jujuandgetdown requested reds, forced to visit a psychic and get a reading! Hopefully some of y'all recognize the character!

( To Make it True )

And with that, requests (from 2019...) are now done! These are currently being x-posted to ao3.

Be safe and healthy and good to each other. ♥

AO3 | FFNet | AskFM

Right about the time I get sick of looking at it!

ironysgrace requested Reds, specifically Brick finding Blossom's dark side intriguing. I'm pretty sure I went very sideways with this prompt but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless!

( Title stolen from the Æon Flux episode from which I also stole the conclusion: Ether Drift Theory. )

Thank you, as always, for your patience.

AO3 | FFNet | AskFM | Ko-Fi (currently closed)

By the by, I'm doing this civic action calendar starting this week (I know it's labeled for the month of June, but like most writerly folk, I'm a procrastinator). If you feel like following along it'd mean a lot. ♥

coffee_tea_2020 requested Reds and romance. This underwent some changes mostly in how I decided to approach romance; I wound up settling on maybe a more abstract take on it I guess?

( Pathetic Fallacy )

This is going to be the last one for a bit; I've gone back to revising TEF ch11 in the past week so the ficlets have gone to the backburner. Thanks for bearing with ♥

I mentioned that the last Reds ficlet underwent some rewrites. A common problem I think I have is I get too hung up on trying to set things up, which you don't always have time for in a short piece.

( Here was my first attempt at the intro. )

The other thing I don't love about the early intro I wrote is it doesn't quite set up the right tone; it's a little too heavy and bleak.

I also suffered from not having read the prompt correctly; for some reason my brain dropped the "school trip" aspect during my initial writings so I instead wasted spent most of my early words on the idea that the Reds were coming together as adults long after a tortured on/off again relationship, culminating in them sleeping together. Blossom's discovery of the condoms in their room (her room in the finished draft) was originally much more drawn out - like, she winds up checking them and discovering some jackass has stuck a pin in a few of them and throws those out, hence the bit later on down where she has a moment of panic after grabbing one.

( You might also notice that heavy/bleak tone carries over here, too. )

Oof, maudlin as hell. Is it too late for me to say this is an early draft? There's good bits and pieces but the whole of it is too, too. Just so overwrought. Ugh.

It carried over into the ending, which, with some cuts/edits, I was able to salvage for the final draft. ( I really liked the idea of the two of them pretending to be asleep just so they could have a little more time together. )

Did I mention this was overwrought? Ugh, yeah. I spent a couple of weeks very into this version, then, upon reading it over, I felt like it was just sad breakup porn for the sake of bad breakup porn, basically. I stepped away from it for a few weeks. Sometimes what happens is I work on a thing so much that I hate it, then come back and go "Wait, this is Not Terrible," but when that didn't happen with this one and my re-read consisted of me cringing at the Melodramatic Purple Prose Painyness of it all, I knew I needed to rework it. And then I reread the prompt and went Oh wait this wouldn't have worked anyway lol.

Part of the problem I had was with the nature of the Only One Bed trope itself - it's popular for a reason, but I didn't want to play to the usual hijinks, I wanted to try and play it straight. I thought it would be more interesting for the tension to come not from "We're attracted to each other and now we have to share a bed, OH NO," but from "We're attracted to each other but have a long history of things Definitely Not Working Out Between Us Despite Trying To Make It Work and now we have to share a bed, well great," but that just resulted in this mess.

I also did not like how passive Blossom came across in this early attempt. While she does make some choices, too many things just kind of happen to her here, and I never love her being so hung up and desperate for Brick's attention that she makes bad choices, especially for the sake of drama. I wanted her choices in this story to have more neutral-to-positive consequences, the one exception being the end when everything culminates in BOTH of them not being ready to face the prospect of making this relationship they both want real.

I'm happy with where it wound up - them in separate rooms, and Blossom being the one to make that choice and open the door and share the bed. I think the final version is more sweet and hopeful while still maintaining that sadness that I can't ever seem to not write for this pairing.

On a final note, here is the song that was included in otakuspirit's original prompt:


I also drew heavily from this one for them sharing the bed (I know I've posted it before, but w/e idwiw). For some reason this kind of EDM really puts me in a sappy, romantic mood.


I've got some scrapped bits from the Greens ficlet that recently got posted as well, though it's not nearly as much. Just a few lines that served as general inspo. Next week! For everyone who's celebrating, have a Happy Turkey Day in the meantime 🦃

otakuspirit requested "TEF!Reds on a school trip end up getting separated from the group and have to spend a night in a motel room together" (a classic).

This one underwent a few different rewrites which I'll maybe get into later this week. Also, disclaimer that this is not part of TEF!canon and basically assumes the Reds have had no significant interaction (certainly not romantically-inclined interaction) between where TEF is currently at (ch10a) and the timeline of this ficlet.

Also, still not exactly happy, but less sad than the last one.

( Stealing the title from the song that was included in the prompt: Dust to Dust. )

Thanks for your patience, as always. ♥

But the Reds ones keep getting revisited and reworked or straight-up disappearing when I call upon them to show up and as for the Boomer one... well, I gotta get that one right for Philly's sake.

I managed to wrestle the fluff out, but let it be known, this is what I was struggling with last night -

Me: Fluff! We are here to write fluff!
Brain: Fluff! Okay! I can do that!
Brain: *blood*
Brain: *injuries*
Brain: *ANGST*
Me: This... is not fluff.
Brain: ... Not fluff?
Me: This is not fluff, we must start over.
Brain: *p...porn?*
Me: NO WHAT ARE YOU DOING

Alright well with that backstory out of the way, for blue_aurora who requested TEF!Greens fluff. In truth, this is not truly TEF!Greens - I wanted to avoid writing them as teens again, so I decided to tackle an adult version of what could be considered their TEF!versions.

( I need to hire somebody to make titles for me. Celestial Navigation. )

Thank you for your patience. ♥

I know this wasn't the first request, but it's the first one that got done, so SHRUG EMOJI?

bassy requested Greens making out. (This probably isn't as literal as you were looking for.)

( wth do I call this? Let's go with Erosion, I guess. )

Work progresses on the rest. Thanks always for your patience. ♥

What the hell, first person to comment with a prompt gets a drabble!

I think I mentioned so before, but it bears repeating and further embellishment: these were ridiculously fun to write. Some more obviously so than others.

There did wind up being a little bit of a narrative connection between a few of them, and a lot of them reference little things in the show, so if you catch those... um, basically I love you and am crazy proud to know you. FELLOW WINNER. (Edit: Bonus points if you are able to name all the songs in one of them. You'll probably know when you hit it.) (Edit the second: Extra life if you can name whose flapjacks the Professor is referring to.)

( Valentine 2011 requests! ROLL 'EM. )

A pre-emptive Happy Valentine's Day to you all ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

To make it easier on me to keep track, here's a list of what has been requested of me so far. If you gave me two characters and left it to my discretion you'll see I've already selected from whom to whom for most of them. This way in case anybody wants to request something going the other way involving those two characters, you still have the opportunity to :) (And yes, it would appear I am doing all of these, as they are turning out to be quite short.)

juxtaposie - Boomer → Bubbles
busterella - Bubbles → Princess
busterella - Snake → Ms. Keane
busterella - Mojo → ???*
busterella - Professor → ???*
busterella - Belladonna → Ace
ancilla_jokes - Buttercup → Butch
ancilla_jokes - Professor ←/→ Girls
ancilla_jokes - Robin → Professor
getcape_fly - Blossom → Brick
the_audren_file - Buttercup → Brick
xxlonelyxgrlxx - Brick → Bubbles
thisoldhighway - Butch → Buttercup
demon_bird - Ms. Bellum → Fuzzy Lumpkins
Anonymous - Brick → Blossom
quillbender - Boomer → Buttercup
spfizz - Ace → Buttercup
laleia - Bubbles → Mojo
philosophicwax - Boomer → Brick (Philly I love you)
philosophicwax - Him → Mayor
Anonymous - Bubbles → Brick

*I have already decided who the recipient is, but am refraining from sharing lest I spoil the surprise. If you happen to request the character I have in mind for either of these then I will just ask you to pick someone else ;)

If you are just now joining the party, I am celebrating the successful recovery of my writing files (WHOO!) by taking Valentine requests.

• See here for some examples of what you'll get.
• You may request a Valentine from ONE character to another character within the ORIGINAL PpG!verse from me. (I will not accept PpGZ requests, PpGD requests, or crossovers of any sort.)
• They can be ANY CHARACTERS YOU WANT.
• Length will be variable but all will be short and most will be fluffy.
• I will not do double requests (e.g., if I receive five requests for "Brick → Blossom" I will only honor one "Brick → Blossom" request).
• You may request more than one, but that doesn't mean abuse the system (read: don't abuse me).
• If you request more than one I reserve the right to only fulfill one of your requests (so if you have a favorite, let me know what it is and I'll be sure to at least fulfill your top choice!).
• Requests will close at midnight this Saturday.

The other day I wrote an entire scene that I already knew would not be in my final draft of TEF. I wrote it anyway. It was fun. And totally influenced by the influx of horror I've been subjecting myself to lately. Brick's a scary fucking bastard, even as a fourteen-year-old.