external motivation accountability report, Sunday 3/6; mini-ficlet prompt meme

[edenfalling]

I have a scenario and backstory and some general world-building for my Palestuck fic. I have a kinda-sorta outline. I have a couple of key emotional beats, and an intertwined action and character arc/plot thingywhatsit.

And I have no fucking clue whose POV I should be in, let alone whether I should be trying to write in second or third person.

*headdesk*

You know what, screw this. I am going to do a mini-ficlet prompt meme after all, because desperate times call for desperate measures, and maybe if I kickstart myself into finishing something it will make my other projects flow better thereafter.

So.

Leave a comment with one to three characters plus a mood, a scenario, or a prompt word, and I will write you a ficlet that is at least three sentences and/or 100 words long.

(Obligatory small print: Crossover prompts are fine. On the vanishingly unlikely chance anyone wants to read a snippet from any of my original worlds and stories, that kind of prompt is also fine. I reserve the right to reject fandoms I am not familiar with and produce ambiguous gen when attempting to write shipfic.)

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Fill List:

1. Narutostuck: Tall Tales - 525 words, Naruto, John, Vriska, farce, written 3/6/16 for anonymous. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

2. But Not Quite THAT Bored - 150 words, Dirk, Dave, Second Triennial Human-Troll Flashstep Competition, written 3/7/16 for madamehardy. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

3. In what distant deeps or skies - 625 words, Or, if you prefer, Dave, Jade, long-distance relationship, written 3/7/16 for madamehardy. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

4. For what you have tamed - 200 words, Um, Narnia, Lucy and Mr Tumnus, sleep or sleepy. (Something happy would be good.), written 3/7/16 for cat_i_th_adage. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

5. Don't Get Caught - 275 words, Ginny and Professor McGonagall with prank advice, written 3/7/16 for wistfulmemory. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

6. Narutostuck: No Child Left Behind - 1,450 words, Narutostuck Jade, Aradia, Dave - apprehension?, written 3/8/16 for mid-childan-puella-magi. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

7. Narutostuck: Riptide - 500 words, If you are still doing the ficlet thing - Narutostuck Jade, Feferi, Aradia - salvage, written 3/9/16 for mid-childan-puella-magi. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

8. Noblesse Oblige - 500 words, For your Black Jewels/Homestuck verse: Dave, Jane, Responsibility?, written 3/9/16 for anonymous. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

9. Narutostuck: Family Planning - 775 words, Narutostuck -- Dave finding out he's breeding stock. I'm guessing it was hilariterrible, written 3/10/16 for madamehardy. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

10. Narutostuck: By Which a Shattered World - 1,650 words, While on the subject of narutostuck, Jane and Roxy (& maybe Callie?) - repairs for the ficlet meme?, written 3/18/16 for anonymous. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

11. Narutostuck: Triptych - 1,150 words, Narutostuck: Dave, Karkat, Terezi: first encounters, written 3/27/16 for anonymous. [Tumblr crosspost; AO3 version]

Comments

[Fic] "Narutostuck: No Child Left Behind" - Homestuck/Naruto

[edenfalling]

Note: This ficlet was written for mid-childan-puella-magi in response to the prompt: Narutostuck Jade, Aradia, Dave - apprehension?

Nothing explicit happens on-page, but pre-revolution Narutostuck is a dystopia and its unkindness does not spare children. Consequently, this ficlet got kind of grim. Sorry? (1,425 words)

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The testing happens on Dave's sixth birthday. Soldiers knock on the doors of every kid who's turned six since the last round of tests, five months ago. Rose tries to persuade Dave's escort to take her too, but no dice. The list is the law, and he was born seven minutes before midnight while she was born six minutes after. The government doesn't care about her until the next round.

Might be two months. Might be two years. Nobody's ever sure when it's coming, just that it'll come. Even living outside Kouin won't save you; everyone winds up on a list in the end.

Dave waves goodbye to his sister and mom as the soldier leads him away. If he's lucky, he'll see them again tonight. If he's not, well, there's nothing he can do except try to take someone with him when he dies.

(He's really glad for the hood on his jacket. It hides his face a little, and if his eyes start to water, he can rub them dry without anyone noticing. Probably, anyway.)

The soldier isn't anybody special, just a brown-blood private maybe sixteen years old, back from her first deployment over the straits. She isn't cruel as they walk; she just doesn't care. She'd have to act like Dave was a person to be cruel.

The soldier ignores his attempts to talk until Dave's words shrivel like dry leaves in his throat. She wraps her hand around his upper arm and pulls him through the village like an untrained dog -- over Execution Bridge, past the Uchuukage's compound, around the crater where a rebel assassin tried to kill the Lady of Space last fall and got captured instead, and out into one of the training grounds where a bunch of other kids are already waiting. She says his name to someone at the gate, who makes a mark on a clipboard and waves them through the fence.

The training ground is an open field with a few scattered trees and bushes, the grass gone brown and tired with the onset of winter. The dirt underfoot is soggy from last night's rain, and most of the kids have clustered on the patches of slightly higher ground. Normally a group this big would be really loud, but nobody seems to be interested in talking, let alone starting games or fights.

Dave looks around for anyone he knows, and spots Jade and Aradia sitting in the lower branches of a leafless birch. He meanders toward them, hands in his pockets and glancing around to see if he can find any covered spots near the fence without a guard to keep watch over them. It's not like he really thinks he can escape -- or even wants to, not when Mom's been careful to tell him and Rose about what the investerrogators do to the families of known or suspected rebels -- but it's good to keep in practice, right?

"Hey," he says when he reaches the tree.

"Hi, Dave," Jade says, in a gray shadow of her usual enthusiasm. Her hair is a mess and her jacket is blue and white instead of green and black, which mean's it actually belongs to John. She has her hands stuffed into the wide front pouch like she wants to hug herself without being too obvious.

Dave trips over the weird sensation of having no words to throw into the awkward silence that follows Jade's greeting. He bites his lip, turns to face Aradia and hopes that something coherent comes out when he opens his mouth.

"Uh. Hey to you too, Aradia. We haven't seen you in a while. I think Rose wanted to talk to you about drawing a treasure map or something?"

Aradia looks weird without her lusus bouncing around her feet, but then, she's not going to have a lusus after today. Either she'll be in a training barracks, or she'll be gone. (Dave doesn't know what happens to the lusii. The official line is they get driven back into the wild to find new wigglers to adopt, but Mom says the official line is usually bullshit. He doesn't think he really wants to know the truth.)

"Oh, yeah, I remember that. We were going to play gamblignants, but I got distracted by other stuff," Aradia says. She looks past Dave, eyes narrowed against the nearly horizontal rays of the winter sun. "Where is Rose? Did they bring you two separately?"

Dave shrugs, tries to pretend they're not all off-balance. "Nah, they didn't bring her at all. Her birthday's not till tomorrow, so." It feels weird to be doing anything important without his twin at his side. He's not sure if he should feel glad that she's safe for a little longer, or worried about what she might do at her own testing without him there to distract her.

Jade probably feels the same way about John. And trolls don't have family like humans do, but that doesn't mean Aradia can't worry about the rest of their friends.

"Do you know how they do the testing, or what they're looking for?" Jade asks after another attack of awkward silence that Dave doesn't know how to fill. "Since your mom works for intelligence and stuff?"

Dave shrugs again. "I think it's for, uh, chakra affinities? For the breeding lists, and also so if anyone with special skills wants an apprentice, they know who can handle the lessons and who'd just get their head exploded by accident. Or on purpose. Even if I don't know why anyone'd want to explode their head on purpose -- somebody else's head, sure, but exploding your own is just weird and if you're going for an exploding body part assassination it's simpler to use your hand or something you can cut off and maybe survive, right?"

He should ask Dirk about that sometime. Dirk's pretty good with explosions.

"But anyway," Dave continues, "I don't know how they figure out who's affinitied with what elements. Or why some people fail or disapp-- I mean, except for failing because you can't shape chakra, because obviously you can't be a soldier if you can't soldj, although I don't know if that should technically count as failing because if everyone was a soldier we wouldn't have anyone to grow food and then we'd all starve and that would be the dumbest way to lose a war I've ever heard of. We'd have to go beg for scraps in the west and they'd look at all our starved skeletons and just laugh themselves to death which means they wouldn't win either, and actually laughing yourself to death at zombie skeletons might be an even stupider way to lose than just starving." And that line of thought grew legs and ran away from him at some point.

At least he has his words back?

Aradia is politely hiding her smile behind one hand. Jade is outright laughing at him. That feels pretty good too.

"Well, the test can't be too complicated, right? Most people our age don't know how to shape chakra yet, and most people pass anyway," Aradia says. "I bet we don't even have to do anything except stand in line."

"You're probably right," Jade agrees. Then her head tilts, like she's trying hard to hear something across the training ground. "Hey, I think they're about ready to start!"

Dave turns his head, and yeah, a bunch of soldiers have marched into the training ground and are organizing the other kids into columns and rows facing a small platform someone's raised from the ground. They should probably head over before someone comes to fetch them.

"We'll be done by noon, I bet," he says. "Why don't you guys come over to our place for lunch and we'll see who can tell Rose the most convincing lie about the test."

"Sure," Jade says. "Bet you a caegar I win."

"You're a terrible liar; I'll take that bet," Aradia replies as she leaps down from her branch.

Dave follows his friends toward the testing platform and lets himself believe that everything will be okay. They won't fail and be exiled to the prison farms, they won't pass too well and get noticed by anyone important, and most of all they won't disappear. They'll go home. He'll hug Rose and Mom. They'll invite John and Sollux and Tavros and maybe Terezi over for lunch. Everyone will be fine.

(The testing goes alphabetically by surname. Jade and Aradia each wave to him before they vanish behind the testing platform. He doesn't see them again for nearly ten years.)

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And that is the story of how Jade and Aradia got conscripted into Abyss. Dave would have shared their fate if he'd been biologically female. As it is, he was merely listed as high-priority breeding stock… until he joined the rebellion several years later, got captured, and was reclassified as perfect raw material for the kind of science experiment where you don't much care if the subject survives so long as you get useful data from the tests.

Like I said, pre-revolution Narutostuck IS a dystopia.