#ppau snippets

[spiritblossoming]

ahh r u still taking reqs for the wips bc keria caitlyn? 👁️

absolutely o7

There are about three minutes left on the clock before T1’s match against KDF when Keria turns to Gumayusi, drops a familiar crossbow in his hands, takes his gun from him while he’s still processing, and leaves.

Gumayusi stares after Keria, still reeling as the support walks away with a new spring in his step and Gumayusi’s gun slung over his shoulder. If it were anyone else touching his gun, he’d be seeing red that had nothing to do with Faker’s championship glow, but since it’s Keria, he’s willing to give it a pass. Maybe. As long as he figures out what the hell his support is playing at.

He watches as Keria lifts the gun and fires an experimental shot into the dirt. Something about the sight has Gumayusi finally snapping free of his trance and stalking towards Keria. “What are you doing?”

Keria’s mischievous smile does nothing to reassure him, and neither do his words. “Do you trust me?”

... so that's the gist of keria playing pool party caitlyn for twenty-five minutes :)

thanks for the ask!

[aryasage]

Meiko, Scout or Viper

5 or 6

Gimme the fluff go >:)

i will pick meiko solely because i want to talk about this story. i'm not sorry. hope it's enough fluff for you (literally)

6. What is your character’s fondest memory?

Meiko has quite a few happy memories. Winning every kind of tournament you've ever participated in will do that. The one he holds closest to his heart, though, is from before he ever became a Summoner.

As a child, Meiko had a knack for making people feel better. Affecting their emotions positively was just second nature, but no one paid any real attention to it until his magic showed itself in a much more noticeable manner.

One random day he was out in the streets playing with his friends when he heard an odd noise. A muffled crash of something falling over, followed by a pained yowl. Distracted from whatever games he was playing, he approached the source of the noise, finding a cat so very clearly hurt, shaking and shivering and not putting any weight on a swollen leg.

Panicked and scared, the cat tried to run away, but even trying to stand on its hurt leg was too much pain to bear, and it immediately collapsed again. Even on the ground, it hissed at Meiko, trying to scratch him with its claws, but as soon as Meiko's tiny fingers brushed the cat's fur, it immediately stopped trying to fight him off, calming down and letting him heal it.

He came home with a cat sleeping in his arms and a plea to his parents to let him keep it. As Meiko explained, their eyes grew wider and wider as they realised just how magical he was.

Yes, they did let him keep it :)

[aryasage]

blood so silver black by night

yes it should be phel theme not diana theme. it's still lunari and i'm running out of titles from phel theme. sue me.

if i could make this hit 1k it would probably go into the oneshots that didn't fit into atcybyna but i wanted to post SOME content in the next decade so here you all go (it could still probably hit 1k after going back and revising it as this thing is a mess and a half but again. wanted to get content out. it's definitely because i'm generous and not because i couldn't be bothered to proofread. yep.) a different version of this might end up being actually posted at some point, but for now, have this

this is set during tncfl, an exchange between deokdam and viper. no graphic depictions of anything but vague mentions of abuse, violence, all your standard viper backstory stuff. oh and also religion because i find fantasy religion really fun to explore so it ended up taking up a lot of this little piece. anyway keep reading for some actual writing for once :)

You’re…like me? Deokdam asks hesitantly upon hearing Viper’s voice, so similar to his own yet so much rougher, full of pain buried deep down.

Am I? Viper responds, poison in his voice threatening to spill over. You had a choice, didn’t you?

Deokdam is taken aback by the question. What do you mean?

The moon’s gifts, Viper says bluntly. You wanted them, didn’t you?

I—of course. it was an honour to receive her blessing, Deokdam says, unsure of where Viper’s going with this.

Did you— Viper stops, taking a deep breath before continuing. Could you have said no, if you didn’t want them?

I mean—why would I? I knew what I was getting into, had prepared for it my whole life. Didn’t you?

Viper scoffs, and his support looks over at him, but Viper waves him off before addressing the other ADC again, avoiding eye contact. Yeah, no. I’m not like you.

What do you—

I didn’t know what I was getting into. I didn’t get a choice, didn’t have an opportunity to say no—and I tried. You drink noctum willingly—imagine it’s forced down your throat with no idea what’s happening. Then you have to keep taking it just to keep yourself alive.

Deokdam stares at him, horrified. Why would anyone— The ceremony, the ritual, the acceptance—that’s the most important part. Not the gifts themselves. It’s—willingly making that sacrifice—that’s the entire point—

Viper sighs. Not everyone in our faith had the same idea. Some were too focused on their…objectives to care about what they had to do to get to them. What was one person, in the grand scheme of things? The individual doesn’t matter, after all.

Only its role, Deokdam finishes out of habit. But wait, that’s not what it’s supposed to mean—

I know that. Pretty sure they did too. Just chose to ignore it in favour of their agenda. It was all in her name, after all. How could she disapprove?

And what, exactly, was the agenda that justified them doing that? Deokdam asks, but he’s not entirely sure he wants to know the answer.

Viper doesn’t answer the question, asking his own instead. You prepared for it your whole life, right? But what kind of preparation was that? Training? Practise? Viper looks away, his next words quieter, yet they echo in Deokdam’s mind louder than ever. You learn a lot faster when your life depends on it. In real battles. Especially when you’re not protected by any Guild’s magical guarantee. He takes another deep breath, exhaling slowly before finally answering the question that Deokdam asked. As for their ideals, well…I don’t know how much of what they said was true. But they must have been at least somewhat right, because it’s definitely true that there are some that aren’t so…approving of our faith.

Her sister’s followers…Deokdam responds quietly. I thought they swore to stop centuries ago.

Maybe some did. Like your guild’s old support, I imagine. But there are always exceptions. Where do you think this came from, after all? Viper asks, subtly indicating the scar on his face. It’s silvery, just like the few scars that Deokdam has, the telltale sign of being healed with one of the moon’s weapons. But the edges are rough, almost like a blade set alight had carved into skin—oh. Sunfire? That can’t be right, it must just be something like it—

Viper nods, almost imperceptibly.

I’m so sorry—

Viper cuts him off. I don’t need your pity, he says, scowling and turning his head away from Deokdam.

It’s not pity! I—I got enough of that with my first Guild. None of them understood that I wouldn’t give up my gifts for anything no matter how much the noctum hurts, and I can’t even imagine how it would be for you—there’s a reason I stopped trying to explain them to my new teammates. He sighs before continuing. I’m sorry that you never got to accept your gifts, never got to prepare yourself for any of it. It’s not fair that I did and you didn’t, and I wanted to apologise for that. It shouldn’t have been like that.

It’s not your fault. You don’t need to apologise. Besides, it’s not like they could keep their hold on me forever, Viper says, smirking. I got my gifts, but they don’t get their champion. Not anymore. I won, in the end.

They both fall silent before Viper finally asks a question softly. What was it like for you?

What do you mean?

What should it have been like for me?

Oh. Deokdam’s tried explaining to people who didn’t understand before. It’s never ended well. But with Viper, well, he’s all too happy to share. He at least owes his fellow marksman that much, and as he begins to describe the details of the night when he accepted his gifts, Viper listens, taking in every word.

[aryasage]

can i get a uhhhhhh "façades are beautiful–but what happens when they crack?" my god i am so curious

and maybe a "how to intimidate a showmaker 101" if it isn't too bothersome, i would like to know how to intimidate a showmaker too

those titles are certified bangers

btw, big fan of your (and livikattt's, but apparently you're the same entity™) works!!!

façades are beautiful–but what happens when they crack?

heh. for this one, we're going to have to go a while back—to before the first ppau fic was even published. i'm honestly curious how many ppau readers even saw ssash—and looking back on it now, it's certainly not my best work (and wow past tense looks weird) but i do still like some of the lines i got in there. anyway, at the end of ssash, i promised that some mikyx angst would be coming soon. then, by hcihelyd, it had been indefinitely shelved. what happened to it?

well, the most obvious answer is loss of motivation. that's the reason for almost all of my wips staying wips, after all. and it's certainly applicable here, but the more important thing that happened is, well…ppau happened.

i've mentioned before how "pure canon" in rpf can get messy very quickly if you're not careful, and this definitely got messy. i'm not going to go into the specifics of why, but let's just say there was a lot of projection going on, whether intentional or not. it wasn't an au, not really, and i'm not really comfortable writing that, especially not with where it was heading. i didn't really have a plot, either. the only thing resembling a plot was just…well. watching xl get reverse swept to get knocked from worlds contention was incredibly depressing, not to mention the loser's interview miky gave after. but eventually i found a different team to write angst about after their loss, and i'm much more proud of that fic :)

so this is never going to get finished, let alone published, but you can have a bit that didn't age too poorly~

“Hey, at least we’re not Vitality,”  he joked halfheartedly, resulting in a small and hollow laugh from his teammates. The tension was palpable, the heat of the summer air only a small factor of the thickness that permeated the room. No one wanted to be the first to speak up about their complete and utter failure.

how to intimidate a showmaker 101

in a complete tone shift, this one is complete crack. that is, until it switches povs, but i was too lazy to write more than a few paragraphs of that part seeing as i knew i was never going to be able to publish the full thing (thank you for that, lolrpf! i love having to censor everything i write just so it won't be interpreted as shipping), and i also didn't really have a set ending. i had written pretty much everything i planned out~

i do still love it, though. maybe i could change the sensitive part at some point so i can post it here or something. who knows. we'll see.

anyway, as for the actual plot…well. if you read wtua (and if you didn't what are you doing, it's right here), then you might have noticed showmaker mentioning viper putting a knife to his throat the last time scout made him ask viper for help. it's also brought up in dfwydk how showmaker teleported straight to his location and, again, got a blade to his throat. there are also a couple more references in unpublished (for now) things. these are all referring to this…incident.

before showmaker drags scout to jiejie in order to save his life, scout mentions the person who is still talking to him. viper. unfortunately, before he can contact viper himself, he has a sliiight sleep paralysis episode. enter showmaker, who is Definitely Not Concerned At All For Scout's Wellbeing, and who is also being ghosted by scout. as we see in wtua, showmaker's teleportation is…very handy.

here's the most important bit. or, well, the part that i had the most fun writing~

“I asked you a question,” Viper says, stalking towards Showmaker, and gods, speaking of that poison, Showmaker can’t help but recoil at the pain that blossoms in his mind with every word that Viper speaks. He’s all too aware of the gun still trained on his head, but his words are stuck in his throat as he tries to answer Viper.

Viper suddenly moves too quickly for Showmaker to react, and now, as well as a gun digging into his back, there’s a blade at his throat. “I won’t ask it again, Heosu.” The shadows all around the room press in, and though Showmaker knows they’re intangible, he can’t help but feel horribly claustrophobic.

Finally, Showmaker manages to conjure up his magic, frantically throwing out an explanation as quickly as he can. “It’s about Scout!”

Viper’s blade only digs deeper, and Showmaker can feel blood welling up. “What did you do to him?” Viper snarls. It takes all of Showmaker’s willpower not to thrash against the pain from the poison of Viper’s voice and slice his own throat open in the process.

“Nothing, I swear! He needs your help! He said you’d understand,” Showmaker pleads.

“Since when do you care about helping Scout?” Viper spits out. “Last I heard you two weren’t the best of friends.”

it's incredibly self-indulgent, as you can tell, but protective viper is just too much fun. i regret nothing.

we are not the same! but we are two halves of a whole :)

twin shadows, if you will~

but thank you! glad you enjoy them as much as we do, and hope you enjoyed this little sneak peek~

[aryasage]

fixing the fridging???

(what happened who got fridged whats going on-)

i'm so glad you asked, because that means i was right! the fridging was so bad no one even noticed it happened :( including myself, at first. basically, during eics, meiko mentions a summoner who died. who he was too late to save. and he doesn't tell viper about him, because that's not the point of him bringing it up, but what this does is just reduce that character to a plot point, and not a character. so i wanted to fix that :D

the story begins here.

Lightning splits the sky open with an earthshaking clap of thunder to accompany it, and for a brief moment, the wastelands before JoJo are fully illuminated, and he can see the horrors of just what he’s gotten himself into. Oh, gods. 

(before you ask, no, it's not jojopyun. that jojo is very much not dead in ppau. no one gets to die unless they retire…and this jojo has been retired since 2016. so it's all fair game)

jojo is, like many edg midlaners, an idiot, unfortunately, which is somewhat implied when meiko explains it, but that's not really the full story. i wanted to explore just how he would have reacted in his final moments, his thought process, etc. meiko couldn't say that even if he had wanted to because…he wasn't there. and so, while it's accurate to not have him describe it in eics, i figured it would only be fair to describe it…somewhere.

also, since ppau is canon compliant, we don't get to really write many death scenes, so i thought i might as well take the opportunity to describe that sheer desperation, praying to any god who will listen before the finality sets in…

anyway the part of fridging other than just getting an unsatisfying death or one off-screen is the lack of any impact. a character dies, but then everyone else just…moves on. safe to say that won't be happening here! (which hopefully you could tell from eics) the people who were there were very much affected and we shall get to see that!

that is, if i ever finish it

heh

[aryasage]

im screaming why are all your wip titles bangers

ok u asked me for 3 so i see this as justified. gimme "jiejie's fine! for sure!" (u had to know i would ask about that) and "there's a part of myself i'm missing" pls >:D

i will not ask u about cat angst bc i remember it clearly from the time u killed my grandpa

jiejie's fine! for sure!

the title does not quite fit the tone because, well, there are multiple fic ideas on that doc…the first of which corresponds to the title. (and you've seen quite literally all that was written for that first fic before i realised i had no actual Plot and gave up)

so the real fic on this doc is still jiejie getting hurt. bc ofc. but maybe not quite in that…denial vibe. it's the story of how when jiejie says he killed a wyrm solo at seventeen, he's not lying. but he's maybe not telling the full story. and yes, this is why meiko and viper snicker when spica brings it up in raftf. there's not much written seeing as i am far better at thinking of stories than actually writing them down, but here you go :)

Has Jiejie mentioned how much he hates Devourers yet?

The spikes they constantly make the ground erupt with are annoying enough, but the shrieks that they make—the petrifying screams that make him freeze, even for a split second—Jiejie would do anything to not have to endure those ever again. 

(Well, not anything; if he's going to be a Summoner, he's going to have to be able to fight any kind of Void creature, but still. They're annoying. More than just annoying, really, but he's not going to admit that to himself, let alone to anyone else.)

there's a part of myself i'm missing

in which viper realises he's been inadvertently handing over a massive advantage to the ruined summoners thanks to a gift from meiko that he's gotten so used to he forgot he always has it with him. and since it's me, hurt/comfort ensues

(ft scout and showmaker and some more damwon summoners because self-restraint is a long-forgotten myth)

“Scout,” Viper says in a low voice, trying and failing to keep it steady. “Scout, this is a tracker. That—that Meiko has access to.”

Scout pales. “You couldn’t have thought of that before?”

“I’m sorry. I…I didn’t think of it. Not until you brought it up,” Viper says quietly. 

“Besides, you’re one to talk about not thinking of things, Scout,” Showmaker interjects.

Scout shoots a withering glare at Showmaker that is only met with a satisfied smirk. “I swear to the gods, Showmaker…”

Showmaker’s grin only widens, and with a huff, Scout turns back to Viper. “Viper, you need to take it off. If he can track our every move—” Scout shudders. “You know what he can do with even the slightest bit of information. We might as well be handing over all our plans,” Scout says.

i'm glad you like the titles i have a lot of fun naming them hehe

and i would HOPE you would remember but i did NO SUCH THING this is SLANDER. LIBEL, IF YOU WILL. LIES. DECEIT.

[aryasage]

number 8 vipe— ok I’m jk I swear

deokdam 4 and 14? :D

(I’m sorry I’m late and I’m sorry if the questions are dogshit as I am on mobile and have no memory span)

14. Who would your character never betray?

going to answer this one first because it's slightly simpler: deokdam would like to think it's the Moon, but the truth is, if push came to shove, he would destroy himself to save his friends. as for who those would be, well, anyone who's saved his life. anyone who he thinks he owes. he's still working on that whole self-worth thing. if he were forced to turn his back on the Moon, permanently, he would lose himself. he knows that. and yet, if it came down to it, he would never be able to turn on his friends. "this sounds like a potential Issue," i hear you say. yep! :)

4. What does your character hate the most?

even before the ruination, deokdam hated being alone with his own thoughts. post-ruination, when all he can ever think about is what he did? what happened? he should be used to being abandoned by now, but being on the shadows isles, where not even Her light could reach him? that was so much worse. he used to like new moons. the symbol of starting over, a rebirth, is a powerful one. but now, all they do is remind him of what he went through. he's doing his best to make sure that he's never alone for too long now, but sometimes, he just can't bring himself to bother anyone else with his problems, and he sits by himself, quietly breaking down. he has plenty of nightmares, but the worst one…well. you'll have to wait for the ruination to be over to find out what that one is, but rest assured, there's no one around to help him in it. or when he wakes up either, usually.

[spiritblossoming]

snippet from absolute brainrot hell

users aryasage and space-axolotl may have their fancy dark modes but I sure as hell don't. anyway here's something I'm writing for SOME REASON because my brain refuses to focus on writing things I tell it to. welcome to McDonald's fic... part 2. [electric boogaloo] [McDonald's sold separately]

Showmaker is going to lose his mind.  “One day,” he mutters into his hands, rubbing his eyes as if it’ll make the person in front of him go away, “I’m going to kill you.” Like the absolute pain in the ass he is, Scout just shrugs. “If you wanted to kill me, you would have done it already. You’ve had plenty of chances.” He’s not wrong, but Showmaker pulls his head out of his hands to glare at him anyway. “Don’t push your luck,” he says, forcing himself to sit up in his chair. He gives Scout his most unimpressed stare. One hand slips into his pocket to pull out his cards, more out of habit than anything. He’s not actually going to use his Destiny/Gate card to drop Scout in the middle of nowhere (probably), but the idea at least calms him down a little.  “Me? Never,” Scout says with that stupid grin still on his face. As if he isn’t constantly living by the motto fuck around and find out. As if he’s not on the brink of dying from sleep deprivation again. Seriously, how does this guy never learn his lesson?

here's my summary of the fic premise: