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Spent about twenty minutes cringing through my "out" document just to bring y'all this
Being confronted with my earlier, terrible drafts of various TEF scenes is some form of psychological torment. It's funny, I feel like most of the stuff I wind up posting is just straight up "Here's the earlier, boring version of whatever you read" but this stuff, ugh. This is straight up "LOL YOU GUYS THOUGHT I WAS A DECENT WRITER WELL FEAST YOUR EYES ON THIS HOT GARBAGE AND PREPARE TO EAT YOUR HATS MY FRIENDS"
That said, there are some bits sandwiched in between the cringe that I actually still like, aside from how I wrote Blossom towards the end - she gets really damsel-y, because UGH past!sbj. That was one of several things that motivated my complete overhaul of this chapter, with the biggest simply being the tone. It was far too serious, which at the time I felt was fitting because canonically, Citysville is supposed to be a dumpster fire of a city played straight, with all the cartoonish elements that make the actual PpG show so fun stripped out of the episode it features in. I originally completed and sent this draft to beta in January 2011; my next draft of it is dated May 2018. Ha.
I'm glad I had that time away from it; it was probably around 2016 or 2017 that I went back to it and realized I hated the tone, it skewed too heavily from Brick's POV, and for some reason it didn't account for events that had led up to the chapter (e.g., there was very little mention of the Reds' date from ch9 - a mere month ago, in-story). At the end of the day, the only major story element that was salvageable was Buttercup wailing on the asshole that smacked her, and even that was scaled back from what was originally a much longer, tedious fight scene. Sedusa, the White Cat, and Aunt Lilith weren't even in my original draft.
So, in short: Fuck Citysville. Here's a bit from the original chapter 10a, the most recent chapter posted on ffnet.
---
“It sounds like we should've touched base earlier,” Blossom said upon arriving.
“Yeah, we talked to her co-workers,” Buttercup added as they exited the station wagon. “They'd told us about how she volunteers at the soup kitchen, and on Saturdays she drops off flowers for her son—”
“Phone works two ways,” Brick interjected, a little annoyed they hadn't thought to call him with all this info.
“It was a lot of conversation; we didn't want to just break it up with a phone call and lose the thread of it,” Blossom huffed.
“Well, at least it gave the boys some exercise,” Brick muttered, looking back at the building.
“I should call the CVPD,” Blossom said. “Let them know we have a lead.”
“Good luck,” Brick scoffed. Buttercup started to head for the building; he grabbed her and pulled her back. The Professor made a warning sound in the back of his throat.
Buttercup shook him off. “What?”
“You're gonna just walk in there? No superpowers or weapons?”
“She's eighty.”
“Yeah, and crazy, with hostages,” Brick reminded her.
“Are they really hostages when she's eighty?” she asked.
“Oh, you're right, maybe they volunteered to be kidnapped!” he said mockingly.
“We should wait for the CVPD, anyway,” Blossom said. “I don't want to step on any more toes.”
“I wonder why they built two hospitals so close together,” Bubbles said.
“Honey, I think this was built long before that other one,” Professor Utonium said as he examined the overgrowth on the sign. “They must've moved from here to that newer location.” He looked around. “This is pretty out of the way for a hospital. Makes sense that they'd move further into town.”
Buttercup was looking down the drive to the main building. “You think they're in there now?”
Everybody followed her gaze, studying the windows for signs of any movement.
“Hard to tell, at this distance,” Brick said. “But maybe.”
“If so, we should probably get out of sight,” the Professor said quietly, and they all filed back to the other side of the wall. Brick noted that from the top floors, anyone looking out towards the entrance would still be able to see them, but he opted to keep his mouth shut. The Professor was giving off those “Touch my daughters and I'll kill you” vibes, so he wandered a respectable distance away. He could see Boomer and Butch coming up their way and waved at them.
“Closest bus stop was like a mile and a half away!” Boomer complained.
Blossom closed her phone and sighed. “CVPD says all their squad cars are tied up. They'll send someone over as soon as they're able.”
The Professor's hand closed over her shoulder. “Well, that's it then, isn't it? You've done what you can. We should go home.”
She pulled away. “No, we should... wait until they get here. I'd like to wait and make sure they get here.”
“Aaaaand you three are going to stay in the car,” the Professor said, gathering his girls up. Buttercup swatted at him when he tried to herd her into his arms. “With me.” He gave the boys a withering look. Brick only blinked it off while his siblings edged their backs to the wall.
Waiting for the CVPD. “Well,” Brick grumbled, “I guess we'll be here a while then.”
“Oh, Brick,” Bubbles laughed as she took the front passenger seat and left the door open to talk. “You're so negative!”
“I'm also right,” he said dryly.
He was. The sky was already taking on an orange hue when everybody had gotten there. It wasn't long before the moon was hanging low in the sky and it was growing darker by the minute with no sign of the CVPD. Blossom called twice more and was delivered the same news each time.
“You don't understand, we spoke personally to the Mayor—” she tried to explain, then groaned in frustration. “They hung up on me!”
“Shh,” Bubbles soothed, indicating the napping Professor in the driver's seat.
“Trick-or-treaters are probably starting up now,” Butch said, looking a little wistfully back into the city.
“I know,” Buttercup grumbled. “Think of all the damage we're missing out on.”
“Is that any way for you two to talk when Mike's been missing for a week?” Blossom snapped.
“Blossom, chill,” Buttercup said. “Of course we're upset. It's two separate things, geez.”
Blossom sighed. “I know, it's just—”
“Hey guys,” Boomer suddenly said, and they looked around, realizing he wasn't within sight.
“Boomer?” Brick questioned.
“Hey,” he said again, and they realized he was on the other side of the fence. Brick strode angrily to the entrance.
“Get your ass back over here!”
“Shut up.” Boomer pointed. “You see that?”
Four more heads popped around the corner. Bubbles remained seated next to the Professor.
“What do you guys see?” she stage-whispered.
“Someone's there,” Blossom intoned, her eyes wide. “There's a light moving through one of the floors.” She ducked back to the other side of the wall and dialed the CVPD again.
Butch looked at Buttercup, his eyes bright. “You wanna go?”
“Yeah,” Buttercup said distractedly, her own eyes sparkling.
“No,” Brick said firmly, dragging the three of them back out. “Wait a second.”
Boomer tugged on Brick's elbow. “We could go up,” he whispered. “Just us three.”
“Just wait,” Brick growled, then turned back to Blossom, who was engaged in a very frustrating phone call.
“No, I know I've called three times already—you don't understand, there's a light—I know, I know! But—rrrgh!” She slammed her phone shut and looked ready to hurl it into the road. “They hung up on me again!”
“Shh,” Bubbles hushed, indicating the slumbering Professor once more.
Brick watched Blossom as she paced anxiously, her attention flitting between the dark sky, the bit of building they could see, and the group, looking to her and Brick for direction. Her pauses on the building grew longer and longer.
“I think we should go see for ourselves,” she said.
“Thank God,” Buttercup sighed. “Otherwise I will literally die of boredom.”
“But... the Professor,” Bubbles said, looking back at their father.
“You can stay with him,” Blossom said.
“He wouldn't want us to go,” Bubbles continued, her tone hesitant.
“You can stay with him,” Blossom repeated. “Bubbles, Mike's been missing for a week.”
“I'll stay with you,” Boomer offered.
“Okay,” Blossom said. “Thanks, Boomer.”
“Wait.”
Everybody turned to look at Brick, who himself was looking a little peeved that Boomer hadn't sought out his permission. After staring at his brother for awhile, he beckoned him away from the group. Boomer swallowed, but obeyed.
Once they were a decent few feet away, Brick slipped a switchblade into Boomer's pocket.
“I know you didn't bring anything,” he muttered as they walked back.
“How'd you know?”
“Because you never bring anything.”
“What about you?”
“I'm covered,” Brick lied, ignoring the suspicious eye Blossom had turned on them. He looked at her. “You want to do this? You really don't want to wait?”
“We've been here for nearly two hours.”
“Feels like four,” Buttercup added.
Brick thought about suggesting waiting longer, until the moon was higher in the sky and they'd have a little more light, but Blossom, Butch, and Buttercup had already started moving on without him.
“Brick, please be careful,” Bubbles whispered. She'd gone from mild hesitance to full-fledged concern.
He grunted and jogged up the dirt path hugging the wall to catch up.
Butch and Buttercup were leading them. He'd expected to see Blossom at the front. As they drew closer and she grew stiffer, it occurred to him why she was hanging back. The building was getting progressively creepier the closer they got.
“I hope you know what you're doing,” he murmured to Blossom.
“If you don't like it, you can turn around,” she hissed, a little defensively.
It got a little better when they reached the crumbling canopied walkway. Cracked as the concrete was, if anyone was watching from the top floors—which began to seem like more and more of a possibility with every step—at least here they could no longer be seen.
Butch turned to the group as they reached the now-defunct automatic doors, the glass in them long since shattered.
“Anyone got a flashlight? Brick?”
Brick sighed; he was the only one who was ever prepared for this shit. He unclipped the tiny, JS-issued LED from his keychain, trying not to rattle them as he did so, and handed it to his brother.
“Ugh, that smell.” Buttercup made a face as Butch shone the light into the building. “It's like wet hospital. Moldy wet hospital.”
The light tracked over the ruins of an abandoned waiting room. Chairs were broken and overturned, gaping black holes in the ceiling spilled wire guts, and empty wheelchairs and stretchers littered the far end, where the doors led into the actual hospital. There was an occasional drip sound, far off but clearly coming from the building, and likely the source of the smell Buttercup had mentioned.
“How's that for atmosphere?” Butch said, grinning. He stepped in, then helped Buttercup step over the broken glass. “Hope you guys didn't wear nice shoes today.”
Brick glanced at Blossom, who'd yet to budge, and sidestepped her, moving ahead into the building. He turned and, as Butch had done with Buttercup, offered a hand.
“Watch the glass,” he said, trying not to wrinkle his face at the smell. He didn't like hospitals, either. Fully functioning ones already smelled like weakness and death to him, and this one's scent had been festering for years.
Blossom took his hand, gripping a little more tightly than he would've expected her to. Her eyes were darting all around the room.
“It looks terrible in here,” she whispered. “Like a hurricane blew through it.”
“Abandoned buildings are popular with vandals,” Brick said, indicating the graffiti that practically wallpapered the room and the overturned bottles of alcohol. Some smartass punks had scrawled haphazard, menacing messages about Hell and death here and there. Atmosphere, indeed.
There was sort of a path, leading through the double doors. Butch led the way, on account of possessing the flashlight and his clear eagerness to explore. Brick noted a newer wheelchair, discarded by the doors, and guessed it was the one from the security video.
The drip noise grew louder and the smell grew phenomenally worse once they were through. Blossom covered her mouth and hugged herself with her other arm, her posture seeming to further stiffen with every step. Brick mercifully refrained from pointing out that this had been her idea.
This part of the hospital was severely water damaged. Almost an entire wall was warped and brown from the stains. Half a stretcher against the wall had been overtaken by rust, and there was an inexplicable puddle over a good deal of the path.
“Jesus, it stinks,” Buttercup gagged, edging her way around it.
“Where is all this water coming from?” Blossom said. It was a good question. They hadn't yet reached the source of the dripping. It was still further down the hall.
“You sure it's water?” Butch rumbled ominously, laughing a little.
“You're fucking hilarious, Butch,” Brick said, his voice bored and his eyes on Blossom. She had not appreciated the joke.
They reached an intersection of sorts and, after weighing their options, went for the clearest path they could find, leading to a door to a wide staircase. Halfway there, Butch paused and turned around, his brow furrowed.
Blossom went more rigid than she already was and whispered urgently, “What is it?”
“That drip sound,” Butch murmured, aiming the light back the way they'd come.
They all looked back. Brick squinted and listened, trying to pick out what Butch had.
“What about it?” Buttercup said.
“It stopped,” Brick answered quietly, and could practically feel Blossom go cold over his shoulder.
Butch continued to shine the light down the hall. The bluish light cast an eerie glow over an already eerie setting, and the longer he held it there the more the shadows seemed to twist and move.
Brick turned and jerked his head at Butch. “Go. Stop wasting time.” He grasped a petrified Blossom's shoulder and turned her around.
“Why did the dripping stop?” she whispered, practically burrowing into his side as they started moving again.
“It's just an old building,” he told her. “It's nothing to worry about.”
“But why did it—”
“Holy—”
Buttercup gasped and jumped back, startling Blossom and Brick as she stumbled into them. Brick sensed a startled scream building in Blossom's throat and slapped a hand over her mouth.
“What the fuck?!” he hissed at Buttercup, who was clutching her chest with one hand and practically shaking.
Butch shone the light on the part of floor Buttercup was fixated on, where it fell on a sizable but very dead tarantula. He stared at it a second, then gave her a look.
“I fucking hate those things,” she panted, edging around Butch's far side. “Fuck, shit, fuck.”
“It's just a spider,” Butch said, obviously amused and filing this information away for later.
“Go to hell,” she hissed, and grabbed at the flashlight, knocking it out of his hand.
A cacophony of noise seemed to erupt as it bounced on the ground and switched off, enveloping them in total darkness.
---
There's more - WAY more - but it's real bad, so don't hold your breath! Unless I make the time to redline it with commentary similar to what I did here, years ago.
That said, there are some bits sandwiched in between the cringe that I actually still like, aside from how I wrote Blossom towards the end - she gets really damsel-y, because UGH past!sbj. That was one of several things that motivated my complete overhaul of this chapter, with the biggest simply being the tone. It was far too serious, which at the time I felt was fitting because canonically, Citysville is supposed to be a dumpster fire of a city played straight, with all the cartoonish elements that make the actual PpG show so fun stripped out of the episode it features in. I originally completed and sent this draft to beta in January 2011; my next draft of it is dated May 2018. Ha.
I'm glad I had that time away from it; it was probably around 2016 or 2017 that I went back to it and realized I hated the tone, it skewed too heavily from Brick's POV, and for some reason it didn't account for events that had led up to the chapter (e.g., there was very little mention of the Reds' date from ch9 - a mere month ago, in-story). At the end of the day, the only major story element that was salvageable was Buttercup wailing on the asshole that smacked her, and even that was scaled back from what was originally a much longer, tedious fight scene. Sedusa, the White Cat, and Aunt Lilith weren't even in my original draft.
So, in short: Fuck Citysville. Here's a bit from the original chapter 10a, the most recent chapter posted on ffnet.
---
“It sounds like we should've touched base earlier,” Blossom said upon arriving.
“Yeah, we talked to her co-workers,” Buttercup added as they exited the station wagon. “They'd told us about how she volunteers at the soup kitchen, and on Saturdays she drops off flowers for her son—”
“Phone works two ways,” Brick interjected, a little annoyed they hadn't thought to call him with all this info.
“It was a lot of conversation; we didn't want to just break it up with a phone call and lose the thread of it,” Blossom huffed.
“Well, at least it gave the boys some exercise,” Brick muttered, looking back at the building.
“I should call the CVPD,” Blossom said. “Let them know we have a lead.”
“Good luck,” Brick scoffed. Buttercup started to head for the building; he grabbed her and pulled her back. The Professor made a warning sound in the back of his throat.
Buttercup shook him off. “What?”
“You're gonna just walk in there? No superpowers or weapons?”
“She's eighty.”
“Yeah, and crazy, with hostages,” Brick reminded her.
“Are they really hostages when she's eighty?” she asked.
“Oh, you're right, maybe they volunteered to be kidnapped!” he said mockingly.
“We should wait for the CVPD, anyway,” Blossom said. “I don't want to step on any more toes.”
“I wonder why they built two hospitals so close together,” Bubbles said.
“Honey, I think this was built long before that other one,” Professor Utonium said as he examined the overgrowth on the sign. “They must've moved from here to that newer location.” He looked around. “This is pretty out of the way for a hospital. Makes sense that they'd move further into town.”
Buttercup was looking down the drive to the main building. “You think they're in there now?”
Everybody followed her gaze, studying the windows for signs of any movement.
“Hard to tell, at this distance,” Brick said. “But maybe.”
“If so, we should probably get out of sight,” the Professor said quietly, and they all filed back to the other side of the wall. Brick noted that from the top floors, anyone looking out towards the entrance would still be able to see them, but he opted to keep his mouth shut. The Professor was giving off those “Touch my daughters and I'll kill you” vibes, so he wandered a respectable distance away. He could see Boomer and Butch coming up their way and waved at them.
“Closest bus stop was like a mile and a half away!” Boomer complained.
Blossom closed her phone and sighed. “CVPD says all their squad cars are tied up. They'll send someone over as soon as they're able.”
The Professor's hand closed over her shoulder. “Well, that's it then, isn't it? You've done what you can. We should go home.”
She pulled away. “No, we should... wait until they get here. I'd like to wait and make sure they get here.”
“Aaaaand you three are going to stay in the car,” the Professor said, gathering his girls up. Buttercup swatted at him when he tried to herd her into his arms. “With me.” He gave the boys a withering look. Brick only blinked it off while his siblings edged their backs to the wall.
Waiting for the CVPD. “Well,” Brick grumbled, “I guess we'll be here a while then.”
“Oh, Brick,” Bubbles laughed as she took the front passenger seat and left the door open to talk. “You're so negative!”
“I'm also right,” he said dryly.
He was. The sky was already taking on an orange hue when everybody had gotten there. It wasn't long before the moon was hanging low in the sky and it was growing darker by the minute with no sign of the CVPD. Blossom called twice more and was delivered the same news each time.
“You don't understand, we spoke personally to the Mayor—” she tried to explain, then groaned in frustration. “They hung up on me!”
“Shh,” Bubbles soothed, indicating the napping Professor in the driver's seat.
“Trick-or-treaters are probably starting up now,” Butch said, looking a little wistfully back into the city.
“I know,” Buttercup grumbled. “Think of all the damage we're missing out on.”
“Is that any way for you two to talk when Mike's been missing for a week?” Blossom snapped.
“Blossom, chill,” Buttercup said. “Of course we're upset. It's two separate things, geez.”
Blossom sighed. “I know, it's just—”
“Hey guys,” Boomer suddenly said, and they looked around, realizing he wasn't within sight.
“Boomer?” Brick questioned.
“Hey,” he said again, and they realized he was on the other side of the fence. Brick strode angrily to the entrance.
“Get your ass back over here!”
“Shut up.” Boomer pointed. “You see that?”
Four more heads popped around the corner. Bubbles remained seated next to the Professor.
“What do you guys see?” she stage-whispered.
“Someone's there,” Blossom intoned, her eyes wide. “There's a light moving through one of the floors.” She ducked back to the other side of the wall and dialed the CVPD again.
Butch looked at Buttercup, his eyes bright. “You wanna go?”
“Yeah,” Buttercup said distractedly, her own eyes sparkling.
“No,” Brick said firmly, dragging the three of them back out. “Wait a second.”
Boomer tugged on Brick's elbow. “We could go up,” he whispered. “Just us three.”
“Just wait,” Brick growled, then turned back to Blossom, who was engaged in a very frustrating phone call.
“No, I know I've called three times already—you don't understand, there's a light—I know, I know! But—rrrgh!” She slammed her phone shut and looked ready to hurl it into the road. “They hung up on me again!”
“Shh,” Bubbles hushed, indicating the slumbering Professor once more.
Brick watched Blossom as she paced anxiously, her attention flitting between the dark sky, the bit of building they could see, and the group, looking to her and Brick for direction. Her pauses on the building grew longer and longer.
“I think we should go see for ourselves,” she said.
“Thank God,” Buttercup sighed. “Otherwise I will literally die of boredom.”
“But... the Professor,” Bubbles said, looking back at their father.
“You can stay with him,” Blossom said.
“He wouldn't want us to go,” Bubbles continued, her tone hesitant.
“You can stay with him,” Blossom repeated. “Bubbles, Mike's been missing for a week.”
“I'll stay with you,” Boomer offered.
“Okay,” Blossom said. “Thanks, Boomer.”
“Wait.”
Everybody turned to look at Brick, who himself was looking a little peeved that Boomer hadn't sought out his permission. After staring at his brother for awhile, he beckoned him away from the group. Boomer swallowed, but obeyed.
Once they were a decent few feet away, Brick slipped a switchblade into Boomer's pocket.
“I know you didn't bring anything,” he muttered as they walked back.
“How'd you know?”
“Because you never bring anything.”
“What about you?”
“I'm covered,” Brick lied, ignoring the suspicious eye Blossom had turned on them. He looked at her. “You want to do this? You really don't want to wait?”
“We've been here for nearly two hours.”
“Feels like four,” Buttercup added.
Brick thought about suggesting waiting longer, until the moon was higher in the sky and they'd have a little more light, but Blossom, Butch, and Buttercup had already started moving on without him.
“Brick, please be careful,” Bubbles whispered. She'd gone from mild hesitance to full-fledged concern.
He grunted and jogged up the dirt path hugging the wall to catch up.
Butch and Buttercup were leading them. He'd expected to see Blossom at the front. As they drew closer and she grew stiffer, it occurred to him why she was hanging back. The building was getting progressively creepier the closer they got.
“I hope you know what you're doing,” he murmured to Blossom.
“If you don't like it, you can turn around,” she hissed, a little defensively.
It got a little better when they reached the crumbling canopied walkway. Cracked as the concrete was, if anyone was watching from the top floors—which began to seem like more and more of a possibility with every step—at least here they could no longer be seen.
Butch turned to the group as they reached the now-defunct automatic doors, the glass in them long since shattered.
“Anyone got a flashlight? Brick?”
Brick sighed; he was the only one who was ever prepared for this shit. He unclipped the tiny, JS-issued LED from his keychain, trying not to rattle them as he did so, and handed it to his brother.
“Ugh, that smell.” Buttercup made a face as Butch shone the light into the building. “It's like wet hospital. Moldy wet hospital.”
The light tracked over the ruins of an abandoned waiting room. Chairs were broken and overturned, gaping black holes in the ceiling spilled wire guts, and empty wheelchairs and stretchers littered the far end, where the doors led into the actual hospital. There was an occasional drip sound, far off but clearly coming from the building, and likely the source of the smell Buttercup had mentioned.
“How's that for atmosphere?” Butch said, grinning. He stepped in, then helped Buttercup step over the broken glass. “Hope you guys didn't wear nice shoes today.”
Brick glanced at Blossom, who'd yet to budge, and sidestepped her, moving ahead into the building. He turned and, as Butch had done with Buttercup, offered a hand.
“Watch the glass,” he said, trying not to wrinkle his face at the smell. He didn't like hospitals, either. Fully functioning ones already smelled like weakness and death to him, and this one's scent had been festering for years.
Blossom took his hand, gripping a little more tightly than he would've expected her to. Her eyes were darting all around the room.
“It looks terrible in here,” she whispered. “Like a hurricane blew through it.”
“Abandoned buildings are popular with vandals,” Brick said, indicating the graffiti that practically wallpapered the room and the overturned bottles of alcohol. Some smartass punks had scrawled haphazard, menacing messages about Hell and death here and there. Atmosphere, indeed.
There was sort of a path, leading through the double doors. Butch led the way, on account of possessing the flashlight and his clear eagerness to explore. Brick noted a newer wheelchair, discarded by the doors, and guessed it was the one from the security video.
The drip noise grew louder and the smell grew phenomenally worse once they were through. Blossom covered her mouth and hugged herself with her other arm, her posture seeming to further stiffen with every step. Brick mercifully refrained from pointing out that this had been her idea.
This part of the hospital was severely water damaged. Almost an entire wall was warped and brown from the stains. Half a stretcher against the wall had been overtaken by rust, and there was an inexplicable puddle over a good deal of the path.
“Jesus, it stinks,” Buttercup gagged, edging her way around it.
“Where is all this water coming from?” Blossom said. It was a good question. They hadn't yet reached the source of the dripping. It was still further down the hall.
“You sure it's water?” Butch rumbled ominously, laughing a little.
“You're fucking hilarious, Butch,” Brick said, his voice bored and his eyes on Blossom. She had not appreciated the joke.
They reached an intersection of sorts and, after weighing their options, went for the clearest path they could find, leading to a door to a wide staircase. Halfway there, Butch paused and turned around, his brow furrowed.
Blossom went more rigid than she already was and whispered urgently, “What is it?”
“That drip sound,” Butch murmured, aiming the light back the way they'd come.
They all looked back. Brick squinted and listened, trying to pick out what Butch had.
“What about it?” Buttercup said.
“It stopped,” Brick answered quietly, and could practically feel Blossom go cold over his shoulder.
Butch continued to shine the light down the hall. The bluish light cast an eerie glow over an already eerie setting, and the longer he held it there the more the shadows seemed to twist and move.
Brick turned and jerked his head at Butch. “Go. Stop wasting time.” He grasped a petrified Blossom's shoulder and turned her around.
“Why did the dripping stop?” she whispered, practically burrowing into his side as they started moving again.
“It's just an old building,” he told her. “It's nothing to worry about.”
“But why did it—”
“Holy—”
Buttercup gasped and jumped back, startling Blossom and Brick as she stumbled into them. Brick sensed a startled scream building in Blossom's throat and slapped a hand over her mouth.
“What the fuck?!” he hissed at Buttercup, who was clutching her chest with one hand and practically shaking.
Butch shone the light on the part of floor Buttercup was fixated on, where it fell on a sizable but very dead tarantula. He stared at it a second, then gave her a look.
“I fucking hate those things,” she panted, edging around Butch's far side. “Fuck, shit, fuck.”
“It's just a spider,” Butch said, obviously amused and filing this information away for later.
“Go to hell,” she hissed, and grabbed at the flashlight, knocking it out of his hand.
A cacophony of noise seemed to erupt as it bounced on the ground and switched off, enveloping them in total darkness.
---
There's more - WAY more - but it's real bad, so don't hold your breath! Unless I make the time to redline it with commentary similar to what I did here, years ago.
no subject
no subject
The plotline itself was the sort of thing that would have had a much bigger impact on the story and couldn't really be treated episodically; it painted me into a bunch of corners and also didn't fit thematically with the rest of the fic.
Brick was also too overpowered here. The original draft was more from his POV, which really bugged me on my re-reads b/c this story is, yes, about the Boys, but I found it was pulling too much focus away from the Girls and also painting Brick as the only one in the room who knew what he was doing. Which is so far from the case in the broader sense of TEF/MTH.
Also it was badly written. Like, I was trying to do a combo of horror setup and procedural, both of which I have limited feel for. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the procedural aspect especially suffered since, well, I don't like procedurals to begin with, and I don't tend to be good at writing things I don't like.
I'm much happier with the final result.
WAAAAAAAAASUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP
Seriously, your writing is golden and I adore every aspect of it.
Re: WAAAAAAAAASUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP
There's another portion or two following that I still like, so those will likely get posted someday!