddle… Everything goes completely off the rails.

And that’s the plan all along. The angle of Raven and Tara’s feud never went anywhere, probably because nobody really cared much about two teenagers yelling at each other on the internet. At least, not until 2015 when some asshole would examine the shit out of it for very little discernable reason or gain. I believe that when it was scrapped, the brain trust behind My Immortal decided to go in a different direction. Readers may not have took the bait of their public dispute, but they were buying the troll hook, line, and sinker. People genuinely believe, or at least want to believe, that the story was written in earnest. Even a lot of the people who have doubts about it have them on the grounds that they don’t want to accept that someone could write a story so terrible. The unexpected appeal of the trainwreck that was My Immortal itself, rather than the meta saga of Tara Gilesbie, terrible writer and object of mockery, drove the project into a different direction.

The story and spelling both degrade at the same time, steadily creeping further and further into the most ludicrous things the author thinks they can get away with. As the readers continue to accept what they see as genuine, the author pushes further, which is why we see new elements constantly introduced into the story where they make no sense. It’s not Tara throwing the kitchen sink into her story in a misguided belief that a lot of everything will make her story good, it’s Tara setting the narrative on a trajectory of the most ludicrous thing she can think of, and watching as people believe it. Because they do, completely.

Sex is introduced into the story, because of course it is, through the most unappealing of ways possible. Genitalia are referred to by 'thingy’ as though using the word penis is too embarrassing for her to handle, even though later she refers to Snap’s 'clook’ without issue. To further the wish fulfillment, she must be having sex with her love interests, and it must be terrible.

We went on the bed and started making out naked and then he put his boy’s thingy in mine and we HAD SEX. (c is dat stupid?)

I believe they call that docking.

I’ve already explained how I believe Tara Gilesbie to be just as much a fictional character as Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, and what I feel that character is meant to be is the most mockable and stereotypical fanfic writer one could ever dream of. A teenage emo girl delusionally believing she’s a goth, who’s into boys kissing but has no problem throwing homophobic slurs around, who violates the Harry Potter canon in every way possible for the sake of creating her world of wish fulfillment where everything centers around her. Every bad writing trope wrapped up into sensibilities that set themselves up for mockery. Throw on a tragic lack of self-awareness that opens her up to be laughed at as she smugly highlights her mistakes, and all the pieces fall into place.

Tara Gislebie is a parody of fanfic writers.

Before My Immortal hit the scene, bad fanfiction was not as popular a fandom passtime as it is now, owing largely to new forms of media allowing us to better share the stories and our mockery of them than we had access to in mid-2006, but also because it was always rather contained within fandoms or specific LJ groups meant to deride them. But My Immortal crossed boundaries and spread far outside the reaches of the Harry Potter fandom, to become more than just a story. It was a sensation, a fic so notorious that even people who weren’t around back then have still at least heard of it, even if they haven’t gone out looking for it. While bad writers are nothing new to fandom, My Immortal set off a slew of imitators and tributes, fake sequels, adaptations using its basic setups in different fandoms to produce interesting results, and with more attention suddenly on badfic with the intent to mock it, troll writers came out in droves to try and reproduce the magic.

Some succeeded. Many failed, and I believe one of the main reasons is that people continue to take My Immortal at its word. They just whip some typo-heavy dreck up in their word processor, and ignore all of the subtler elements of My Immortal. It gets so much wrong from the very beginning, but it had to slowly stew in its own crazy long enough to become the poorly written train wreck we’ve come to love. For a story so over the top, that combines all of the elements of a bad story into one perfect package, it does it cleverly enough that it continues to fool people almost ten years later.

You may believe that this is all way too much work for anyone to put into a stupid fanfic. That if it’s meant to be a joke, that it’s a long way to go. Developping characters, faked account compromises, and an active effort put into writing as terribly as possible. And it is a lot of effort, which is meant to throw you off, because it’s the greatest trick the devil ever pulled.

Haha. Wondering why this post isn’t where it’s normally found?

Well, my friends, ask no more!

On a dark lonely evening, sweat drips through your hair

Warm smell of your butthurt, rising up through the air

Up ahead in the distance, see the laptop’s blue light

Your head grows  heavy and your sight grows dim

Gotta stop for the night

There my posts on the display

Rang the warning bell

And you were thinking to your self

Give it a week and I’d surely quell

Then I flamed all the posters and I showed you her name

There were voices ringing in your head

Swear you’d heard them say

Welcome to the Hotel Tarafornia

Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)

Such a normal place

Plenty of room at the Hotel Tarafornia

Any time of year (Any of time of year)

I can smell your fear

Her mind is Tumblr-addicted

She got them means behind ends

She got a lotta commie, commie kids

That she calls friends

How they dance in the Discord

Sweet doxxing rush

Some post to remember

Some troll to forget

So I called up the admin

“Please bring my ban”

And he said

We haven’t had that spirit here since GC toured Japan

And still those voices are ringing from far away

But still those posts are comin’ from far away

Wake you up in the middle of the night

Just to hear me say

Welcome to the Hotel Tarafornia

Such a lovely place  (Such a lovely place)

Such a horrid face

Living it up in the Hotel Tarafornia

What an awful lie (What an awful lie)

What an alibi

Mirrors behind mirrors

Men behind the man

And she said: “We are all just copycats here

Of a copy of a fake

Among the moderators

They gathered for a feast

They stab it with their steely knives

But they just can’t kill the beast

Last thing you remember, you were

Grasping for your mouse

You had to find the permaban

To restore what was before

“Relax”, said your bete-noire

“I am

Programmed to deceive

You can ban me any time you like,

But I will never leave!”

[kamilah-the-bloodqueen]

Mafia (Part VI/I think it’s going to be 10)

Notes: ONE THE FIRST NOTE IM GOING TO APOLOGIZE FOR THIS PART OF THE SERIES AND IM SORRY!!! I honestly don’t think this chapter was great, but I’m hoping part VII will compensate because I had an idea of where I should take this fic while avoiding Stockholm syndrome. I’m definitely feeling the struggle of writing a coherent fic with this series, but it’s always good to get out of your comfort zone right? *laugh* Anyways so I’ve never written a 2 point perspective fic before so that was also new so like tell me what you think because I deadass need feedback because I love writing and I always want to put out content people are going to enjoy. I think I’m going to stick to one shots  with fluff and smut after this though! 

Pairing: Kamilah x MC (Amy Johnson)

Warnings: Violence, Language 

Tags: @mrskamilxh @slytherinthoughts7 @made-me-deep-blue @scarlet-letter-a0114 @uselesslesbianfr @kamilah-sayeed-let-me-love-you (if you want to be tagged comment because a chapter of Mafia II that I deleted got around and people asked but I never saw it so I never knew 😬)

Part I  Part II  Part III  Part IV  Part V

----FBI Hideout----

“You’re alive!” Jackson guided Amy to an office, pulling out a seat for her to rest in before opening a first aid kit. “Damn, I’m sorry Amy. We-we were supposed to keep you safe..” Jackson reached for her wrist, Amy let out a whimper at the contact. 

“It’s okay Jackson, sometimes that happens,” Amy closed her eyes and Jackson applied the antibiotic ointment, “and it wasn’t your fault.” Amy watched Jackson’s deft hands wrap her wrists, his grip firm but soft. Their eyes met, Amy’s heart fluttered, his brown eyes slightly lighter than Kamilahs. Jackson reached out to cup Amy's face as she leaned into the contact, disregarding the throbbing of her bruises. 

“Who did this to your perfect face?” Jackson snarled, his eyes hardened. His hands were soft, gentle and warm, Amy closed her eyes.

“Kamilah.”

“She-she didn’t kill you?” Jackson let out a gasp, drawing his hand away.

“No,” Amy sighed again, reminiscing on the memories as their hostage, “she was planning on ransoming me for information or something.”

“Well, that won’t happen.” Jackson pulled Amy into a gentle hug, she leaned into him. His strong arms gave her a sense of peace, of safety. 

“Amy? Jackson? You guys all right?” Leo’s voice rang out, before the door creaked open. He stepped into the room, a regretful look on his face. “Amy-I, apologize. We-I don’t believe I prepared you enough before sending you back out there.” Leo bowed his head, an apologetic look on his face. 

“Don’t worry Leo, they didn’t kill me.” Amy laughed, followed by Jackson’s eye roll. 

“Well, I don’t know if you want to go back out there after her, we can certainly find someone else-” 

“No. It’s my mission and I’m going to finish it.” Amy huffed, crossing her arms and legs. 

“Amy!” Jackson cut in, Amy brushing him off with the wave of her hand.

“I know their tricks, if anyone can hunt them down, it’s me. It has to be me Leo, this is what I’ve been trained for.” Amy stood up, her eyes flaring with determination.

----A dark alleyway----

“Fucking hell.” Kamilah huffed, poking her head out of the alley to scan the surrounding area. She was angry, infuriated. Not only had the mafia lost control of a major boatyard, they’d also lost an upper hand over the law, they’d lost Amy. 

“So what? She got away, it’s not a big deal-” Darius nearly choked as Kamilah threw part of a brick at him.

“We lost a hostage Darius.” Kamilah huffed, drawing her handgun, “we lost the boatyard. We lost Amy, and now the law is upon us.” She concealed her gun, before moving her hand for the rest to follow. 

Kamilah moves swiftly, silently and with precision. She knew the streets of NYC like the back of her hand, leading her men to an old abandoned base. 

“So was it a rat?” Darius hesitated, stepping back out of Kamilahs arm range. Kamilah huffed in frustration, setting her equipment on a crumbly table. Her eyes flared, her jaw clenched as she shook with fury. 

“I had one job. I-“ Kamilah sighed, recomposing herself. “We have work to do. Amy is a loose end for us... I’ll see that it gets cut off.” Kamilah gestured for the men to settle in and begin preparation. 

—— 2 days later ——

“So you figured it out Amy?” Jackson appeared at Amy’s side, his perfect brown hair shining in the light. 

“Yes Jackson I know what I’m doing.” Amy huffed, reminiscing on the few moments with Kamilah that gave her a new perspective of the Mafia. 

“And?” Jackson crossed his arms, pointing to the map of NYC. “Can you draw her out?” 

Amy felt her gut turn at the thought. She didn’t want to kill Kamilah, and if she could keep her alive she would. It was a complicated situation and she’d be lying to herself if she said she hadn’t contemplated quitting her job as a detective. 

“Yes.” Amy stood there quietly, praying Jackson hadn’t been smart enough to read body language. 

“You don’t want to kill her do you?” He hesitated, Amy turned to gaze into his deep brown eyes. “Amy I’m-I’m not going to incriminate you if you don’t want to kill her.” He faltered, gazing towards the ground. 

“Jackson you know I don’t, I wouldn’t want to kill anyone-.” Amy felt her face flush at the thought of Kamilah. “I don’t like killing people, I don’t like hurting them. It seems unnecessary.”

“I know that but-“ His smile fell, and his eyes lost some of their spark. “The-the way you talk about her...it’s-different from any other target you’ve had to pursue. Might I ask why?” 

“No. Sorry Jackson.”

“It’s okay. Well, we should get back to it.” He turned and walked out of the room, leaving Amy with her thoughts and memories. Amy felt her eyes well up at the thought of having to kill, or arrest Kamilah. Amy contemplated how she could draw Kamilah out in a way that wouldn’t immediately get her killed. 

“Keeping you a secret” Amy let out a gasp, her eyes widening at her idea, she glanced down at the map of New York. She moved out of the hideout, she walked quickly, knowing exactly where she had to go and what she had to do to keep Kamilah alive. 

---Abandoned Base----

“So we have to kill her, can’t we just shoot her?” Darius huffed, Kamilah standing up and nearly choking him.

“No.” 

“Why not? She’s a loose-end like you sai-” In a flash Kamilah had Darius against the wall, handgun held against his stomach. 

“There’s other ways to deal with loose ends.” Kamilah withdrew her gun, her eyes still hardened. 

“Oh I see. You liked her didn’t you?” Darius smirked, crossing his arms in victory. “You liked her, you like her, so you refuse to kill her.” Kamilah looked away, a feeling of weakness growing in her stomach. “Who would’ve thought that the toughest Mafia arms dealer would’ve fallen for a detective who wants nothing more but to see you dead. But I was in love once too, Kamilah, so I will help you, even hardasses like ourselves deserve something right?”

“Perhaps, but let’s stay focused. Obviously this was a setup but I doubt the FBI was smart enough to realize we wanted control of that boatyard. If there’s a rat we need to cut it off before anyone gets killed.” Kamilah composed herself, the image of Amy sleeping soundly replaying in her mind. Kamilah walked out of the hideout for a quick breath of air, contemplating her decisions in the past few days. 

“How’d we end up like this…” She let out a sigh, taking in the cool, crisp air of New York. 

“I don’t know but I can assure you it’s one for the storybooks.” Kamilah turned and met Amy’s familiar eyes, she let out a sigh before shaking her head and drawing her handgun. 

“How did you find us? It’s been two days.” Kamilah took a half-step forward, her heart racing. 

“It wasn’t hard. We caught the mafia here once and it was the closest hideout from the boatyard.” Amy leaned against the wall of the hideout, unphased by the gun being held towards her. “I’m not here to kill you, if that’s what you think I’m going to do.” 

“Well what are you here for then?” Kamilah lowered her gun, her eyes meeting Amy’s. 

“A proposition.” 

#kamilah sayeed #kamilah x mc #mc x kamilah #I'm so sorry like I have never hated a chapter so much of this series #I promise to redeem myself in part VII I swear!!!! #Yikes is all I have to say #kamilah the bloodqueen post #Someone else should've written this prompt lol the first 5 chapters should've been it #ending with an angsty ending lol