whatcurreeusfiction

[whatcurreeusfiction]

It's finally here!! After eight months of hard work, Wanted - An "A Way Out" Zine has been released 🙌 🎉 It consists of 21 pages featuring the works of 6 artists and writers ♥ Download it for free following the Itch.io link above!

You can also read it on AO3 here: [link]

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CREDITS:

Birbwell

Tumblr: [link]

Twitter: [link]

Instagram: [link]

Dreki

Tumblr: [link]

Mastodon: [link]

LambentWarg

Tumblr: [link]

AO3: [link]

Velvaetalt

Tumblr 1: [link]

Tumblr 2: [link]

Curreeus

Tumblr: [link]

AO3: [link]

Aifas

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Instagram: [link]

Special Thanks to Velvaetalt (Proofreading) and TB (Zine Assembly)!

------ Thank you very much for your interest!! ♥

[whatcurreeusfiction]

i hate how you get desensitized to the cool stuff in your WIP if you've been writing it for a long time so when you read back over it you're like "this isn't as cool as i thought :(" but it still is! you just read it too many times

[whatcurreeusfiction]

13th - Heavy/Spy, Food (Fluff)

15th - Spy/Spy, Trust (Fluff)

16th - Engie/Medic, TIL DEATH DO US PART (Angst)

18th - Demo/Sniper, Amnesia (Angst)

My entries for the DNAD Valentines 2023 Event!

I had fun with these, I especially liked the options of angst or fluff prompts :3

I didnt do all of them this year because the muse was mysteriously absent but I'm very proud of the angst ones in particular

[whatcurreeusfiction]

In which Pauling has a weird day and the mercs are a little less mature than usual - twenty or thirty years less mature, that is.

This was a collab with the lovely Lemmy for the TF2 Big Bang! They were so gracious and patient with me and their art is so cute!!! https://lemonyslemmylemons.tumblr.com/post/695366687636307968/my-contribution-to-the-tf2-big-bang-for-the-fic

[whatcurreeusfiction]

Engie’s soul definitely didn’t weigh 21 grams, like Douglas MacDougall’s flawed study had claimed. Not even anywhere close. It was like a grain of sand or a mote of dust; the barest suggestion of a presence. And yet it felt like Medic held the weight of the world.

Medic goes to Hell to bring Engie’s soul back, inspired by Orpheus and Euridice.

There are two pieces of wonderful art in this fic - the first is by @johaifisch, who was my collab partner for the Big Bang event! The tumblr post for it is here: https://johaifisch.tumblr.com/post/695463786631626752/my-big-bang-piece-for-curreeusly-ominous-elf-s The second is by my beautiful friend @wonderboynyx, who's not even in the tf2 fandom but I'd been bothering him with ideas for this fic and it was my birthday and he's wonderful: https://wonderboynyx.tumblr.com/post/695465540737728512/21-grams-and-the-weight-of-the-world-curreeus

[whatcurreeusfiction]

A collection of short pieces for the prompts of Science Party Week 2021, loosely connected to each other. Day 1: Food Day 2: Pets Day 4: Free Space (Music/Campfire) Day 7: Heal/Fix/Explosion

[whatcurreeusfiction]

My fic for the DNAD Valentine’s Week earlier this year! Just giving it a home here on my writing blog. Day 1: Pining (Engineer/Medic) Day 2: Blind Date (Platonic Scout/Ms Pauling) Day 3: Pen Pals (Spy/Heavy) Day 4: Payback (Demo/Sniper) Day 5: AU (Sniper/Medic) Day 6: Home (Spy/Scout's Ma, dadspy) Day 7: Valentine's Day (Sniper/Spy)

[whatcurreeusfiction]

I feel like I've seen it mentioned more than once of Sniper having a bi panic in an ao3 fanfic and I just can't find it. I think it's called The Crisis?

Maybe I just misread something, sorry for bothering if yes.

YES you're absolutely right, that fic is called The Crisis and is written by @curreeusly-ominous-elf

I cannot recommend this fic enough, it's absolutely brilliant and the humor is fantastic. True enough I haven't even finished chapter 2 (the beginning of this chapter is just gold) yet simply because I don't have the TIME to read fanfics right now. Whenever I do have a few minutes during my breaks at work I always do my best to fight myself past another few paragraphs.

I was actually planning to give proper feedback after reading a BIT more of the fic, but I suppose I can still proclaim my love for it after one and a half chapters 😂

Link to the fic right here:

[whatcurreeusfiction]

I’m updating this blog so it’s more up to date with some of my recent projects, if you get tagged in something it’s because I’m referencing a fic you made, an idea you had, or some art you drew :)

[whatcurreeusfiction]

Ms Pauling and Spy are up to something that involves wearing pretty dresses and going undercover, and Sniper is a bisexual mess.

my first foray into the tf2 fandom!! there’s heaps about this fic that I would like to go back and fix, but honestly it’s still good how it is. It also inspired some amazing art by @notaspyseriously that I still think about a lot because it’s so cool: https://notaspyseriously.tumblr.com/post/655393621122711552/just-realized-you-could-just-send-magic-link-to

[whatcurreeusfiction]

Fictober Prompt 26 - "how about you trust me for once"

In the summer of 1984, at age fifty-three, Vincent Moretti retires - and a loose end ties itself up in a way he never expected it to.

[whatcurreeusfiction]

Fictober prompt 19 - "I Can't Do This Anymore"

A chase and a firefight later, and Vincent's on a rooftop in the rain, stumbling towards the only gun in sight on the other side of the rooftop without knowing what he’s going to do with it once he gets there.

[whatcurreeusfiction]

Fictober Prompt 13 - "I missed this"

Leo and Vincent stop for a moment of stillness, and Vincent thinks too much, as usual.

[whatcurreeusfiction]

Fictober Prompt 6 - "That was Impressive"

Vincent forgets that bankers aren't supposed to be good with guns, and Leo is obliviously impressed.

[whatcurreeusfiction]

12/11/21

So I found out I very likely have autism and also my therapist explained how rest days work and I had a goddamn moment

They say the legend of changelings was a way for people to understand their neurodivergent children. 

Suddenly, a “sweet child” had become something awful seemingly overnight; a child who screamed and cried at loud noises and certain touches and tastes and didn’t act like other children. Acted different and strange and… inhuman. 

The benefit for the changeling is that they gain a soul by being raised by humans - but eventually, the demonic fae child tires of their life as a human and they go home, soul in hand, deserting their human parents and leaving them with nothing but an empty crib.

To the people of medieval Europe, children who exhibited traits of ASD were other; they were from the fae, a mysterious part of nature that had come to haunt them in a ghost of humanity. 

Knowing what I know of myself now, this legend is comforting. 

In a way, I am of the forest. I always have been. I was born among vineyards far from the city and I grew up surrounded by trees that touched the sky; by creeks that came and went with seasons and animals that made sounds in the night that became the soundtrack of home. And god, I want so desperately to go home. 

When I was a child the world always seemed so much bigger and more mystical; but even so, I understood it better. The trees did not expect me to be able to hold conversation any more than the earth itself wanted me to laugh at appropriate moments and be interested in how people had spent their weekends. Birds were held up by belief and animals could talk to those who listened and fairies lived in light shining off wet leaves, and people were terrifying. 

But the child of the forest got older. And they had to learn how to behave. 

As I got older, the more I was expected to conform; I was dragged back from the forest and forced to cut my hair and wash my feet; To be tamed and domesticated and slid into the uniform of Acceptable. And I was great at acting the part - I was good at excelling in what people wanted me to excel at, and what I wanted didn’t necessarily matter. My mother had always wanted a girl, so I learned how to be a good girl for her. My grandmother insisted I was the brightest of the bunch, so I learned how to be good at school.

 I learned how to be what people wanted by watching others, most of the time. 

The more you perform the less you have stage fright - I rehearsed being “normal” so much that it became second nature, and I could assume the persona of someone who was acceptable with very little warning. I could put the mask on at a moment’s notice.

I did it so much that one day, the mask wouldn’t come off. 

What do you do when you have become a facade? When you have carefully nipped and tucked and completely manufactured a palatable self that has nothing behind it?

It didn’t need to have anything behind it because all it had to do was look appropriate. 

But like looking out the window of a dark room, my eyes became coated in sunspots and whatever hid behind the facade with me became impossible to see. I forgot who I was and whatever had made me up before. 

My hard won fae soul had been emptied and though I could remember it being full, I had no idea what it had been filled with beforehand, when the birds were held up by belief and the cloudy sky smelled like promise and every story had a happy ending. 

Years have passed since I discovered my empty soul, and my nose has been to the ground trying to find the reason it was empty without real success in the discovery. At times, it felt like the wall was thinner between me and success, but I never truly found it. I have only really succeeded in finding clues; in finding crumbs left behind from the theft of a loaf off the windowsill. 

A soul cannot be healed through mere snatches and moments of peace. A heart that longs for the ocean cannot be soothed by the scent of salt on the air for only a brief moment. 

In the end, it all comes back to the child that lives behind the facade. The fae child from the forest. 

I was so mystified as to what they wanted - I knew that they held the answer, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know how to talk to them and while I knew what they liked they didn’t seem to respond in any major way to the things I tried to tempt them with. 

Forest child, I’m sorry I held you for so long and didn't listen and couldn't understand. I can’t believe that the thing you railed against me for so long to do was simply to exist unrestrained.

I can’t believe you were fighting so hard to just sit and rest. That just acting on your whims had become such bad behaviour in my mind that you hadn’t been allowed to act out in years; even if it was just to smell the flowers. I had become obsessed with the idea that you couldn’t smell the flowers right and so I’d refused to let you. 

I can’t believe I locked you up so thoroughly; that I eradicated every part of you from the facade so efficiently. Your little habits and expressions and thoughts and feelings, I removed it all in the pursuit of being acceptable, and in trimming all those parts off of me I nearly lost you. 

Every adult in your life failed you and I cannot believe that the adult you became was just another in that long line.

Forest child, I promise I’ll listen. I’ll find space for you to sit and smile and exist.

Let’s sit in the forest together and watch the sun through the leaves and live. 

[whatcurreeusfiction]

6/9/19

this one.... was not so good looking back at the dates of this and the one after made me realise that i might possibly, maybe, almost actually have seasonal depression, so... this one’s not as positive.

It is in moments of silence that I wonder how my brain became so crowded again. 

How could I have spring cleaned it so well, only to turn around and find it cluttered and dusty once again?

 How could I have become so angry and fearful in the span of one year? When only a season ago my heart was starting to refill and I seemed to be coming to rest in a pool of contentment? 

I long for silence; for rest. 

Every conversation turns me into a nocturnal creature left in the shadowless bright expanse of midday, and there is nowhere for me to hide. I am trying to feign nonchalance while my heart threatens to burst from panic. 

They will see me. They will see my ugliness, my fear, my uselessness. My helplessness. I am an oozing mess that contaminates; I have become the monster I laughed at and every word I speak is hollow. 

The choking mist of worry creeps under my doorstops in the evening and holds its long tendril fingers over my mouth til morning, when I awake with a start, already worried that something has gone wrong. Sometimes it pins me to the bed, and I cannot explain why I cannot leave because they will not understand. 

“This is not your diagnosis, you’re just lazy.” 

I think perhaps the mist draws its strength from the winter, and I am outraged – winter was a beautiful sanctuary of rain and thunder, how dare you take it from me and turn it into a season of dark depression. 

The days pass too quickly and yet they are endless. I live on the minutes hand of the clock for nine hours a day, and for the other five I have left I pretend the clock does not exist at all. 

I sacrifice sleep for time spent trying to feel comforted. 

The void has returned and yet again, although I laugh, cry and smile at others, I want to drop the mask but my fingers won’t move. They can’t. If I drop it they will see. 

Things are fine. 

Things are fine. 

Things are fine. 

Things are NOT fine. 

Why is my car the only place I feel safe and unhunted? A cocoon of steel and oil – why do I hide from my own home in there? Has it morphed into my home while I wasn’t watching, am I a hermit crab trapped in human form? 

Why am I a sapling transplanted into the wrong forest; why are my leaves the wrong shape, my seeds dead and cold? Where are my friends; my family? 

They are right there. 

Behind the glass. 

You cannot touch them. You will break them. You cannot speak to them, your words will shatter them. 

They are like delicate clockwork. They function beautifully by design. A design you were once part of. 

You leak tree sap that clogs their gears and makes them silent and still; dead. 

Do. Not. Touch. 

Keep off the grass, little weed. 

Keep to your island, little stone. 

You carved this wall yourself. Either paint it or break it down. 

And don’t forget, you did promise you’d get paintbrushes.

[whatcurreeusfiction]

5/1/19

Postin some vents As always I have to be extra about these things this one’s a positive one! I was vibin and feelin good

There was a feeling I used to chase, before I realised that emotions were delicate butterflies that settled on you only when you let them approach. 

When I was younger, and my grip on myself and my emotions much looser, I called it happiness, but now I realise how much depth there was to it; that the thing I was searching for was something everyone is chasing. It was a feeling of being whole. Of reaching a happy ending and revelling in it. A feeling of looking out to the sunset across the ocean and knowing that this was the exact place you were meant to be at the exact right time. 

There were no other commitments to see to, nothing else that was a pressure on your time – just existence. The calm shushing of the waves lapping at your feet. The warm descent of the sun towards the horizon. 

Being at one with life and everything in it; being whole. 

The world has broadened and lengthened since I chased this feeling; like a plant unfurling, it has developed and grown with me. There are still things that evoke it, but through all my years of searching, I never felt like I reached that Nirvana of existence. Playing a specific video game in a specific place that brings back a heady rush of nostalgia for a more simple time; looking out towards the hills and remembering the exact chord progression in a favourite song that echoed the shape of those hills. Spending an afternoon wading through the shallows of the beach listening to familiar voices echoing in your ears and smiling at them. 

Reality never truly meshed with the dream. 

But now… now I’m getting closer. 

The past year has been an exercise in growth; understanding just what storms the weathered sailboat that is my body can withstand. Learning how to patch the sails and repair the rigging when the squalls are too violent; where safe harbour lies and how long I can stay there before mutiny strikes. 

My grip on the wheel is firmer now, and I can read my compass much better than before, and even though I still find reefs that weren’t there before and run myself ragged on rocks I should have known were coming, I can feel the tips of my fingers scraping the very edge of the peace I’ve searched for. I’ve learned that the waters of my mind can survive a tsunami, but in order to live they must have time to grow still and reflective, and in letting those waters settle, I can now see what lies within them.

 And I’ve learned that the most evasive thing to chase is yourself. You will lose yourself in the search. 

You have to learn to wait for your spirit come home to roost; to find you where you lay, beaten and exhausted, and remind you of what is important.

I feel an intense love for my life now, intermittently, like a radio station that is just barely in range, where before there was nothing but static. I have so many people that mean so much to me and make my life special, and I am learning to show them how I appreciate them in much better ways. I am learning to break down walls that didn’t need to be built. I am learning to clear out a wardrobe of thoughts that don’t fit me anymore. 

I am building a life that I love and that loves me back, and while the work is hard and gives me cuts and bruises nearly every day, I can look backwards at the progress on construction and nod, smiling to myself about how good the frame of my future looks. 

There aren’t any grand plans. I’m not going to change the world in the way I thought I was. 

But I’m changing my world in a way that matters, and stumbling upon things I thought lost along the way. And maybe this way, I will leave my mark from the inside out. 

I am no longer chasing things that will not come. Instead, I am building them a home and letting them trail in like sleepy children at the end of a long day; I am slathering the honey that will attract good things, and I am building a life with room for peace in it. 

And one day, that peace will come and greet me like an old friend, and my happy ending will be a wonderful beginning.