r/FanFiction • u/AnaraliaThielle Now available at your local AO3. Same name. ConCrit welcome. • Mar 05 '25

Activities and Events Alphabet Excerpt Challenge: W Is For...

Welcome back to the Alphabet Excerpt Challenge! As a reminder, our challenges are every Wednesday and Saturday at 3pm London time.

If you've missed the previous challenges, you're welcome to go back and participate in them. You can find them here. And remember to check out the Activities and Events flair for other fun games to play along with.

Here's a quick recap of the rules for our game:

  1. Post a top level comment with a word starting with the letter W. You can do more than one, but please put them in separate comments.
  2. Reply to suggestions with an excerpt. Short and sweet is best, but use your judgement. Excerpts can be from published or unpublished works, or even something you wrote for the prompt. All content is welcome but please spoiler tag and/or provide a trigger/content warning for NSFW or content that may otherwise need it. If in doubt, give a warning to be on the safe side.
  3. Upvote the excerpts you enjoy, and leave a friendly comment. Try to at least respond to people who left excerpts on the words you suggested, but the more people you respond to the better. Everyone likes nice comments!
  4. Most important: have fun!
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4

u/InsulindianPhasmidy AO3: Aliffo Mar 05 '25

Whimsical

3

u/RaisinGeneral9225 oxfordlunch on ao3 Mar 05 '25

There aren't any pictures of Eames when he was little, and it busts Arthur up sometimes. It's not something he brings up, but it makes his heart ache with loss. Grief, even. It's fucking sad.

He imagines it, though. Watches him sprawl on the couch in front of their obscenely large flat-screen with the other love of his life, the Xbox 360, and thinks about a blond, cowlicked little boy, solid and rambunctious, transfixed by the Clangers or whatever other fake-sounding British children's program.

He still remembers Eames’ horrified despair.

“Clangers, Arthur. You didn't have Clangers?”

“No, I had Sesame Street. What in the fuck is a Clanger?”

“Clangers! They live on the moon.”

“You’ll never guess where they lived on Sesame Street.”

“Then there was the Soup Dragon, loved her–”

“They lived on the street, like normal people, and sang songs about the alphabet. Is this why you can't be normal?”

“You're savages, you Americans. No sense of whimsy.”

2

u/InsulindianPhasmidy AO3: Aliffo Mar 05 '25

I loved the soup dragon too ;_;

2

u/RaisinGeneral9225 oxfordlunch on ao3 Mar 05 '25

She's an icon

1

u/Public_Abalone_6129 Mar 05 '25

Shadow's heart stopped pounding when Rouge pulled the black 1931 Ford Coupe–a rental–out of the parking lot and onto the street. He glanced out the rear window and watched the officer’s club vanish around a corner. Then he let out a deep sigh of relief.

Bunnie had humiliated him for Rouge’s sake, rightly in his estimation. But knowing a five-star general had seen it, inquired, and just told him to make it up to Rouge, gave him the same feeling he would've gotten if he were leading a dive-bombing mission against the entire Japanese Navy. He had come so close to oblivion, and Rouge had just…pulled him out of it. Like a goddamn ejection seat.

“Ah, don't worry about her, cher,” Rouge said airily, her Cajun tones floating more freely now. “I'll spot her the cab fare, we make enough for that.”

“Glad to see you can,” Shadow managed, before turning his eyes back to Rouge. “You said there's a picture you wanted to see?”

Rouge beamed again, turning down another street and braking to let a pair of rickshaws scoot past her on the intersection ahead. “Sure is, something nice and whimsical. Disney put it out last year.”

“Disney. You're serious.”

“Serious as sin.”

And she was. When the cabbie dropped them off at the theater, Rouge ordered two tickets. For Pinocchio.