I really like the way this is written. The ending was especially good.
Feel free to namefag.

... ;-;

Please don't keep him depressed liked this, Anon. Or at least moar.

>>8461
>>8462

Hi. OP, here. I forgot to namefag when I posted this. *facepalm*
I'm glad that you both liked it. And, there may be more, I don't know for sure; this was written at the request of a friend. But, I shall try to continue the story.

>>8460
I love this because it's pure emotion and raw descriptions and for its very sad ending :[

Also love the title, its from my favorite poem...i don't know if that's where you got it from tho...

Anyway this was great! Do more stuff! :D

>>8479
YES!
A-hem, sorry. I get a little enthusiastic when I meet other people who have read that poem. *grins sheepishly* I'm glad you liked the story, too.

>>8481
That is totally alright because /I/ get excited when I can find anyone who shares my love for e.e.cumming's poetry even if it's just one poem. His stuff is great but its so hard to find anyone who enjoys his stuff! Woot! ilu

>>8482
I got a book of his poetry when I was in eighth grade, and have been in love with his writing ever since. "Anyone..." is still may favorite poem, but "r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r" is a close second.

And wow, we have gotten really off topic. It's kind of making me want to write TF2 poetry. Oh god...this cannot end well.

Sniper, how old are you, man?

All kiddings aside, on the second "In." I was pretty much gone. This was very nicely written and the ending was gorgeous.

>>8491
Thank you so much; I'm glad to know the ending turned out well. The first piece of the story and the end were written a day apart, so I wasn't sure it would fit.

>>8460
Oh goodness. This is wonderful. I would love to see more.

Awwwww...Poor Snipes.
Lovely, very enthralling, but
Was the tense-thing all through deliberate? 'Cos it freaked me out a little. About halfway through it started getting all switcharoo with past/present tense, and I must admit that almost ruined the whole thing for me; made me go back and reread the last couple of sentences, broke the flow.
Lovely wordsmithing apart from that, though, and if it was deliberate tense-changing then I WITHDRAW ALL COMPLAINTS.

Hot damn, this was such a tease. I feel for Sniper, really. I hope you continue this.

>>8658
I'm sorry about the tense confusion; I tend to have that problem, for some reason that I will most likely never know. I've made English teachers cry. I apologize for the confusion, but I'm glad you liked the story otherwise.

>>8669
I have been trying to continue this, but I seem to be writing /around/ it. I can write anything and everything but what I actually want to put down on paper. I'm glad you liked this story, though!

I hope this turned out okay. I think it's kind of sad, though; just thought I ought to give you a heads up.
______________________________________

He keeps his masks on, and that makes it alright; a layer of fabric and paper between him and the boy constantly, even when there were no other barriers. It keeps him detached from the situation, forces him to be some one else for an hour while letting him almost have the one thing he still has the energy to want.

The Scout wants it, and so it’s fine; he’s not forcing the young man, or hurting him. It’s not quite what the boy thinks it is, but that doesn’t matter. They both get something they need out of it, and so there’s nothing wrong with it.

It started out as a game; how much does Scout really like his team’s Sniper? How close can he get before the boy pushes him away? How well does his disguise work? It turns out that the answers to those questions were very much, balls-deep, and exceedingly well, in that order.

Sometimes, he would catch himself wishing that something had gone wrong before he got to where he was today, sneaking into the boy’s room every few nights and doing things with him that would have made the boy’s pretty mother turn pale in horror.
Shortly after those thoughts, he would find himself unavoidably reminded that Scout had a much nicer ass than she did.

Unfortunately, all good things have to come to an end. Even just barely okay things have to end too, it seemed.

He has managed to avoid having to kiss the BLU, by various tricks and lies. Of course they couldn’t kiss; paper feels very different from warm, yielding human skin, and the Scout would have known instantly that he was not BLU Sniper. For the most part, Scout didn’t want to kiss. It was too “faggy,” for him (ah, thought Spy, what lovely sayings Americans have) and so the young man gave no sign of ever wanting to kiss him except for a few times during sex when the boy had been so out of his mind with pleasure he could hardly tell up from down.

So Spy could never have predicted what was about to happen. They had been together an instant before, grinding together, his hand curled around them both as the Scout bucked and panted and wanted.

They’d just finished, and he was slumped against the headboard, panting as he watched the Scout. The boy lay still with his eyes shut tight, his slender chest still heaving as he sucked in air as quick as he could get it. And then very suddenly Scout was not on the bed, but in his lap, his hands gripping his shoulders.

“I-fuckin-love-you-shut-the-hell-up-you-fag.”

By the time fear-laden, sex-sodden Bostonian was translated into normal English, it was far too late for Spy to react. The Scout kissed him, suddenly, and Spy felt the heat of his lips even through his paper mask; but only for a moment.

Anger, confusion, and horror all flashed across the boy’s face as he scrambles back across the bed, staring at Spy with wide eyes, suddenly fumbling for the blanket to cover himself. Spy had to leave his mask on as he stood up, lest the alarm sound as he was starting to reach for the boy. The Scout leaped away, backwards into a wall.

“Scout—”

The American never let him finish.

“Get out.”

“Please—”

“Get the fuck out or I sound the fucking alarm.” His voice shook with unadulterated hatred and something like betrayal. Spy felt something twist in his chest as he got dressed quickly, not looking at the boy. He was on his way out the door when a soft voice stopped him.

“Was…was it always you? I mean, did Sniper ever…was he ever…”

“Non. I was always me, Scout,” he said, shaking his head. Scout made a sound that might have been a sob, but his mask distorted things. He didn’t stick around long enough to see, either; he ran as though all of hell was on his heels, and maybe it was.

He sat in his room a long time after that, feeling his guts twist and his heart ache and wondering if he had ingested some of his own poison by mistake.

Guilt wasn’t something he was used to feeling.

Oh my god. I didn't take the "sad" warning too seriously. This just about made me cry.

Here's hoping for a third part, to make it all not hurt so much.

>>8712
There will be a third part! In which Sniper beats the ever-loving tar out of the enemy Spy because he finds out what he did to his Scout. And there may be a part after that when Scout and Sniper actually get together and everything ends happily.

Probably.

Mostly.

And, I'm sorry for not making the "sad," warning stern enough.

OH! Oh, so awesome! And so heartbreaking! Poor Sniper. Poor Scout. And--for the life of me--poor Spy there at the end. I loved both parts and I can't wait for the third. The amount of raw WANT and NEED in these pieces is just gripping. I'm hooked.

Your writing is fantastic. You say so much with so little words, it's awesome how subtle yet complex you manage to make everything.

>>8711
I am madly in love with this little piece of work right here--the bittersweetness, it fuels my masochistic soul. Goddamn please continue.

>>8714
I don't really have a normal way of releasing emotions IRL, so I write. And this my stories carry some seriously powerful emotions in them.

>>8715
Thank you so much! I'm so happy you enjoyed my stories, and I really am working on another one as we speak, I promise.

I read these all in one swell foop. Darn you, Author, for making me cry.
And next time, don't say: "I think it's kind of sad," say: "This will make you bawl your fricking eyes out."

holy shit I'm sucked in. You write beautiful stuff, do some more.

This part carries a serious Kleenex warning, or so I have been told by my friend. I sniffled a bit while writing it, so...consider yourselves warned. That said, I hope you think it turned out well.
_______________________________

It was in the middle of a battle that it happened.

Spy was in their base, almost at their intel room. There was no one in sight, until he opened the door, and then…oh, and then there was Sniper. He reached for his Ambassador, would have shot him, but—

“I know what you did.”

The gun clattered against the floor, the sound of it as loud in his ears as if he had pulled the trigger.

“How…?”

“Saw ‘im cryin’. ‘E…told me enough.”

Spy made no move to defend himself when a hand fisted in his shirt; he didn’t even want to. The first punch probably fractured his nose, and the blood got in his mouth and soaked his balaclava, and he couldn’t bring himself to care.

After all, what was he but a monster; and don’t monsters deserve to be vanquished at the end of the fairy tale?

But this wasn’t a fairy tale, and that was obvious because usually the knight in shining armor doesn’t shove the monster up against a wall and break its ribs to make it cough up blood from damaged lungs.

And the hero certainly never tears the villain’s pants down over his hips and—

It hurt. It hurt worse than Spy had expected it to, but he didn’t care, because he couldn’t think of anyone who deserved this more than he did, couldn’t think of any reason why Sniper shouldn’t be doing this. He was certain the Australian was talking, but he couldn’t hear him over his own labored breathing and the burbling of blood dripping from his own lips as it filled up his lungs. It didn’t matter, he could come up with his own words.

Whore.

Rapist.

A waste of good air.

And all of them were true, and he knew it, and that made what Sniper was doing alright, made the blood in his lungs and black spots dancing before his eyes mean something more than just a new kind of pain.

When it was over, he had time for only one coherent thought before the kukri opened up his throat from ear to ear.

/I hope Respawn doesn’t work./

>>8736
This part seemed a bit sparse. While it was obvious Bad Things were happening it didn't manage to affect any real emotion. Maybe things could be developed a bit more in the text? The characters are just sort of there. Sniper decides to rape him because why? It's more dramatic that way?

>>8736
>>8737

I'm under the same impression. The rape doesn't quite fit. I mean, if I was angry at someone for messing around with someone I'm attracted to, my first instinct wouldn't be to fuck them. And the detail could be a little more captivating. I just didn't think it was visual enough for me to care about Spy. I think I was expecting more because in the other two parts, you're really quite good with the emotion and stuff. Like, I wish I could write as well as you.

TL;DR

You're really fucking good at writing to the point that you've set some kind of awesome standard with me, but this part was a little off.

>>8737
>>8742
Um, from a psychological perspective, rape is often not about sexual gratification. It's the total, intimate, penetrating (pun-semi-intended) violation and exertion of control. It's a way for the rapist to put themself in a position of power over the victim. So, it makes sense to me. Spy sort-of-raped Scout, so Sniper uses what seems to him to be an appropriate method of vengeance/retribution.

What gets me, if anything, is I don't think Scout would have told Sniper. Crushing embarassment and shame would have meant he'd probably not want to tell ANYONE, let alone someone so intrinsically involved with the whole issue.

Anyway so that is my two-cents-worth.

>>8752
That's understandable then, I guess.

A little bit of the Sniper's perspective would have been nice, though. It would have cleared up what he was thinking (if he was at all, or he just jumped to conclusions and went ROAR REVENGE RAPE).

You know that drug called Ambien? The one that can cause people to get up, wander around, make phone calls, have sex, and even drive? Yeah, it affects me in a bad way, apparently. See, I was miserably sick and was told to lay down and sleep it off. I couldn't sleep, so I took one of my sleeping pills (prescribed a while back; never had to use them except once or twice and nothing happened then.)

I had a dream about writing a story that absolutely sucked and then actually posting it somewhere. Imagine my alarm when I looked here this morning and realized, “Oh, hell. That wasn’t a dream. Scheiße!”

I have vague memories of doing something else, too, and I don't know what it was. I'm going to go have a little meltdown, now, as I pray that I don't see myself on the news tonight. Ack.

I have learned my lesson; if I’m going to take Ambien, I’m going to cuff myself to the bed first in the hopes that I don’t move on from writing terrible stories to humping my roommate.

Anyway, I intend to write an actually /good/ sequel to "A Tangled Web," eventually. Please disregard that which shall now be known as "The Ambien Story."

My sincere apologies to all that I inflicted this on. *hides face in shame*

>>8759
no worries here! You're a great writer and bad things happen to the best of us.

I honestly didn't think it was that bad. A little sparse on details but that was it.

So, keep up the good work.

>>8759
No problem! At least you got a hell of an anecdote out of it!
(here's me trying not to joke about how your subconscious wants Sniper/Spy rape.)

>>8482 Whoo, other cummings fans! "You said Is" is my most favourite, but really, they are like potato chips in that you can't have just one...gorgeously poetic springrose-smelling potato chips.

Off topic..anyway,

>>8460 That last line, oh god. Well, all the lines, but that last line. Just. Man, I have no words.

>>8711 I love sad things and I love this.

>>8465
>>8770
I LOVE BOTH OF YOU!!!


>>8711
D:


>>8736
DD: *is sad*

is good. would like more.

>>8765
I don't think it's just my subconscious, really.


And, thank you all for being understanding towards the horrors of Ambien. This means I can crawl out of my Bunker of Shame(tm) and actually try to write something using the handy-dandy thing known as my conscious mind.

...I'm still wondering, though, who the hell it was that I talked to that told me it needed a Kleenex warning. We may never know...

>>8829
Can't wait for this. I want the forth part so bad.

First of all, I wrote this while perfectly sober, awake, and aware. Second of all, this is a miserably sad ending for Spy (though happy for Scout and Sniper). It was painful for me to write. So, please, take this Kleenex Warning seriously and keep a box of them close by.
And, thirdly and finally, I was listening to Dar Williams' "Blue Light of the Flame" as I wrote this. It is such a beautiful, achingly sad song, and you should go listen to it, if you like sad songs. Here is a link: http://www.lala.com/#song/504684650772722435
And now, after I have claimed full responsibility for the bucket of angst that is this story, warned you to have Kleenex, and given you something to listen to, here is the story!
____________________________________________

Things changed, after that night. Spy watched them change from a painful distance, watching the BLU Scout climb up the ladder to Sniper’s nest during the day or walk out to the camper van at night. He can’t always see them, and what he can see is not enough and far too much.

And the thing that hurts the most is that it wasn’t the sex that he missed. He couldn’t care less if he ever fucked anyone again. What he missed was the way the Scout had looked at him with something like love in his eyes afterward, the way the boy would sometimes fling his arms around him in an awkward hug that said more than words ever could, the blue flame of the boy’s eyes that melted the lump of ice in his chest and made it a heart again.

And he would never have that again.

That thought pounded in his head, leaving him aching in some indefinable way that was a thousand times worse than any wound he had ever suffered. He would be alone, and, someday, he would die alone. That hung over him, draped across his shoulders like a thick coating of lead, weighing him down and holding him in place as he felt each individual piece of his shattered heart begin to freeze again.

He was always cold, now. He couldn’t get warm, no matter how long he stood beneath the hot water of the shower, leaning against the tile wall and feeling that terrible pressure around his heart swell until he couldn’t breathe and he thought he was dying.

And really, he was. He was dying by inches, in a way that no medigun or respawn system could ever fix. He was rotting away on the inside, eaten up by a want for something that he could never again have. He dreamt sometimes that he was falling to pieces like a broken mirror, all jagged edges and sharp lines to be swept up and thrown in the dust bin, too sharp to handle, too sharp to be put back together. And when he woke, his chest hurting like it was filled with broken glass, he wondered if maybe those dreams weren’t dreams after all. And what hurt most of all is that he knew there would never be anyone willing to pick up the pieces.

He watched from a distance, and saw the love he wished he had, and the ache turned bitter sweet for those few precious moments. He was always too far away to hear anything they said, but he could supply his own dialogue for the gentle touches and tight embraces.

He tried to tell himself that it was for the best; love can’t be based on a paper mask and a sweet lie. His Scout (no, not his, never his) deserved the real thing. That was supposed to comfort him, but of course it didn’t. It simply made it worse, knowing that the BLU was convinced he had been used by someone who didn’t care about him when really Spy would have cut the heart from his own chest and given it to him if the boy had only asked. Sometimes he thinks about trying that now, whether Scout asked or not.

He imagines that it would hurt less than if he left it in its current place.

>>8848
Is it bad that I feel bad for Spy?

>>8850
Nope, it's not wrong in the slightest. I was trying to make people feel sympathy for him, the poor twisted bastard.

>>8848
damnit, that is pretty sad.

...you're really gonna leave it here, huh? It still sounds like there's a story to be told, but whatever you want is whatever you want.

>>8852
Damn. You are almost as good at the subtle guilt trip as my mother (that is a compliment, by the way, so please do not be offended.) I may be forced to add some kind of epilogue so it feels more finished; I went back and re-read it after reading your comment, and I find myself agreeing with you. There is something left to tell, I just don't know what it is yet.

That is sad and lovely, especially the last couple paragraphs. I'm curious - how does Spy feel about the Scout on his own team, now?

>>8851
Okay, that makes sense...poor backstabbing bastard

>>8848
Okay I like this better.
I mean, not that the other, drug-induced one was bad, per se, but it didn't have the...<i>oomph</i> that the others had. The glorious, heart-wrenching emotion. This has it in spades.
'Glorious' is a fantastic word. It should get used more often.
Also you should ABSOLUTELY write an epilogue. Please. Bad things may happen if you don't. I HAVE KILLED MEN FOR LESS. O_O

AH GORRAMIT
So I don't know what the editing protocol is on this board. I GUESSED <> BUT NO. Is it square brackets?
IS IT SQUARE BRACKETS?!
Oh Gods of the Northern Forest when did I become such a n00b.
Sage for fail.

...okay so it is square brackets. I shall keep that in mind.
C:

>>8869
OH FUCK IT ALL I HAVEN'T SLEPT IN LIKE 30 HOURS IMMA STOP POSTING NOW KTHXBYE

>>8869
No worries mate, best to read http://tf2chan.net/guides/newbie.html (why this isn't an obvious link I don't know). Also, Rhiannon, I am digging your style

>>8872
...thank you
It's just that I never felt the need to use italics or bold or anything before. I just allcaps when I get excited. And it's <i></i> most places. Like, legit HTML for example. So I guess I kinda assumed. OH WELL.
Seriously I knew how to sage but I did not know how to bold. Although I may have undermined that by whacking it in 'subject' by horrid mistake. I AM A RIDDLE WRAPPED IN AN ENIGMA WRAPPED IN SHINY PAPER.

I GUESS MY POINT IS THAT I VERY MUCH ENJOY THIS FIC AND IT MAKES MY HEART FEEL MORE SOLID THAN USUAL WHICH I ASSUME IS SOME EMOTION LIKE SYMPATHY OR LONGING OR D'AWWWWWW.

I was desperately hoping for Scout to forgive Spy and them starting up a real relationship, but how Scout and Sniper finally got together through Spy`s eyes was still an amazing read.

Beautifully written and i felt so much for Spy, its amazing how much emotion you can fit into just a few hundred words, Rhiannon.

Listening to "Depeche Mode - Wrong" while reading this makes it seem very bitter, had to re-read it with "Blue-light of flame" and i almost fully cried.

THAT'S SO DEPRESSING, AAUUUUGH. WHY YOU DO DIS?

This was absolutely beautiful: heart-wrenching and precious, and I adore the intense emotions you saddled Spy with. Normally he seems like a sociopath, if not a sadist, or at least someone completely out-of-tune with his own emotions. There's the occasional exception, of course, and it's all up to the writer, but his whole-hearted devotion to Scout in this, compared to his normal Ice King persona, is ambrosia for me.

Thank you so much for writing this.

>>8848

>Second of all, this is a miserably sad ending for Spy (though happy for Scout and Sniper). It was painful for me to write. So, please, take this Kleenex Warning seriously and keep a box of them close by.

>And now, after I have claimed full responsibility for the bucket of angst that is this story, warned you to have Kleenex, and given you something to listen to, here is the story!

A word of advice: don't do this.

Do not let the audience know that they are being manipulated. I tried to read this and feel sympathy for Spy, and it just seemed like a lot of waxing poetic about how heartbroken he was. Add the fact that you told the reader that they are supposed to cry, and it just feels like cheating. When you're summarizing a story for your readers, tell them as little as possible, so that way, they won't see things coming, and it'll have more impact. It's like, when you watch a trailer for a movie, and it gives away all the good parts. And, as always, SHOW, DON'T TELL.

Your other chapters are better in this respect, especially the first one. This one wasn't as effective. This one came off as pretty weaksauce in comparison.

>>8897
"You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!"

Agreeing with the calls for more detail here.

I'm not quite feeling the Spy's point of view here. The transition from "free buttsex from enemy Scout! :awesome:" to "merde I think I'm starting to have Unnecessary Feelings for the boy :sadface:" was too fast.

Plus, like I said earlier, the Sniper's point of view is missing, too. This isn't as important in the larger framework of the story, but since you did start Part 1 with the Sniper, it'd be nice to know what was going through his head.

This story has a lot of promise, and I hope you stick around and keep writing. (Just don't do it on Ambien next time!)

(Of course, a review from dotchan is not complete without my usual "Kill the -ly Adverbs" spiel.)

>>8898
Are you trolling? Cat's giving valid criticism.

>>8934

I don't see any trolling going on.

I see them summing up my point with a quote from Futurama.

>>8934
I should have known better than to post that without a Robot Devil picture.

No, not trolling. Just Futurama-ing.

If everyone just quoted Futurama instead of trolling, the world would be a much better place. Until we ran out of quotes.

Yup. Poor Spy. I agree with a lot of the crit. This story could have been more indeoth. The shear amount of "Ouch" coming off the Spy there at the end was kind of like "Wait, wut?" The imagery was nice though, and if you had developed the characters a bit more it would have fit better. And yeah... it would have been nice to see another POV from Sniper.

Not that this wasn't a good start. Should you ever want to develop this piece more, you have a lot of really awesome things to work with.

>>8897
>>8914
>>8952
[sub]Now I feel silly for gushing when everyone else has something relevant to say.[/sub]

>I'm not quite feeling the Spy's point of view here. The transition from "free buttsex from enemy Scout! :awesome:" to "merde I think I'm starting to have Unnecessary Feelings for the boy :sadface:" was too fast.
I didn't think much about the speedy transition between Spy's feelings in the second and third parts, but you're right. I just assumed that a lot of time had passed between them, allowing for Spy to further examine his feelings and Scout and Sniper to get into a relationship. But then, readers shouldn't be expected to assume things for a story to make sense.

It also seems like the POV changed between those two parts. It was third person the whole way through, but it almost seems like Rhiannon switched from limited to semi-omniscient, and that's why it seems weird to suddenly have detailed insight into everything Spy is feeling. We got some of his thoughts in the previous installment as well, so maybe that's not completely accurate, but we definitely don't get them in such volume. There's pretty much no action in the third part, though, so at the same time there doesn't seem to be much else to write about.

More information about Sniper’s reaction to the whole situation would be good. Apparently he's now in a relationship with Scout. Did he help him overcome Spy’s betrayal, or did Scout keep that from him out of embarrassment? How did he react when he came to know that Scout had feelings for him? The story would come full circle if it ended with something from Sniper.

For some reason I imagine Spy being the reason that Sniper learns of Scout’s feelings. Obviously he wouldn’t say it outright, but maybe he’d taunt Sniper into following him to a crying Scout before cloaking and running off. That’s SORT OF redeeming, right? D:

>>8958
Awesome, TL;DR and coding fail.

Sage because that's just pathetic.

>>8853
I could imagine at least Scout waking up because of some noise to find a little note "I love you. I'm sorry"
THE END


it was what I was hoping for, or something. I dunno.

There does feel like there's more to tell, that's all I know.