CONGRATULATIONS, @gypsin (Gypsyn)!!! Your fanfiction “The Half-Breed's Wife” has been nominated by one of your fans for the 2023 2nd Term Inuyasha Fandom Awards run by FeudalConnection!
Your work has been nominated in the following category:
Best InuKag Romance
Voting will take place between June 5th and June 20th, and the links to do so can be found on the feudalconnection Tumblr page.
If you would like to pull your work from consideration for an award, please let us know via the Tumblr page or [email protected].
Once again, congratulations for your beautiful contributions to this wonderful fandom, and thank you for all that you do!
Adrien stared at his enemy, his FATHER with hands that shook and legs that threatened to buckle any second. Hawkmoth stared back, completely unmoved. his calculating eyes narrowed behind his mask.
His expression was not guilty or sad or even angry.
And Adrien... Cat Noir... One of the two best heroes of Paris, partner of Ladybug, was watching every horrible thing his father had done for the last two years flash through his mind in a haze.
All the innocent people Adrien had seen akumatized. Friends, innocent children, grandparents. There had been a time Hawkmoth had akumatized a baby… a little boy no older than one and a half.
He’d seen people thrown from roofs and trapped in collapsing buildings because of this man. People had DIED because of him.
HE, Cat Noir, had died to this man and his Akuma. SEVERAL times in fact. The only reason ANY of them were alive today was because of Ladybug’s sheer determination to protect them and her miraculous cure.
MANY people, himself and Ladybug included, now frequently suffered panic attacks in the day and had persistent horrible nightmares in the night...
There was so much pain.
So much misery and fear and hate. All Gabriel’s doing. His own Father. His own flesh and blood. The man who’d raised him.
Beside him in the cavernous room stood Ladybug, still armed and ready to fight, completely unaware of her partner slipping deeper into shock.
“I WILL undo the last three years and get her BACK!” Gabriel, Hawkmoth snarled, mostly at her. Then his cold eyes turned toward Cat Noir in disgust.
“And I'll make sure YOU turn out right.”
And he’d KNOWN who Cat Noir was. Of fucking course he had.
Ladybug flashed him a small confused glance but he was too busy fighting down the urge to be sick.
His mind was busy going over the last three months. The double and then triple packed schedule. The livid disapproval of his dropping grades and work performance, the explosive discovery of his absences during Akumas, getting pulled out of school, refusing to let him go out and see his friends, the new surveillance system...
"You... You TRIED to akumatize me," he accused disbelievingly. "Didn't you??"
Hawkmoth’s cold gaze stayed on him, piercing in its intensity. “When nothing I did worked I knew it was you.”
The words were like a sucker punch to the gut. His own father had gone out of his way for MONTHS to make his life a living hell so he could attempt to turn him against his lady, against his victimized friends, against Paris...
Ladybug’s eyes widened on Cat Noir, her expression whispering what her lips could not. 'You know each other?'
Apparently, the answer was no.
This morning if you'd asked what his father was like he'd have told you his father was a harsh cold man but deep down he cared. His way of SHOWING it was bad. But even after everything, he’d STILL believed his father loved him.
Every idea of that was now gone. Torn out from under his feet in the span of a moment. Like he’d suddenly walked into quicksand or slipped into the deep side of a pool and now he couldn't breathe...
“I'll undo the last three years…” “...Make sure you turn out right.”
Everything he'd done to try and please his father over the last three years... It had all been nothing to him. The fencing trophies, the top grades (before his schedule tripled in intensity), mastering the piano, obediently going to every shoot, every interview, every boring obnoxious party, following ALL of his father’s insanely strict rules...
Everything. EVERYTHING he'd done hoping for some scrap of affection or acknowledgment from his father, his only remaining relative, had been a colossal waste of time and energy.
And now his father wanted to scrap this version of him and try again. Like he was a bad design. Like he was nothing. Make it so the miraculous never chose him or take it away from the beginning. Take away his chance to meet and fall in love with Ladybug, Ban him from going to school and making friends.
And then force him into the mold of the perfect son. Hammer him into it. Crush him...
The thought enraged and sickened him.
And there was poor Ladybug, looking more concerned and confused by the second as she watched their confrontation from the outside.
“This… THING was supposed to be my father,” he revealed darkly.
No use hiding it now after all. Besides, he needed her support while he cut the last familial tie he had. He was doing it for her and for Paris, and he would NEVER regret that. But without her, he might just fall apart right here and now.
Her eyes whipped toward his face in shock. “A-Adrien?”
So she remembered him. Or maybe she even knew him outside the mask. Either way...
“We’ll deal with that later, my lady,” he reassured with deceptive calm, livid green eyes still fixed on Hawkmoth’s sneer.
Author’s note: This is kind of an old project I’ve played with here and I’m not sure how far I want to take it so feedback is very welcome. I’m positive it’s been done before But I like seeing what I can bring to a trope. XD Enjoy!
chapt 1
"God damn, I'm late."
Kagome looked up suddenly in surprise at the voice from her position lying beneath the tree, Her drowsiness forgotten.
At what she saw she blinked and rubbed her eyes, convinced her mind was playing tricks on her.
There standing a few yards away from her, just at the edge of the forest, was a man in a red and white suit with long white hair and dog ears, inspecting a pocket watch in a clawed hand. But before she could get a much better look at the strange young man he started to walk briskly away into the trees just beyond the meadow.
Somehow, watching him go, Kagome had an overpowering urge to follow the strange man. The girl sat up and quickly got to her feet, staring after the man’s disappearing figure before bolting after him without a second thought.
She crossed the field in a matter of seconds but couldn't quite catch up. She could only catch glimpses of his long white hair just disappearing behind the trees ahead of her. She ran as fast as she could, wondering at the craziness of her actions, chasing a strange man through the woods.
And then all at once, she had entered a clearing and found him standing on the lip of a wooden structure in the middle of a small field. She came closer, panting, and realized with a start that he was, in fact, standing on a well.
The man was staring down at the pocket watch in his hand and then looked over, focusing his eyes and ears intently on her. She looked back but barely caught the color of his golden eyes as she approached before he moved again. To her surprise, he just turned back to the well and let himself drop inside.
Kagome cried out in worry and shock, flinging herself against the wood to see if he was okay and to her surprise, she just caught the flash of a blue light and then nothing. The well was empty.
Kagome stared at the light in perplexion and contemplated her next move. Should she give up the chase and go home? Or should she try jumping in after him?
The irrational worry that if she took too long deciding then he would get away from her sealed her decision and she climbed onto the lip of the well and hopped in after him.
A blue light engulfed her immediately as she fell and she looked around, feeling surprised at just how familiar the sensation was.
When the light finally faded, Kagome gently touched down on the bottom of the well and looked around confused at its walls. When she looked up she was briefly met with the face of the young man from before. But just as their eyes met, he once again turned away from her and left.
Kagome couldn't climb out of the well fast enough. And once her head popped out she caught sight of his form growing smaller as he walked into the woods again.
It appeared that she hadn’t really gone anywhere. She was still in the same old woods as before. Even all the trees looked the same.
"H-Hey! wait up!" she called out after him, struggling to pull herself up over the edge. But he ignored her.
The girl frowned and pulled one leg and then another up over the edge, tumbling onto the grass and smearing dirt and grass against the apron of her dress. She barely had her feet on the ground again before she was picking back up the chase, running after him. This time she managed to catch up to him.
As she reached his side, he spared her a stern glance but kept his quick pace.
She was breathing hard but still opened her mouth to ask if they had ever met before when he cut her off.
"You're late wench."
She looked taken aback still panting.
"I-I'm sorry?" she managed, feeling confused. "What exactly am I late to?"
"Your meeting with the Queen stupid. Now pick up the pace, I ain't got all day."
Her temper sparked a little at his language and she stopped in her tracks, letting him get ahead of her.
After he realized she had stopped, he stopped too and looked back at her in clear irritation.
"Well NOW I don't care if I know you or not!" she snapped at him angrily. "I didn't follow after you just so you could insult me, I'm going back!"
He raised an eyebrow at her and flashed her a fanged smirk.
"It's too late for that. You followed me here all on your own and now the path back is gone," he informed her, crossing his arms over his chest with finality. "You can only go forward."
"Whatever," Kagome replied coldly, twirling on her heel and marching back the way they had come. "I can't believe I followed you all the way out here just so you could be a jerk to me."
The dog-eared man made a sound of exasperation and growled. "Woman! I just told you It's no good! Where the hell are you going?!"
"Back," she repeated stubbornly. “To my home.”
"Stupid girl! If you just blow off The Queen when you're already late she's gonna have you executed!"
"Like I care about you or your Queen," she replied, walking back into the clearing where the well had been.
But as she looked around she saw no well or even any sign of one. It was just a grassy hill. Kagome stared at the clearing in surprise. She looked all around. Even the trees and rocks seemed to have moved. She was SURE this had been the clearing with the well at the center. She hadn't walked THAT far.
"Believe me now?" the dog-eared man asked snidely. "Your only choice now is to follow me to see The Queen."
In retrospect, it would have been better for the man if he hadn't provoked her. Kagome's rebellious nature mixed with her irritation at the stranger's jabs and momentarily overturned her worries. At that moment, Kagome was just determined to spoil his plans for her any way she could.
The girl took on a thoughtful look and turned to her left. There was another path, one she hadn't noticed before.
She’d run down a path to get here. Surely if she followed the path she would find her way back. Or at least somewhere where she could get directions.
Plan set, the girl smiled and traipsed toward the path, reveling in the sound of irritation the rude man behind her made.
"Where the hell do you think you're going NOW?!" he demanded, following after her.
"I told you already, home."
"Woman!"
"It's Kagome," she corrected shortly
"It's gonna be BITCH if you don't damn well do what you're supposed to and follow me to the Queen!" he snapped.
"Quite frankly, I have no desire to meet any Queens today so you'll just have to go back home and tell her I'm not coming,” she sassed readily.
"You little brat! FINE see if I care what happens to you then!" he shouted at her as she marched on.
But after awhile, she heard a faint groan of annoyance and then the begrudging footsteps of the strange man as he followed after her. As he got close she heard him faintly grumble "If you weren't the Queen's goddamn guest I'd drag you there over my shoulder wench."
Kagome snorted and ignored the man as she continued on through the forest.
What are some fluffy tropes you LOVE? Why? Alternately, what are some fluff tropes that miss the mark with you?
Gypsin, I don’t think you’re ready for the amount of incoherent gushing you’re about to get.
Tropes that will get me every single goddamn time:
MUTUAL PINING. This stuff is the crack of my OTP addiction. InuKag being totally into each other but thinking the other doesn’t or can’t feel the same, then the slow build up to the moment of truth... UGH. It gives me life.
Friends to lovers. I can never get enough of that good good trope.
Opposites attract. I am always entertained by this and it almost ALWAYS works in InuKag fics because hello. (I will only avoid this trope if it appears in a high school AU. “SHE’s preppy but HE’S a goth outcast” is just not an iteration that I care to read.)
The whole reunion trope, when two people knew each other in the past— and usually had some romantic involvement—are separated, and then meet again years later. I don’t know why I like this, tbh. Maybe it’s just fun to see how two people can grow apart but still come back together.
The marriage of convenience trope can be really fun, but it has to be executed well. I’ve definitely read fics that didn’t quite pull it off the way I hoped they would; but when it’s done well, I dig this trope.
Road trip romance! I love it. It’s fun to read about a couple getting closer while they’re both slightly out of their element and experiencing new things together.
This one’s definitely a guilty pleasure trope for me, but: that trope where one of the characters, for complicated reasons, has to disguise themselves or act a part, and then they fall in love and have to keep up the act even though it’s totally killing them to lie to the other person... like it’s a ridiculous scenario that plays out the same way every time, but I still love it.
Tropes that are incredibly off-putting:
Love triangle. Don’t need the unnecessary drama.
The playboy trope. I just. I CAN’T with playboy characters. I don’t understand the appeal at all. “This guy treats women like disposable pleasure factories but he’s TOTALLY SEXY, SEE?! And it’s okay because even though he’s never actually treated women with respect ever, for some bullshit reason the heroine is ‘not like other women’ and will reform him! And she can trust that he’ll respect HER despite his deplorable track record because reasons???” Yeah, super sexy. <_< And I especially dislike it when Inuyasha is written as a playboy, because talk about completely and totally misinterpreting a character...
You know that “friends with benefits” trope when two characters are sexually attracted to each other (whether they’re actually friends or not) and they start having casual sex, but of course it inevitably leads to romantic feelings? I don’t enjoy that. It’s just kind of boring to me—all those fics read exactly the same—and I s’pose I don’t find casual flings sexy.
Anything involving blackmail, where one character has dirt on the other and wants some kind of payday and somehow they end up falling in love (?!?!?)... just. Why? Like... sure, I’d TOTALLY trust and commit to someone who had once blackmailed me. It’s super romantic. >_>
Any fic where Kagome is a maid working for a wealthy Inuyasha is a fic I will instantly nope out of.
The whole “secret baby” trope is not my bag. I have a hard time sympathizing with the lead female character who’s hidden her pregnancy/child from the father, because like... he deserves to know? I’d be pretty upset if I had a kid in the world and I was never told. (Nanna’s the only person who’s made me enjoy this trope and I’m not sure how I feel about that. XD)
Manic pixie dream girl who “fixes” a broken man. NOPE.
That’s about all I can think of, for now. Thanks for the rad question. d(^__^)b
CONGRATULATIONS @gypsin! Your fic “Forever” has been nominated by one of your fans for the 2020 1st Quarterly Inuyasha Fandom Awards, run by FeudalConnection!
Your work has been nominated in the following category:
Best Ficlet
Voting will take place between January 29th and February 12th , and the links to do so can be found on the feudalconnection Tumblr page.
If you would like to pull your work from consideration for an award, please let us know via the Tumblr page or [email protected].
Once again, congratulations for your beautiful contributions to this wonderful fandom, and thank you for all that you do!
NOMINATIONS ARE OPEN UNTIL THE END OF THE DAY JANUARY 15TH, SUBMIT YOUR FIC/ARTWORK NOMINATIONS THROUGH OUR PAGE
CONGRATULATIONS @gypsin! Your fic “The Half Breed’s Wife” has been nominated by one of your fans for the 1st Quarterly Inuyasha Fandom Awards, run by FeudalConnection!
Your work has been nominated in the following category:
Best Action
Voting will take place between June 30 and July 13, and the links to do so can be found on the feudalconnection tumblr page.
If you would like to pull your work from consideration for an ward, please let us know via the tumblr page or [email protected].
Once again, congratulations for your beautiful contributions to this wonderful fandom, and thank you for all that you do!
NOMINATIONS ARE OPEN UNTIL JUNE 15. SUBMIT YOUR FIC/ARTWORK NOMINATIONS THROUGH OUR PAGE!
CONGRATULATIONS @gypsin! Your fic “The Half Breed’s Wife” has been nominated by one of your fans for the 1st Quarterly Inuyasha Fandom Awards, run by FeudalConnection!
Your work has been nominated in the following category:
Best Character Portrayal - Kagome
In addition, your fic “The Dog Prince” has been nominated for the following:
Best Ficlet
Voting will take place between June 30 and July 13, and the links to do so can be found on the feudalconnection tumblr page.
If you would like to pull your work from consideration for an award, please let us know via the tumblr page or [email protected].
Once again, congratulations for your beautiful contributions to this wonderful fandom, and thank you for all that you do!
NOMINATIONS ARE OPEN UNTIL JUNE 15. SUBMIT YOUR FIC/ARTWORK NOMINATIONS THROUGH OUR PAGE!
