A Monster By Any Other Name

masterlist

2020-12-30T01:02:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Before starting the story, you must read the warnings. This story is rated NC-17 for graphic child abuse.

A Monster By Any Other Name

by lavinialavender and brosedshield

edited by whereupon

(art by cedarcliffe)

Prologue:
Prologue

Part One:

Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four - Chapter Five (1 of 2); (2 of 2) - Chapter Six - Chapter Seven - Chapter Eight - Chapter Nine - Chapter Ten - Chapter Eleven - Chapter Twelve - Chapter Thirteen

PDF of the Prologue and Part One (with appendices)

Part Two:

Podfic (by alice_alaizabel)

Timestamps
(by lavinialavender, brosedshield, and whereupon)

Extras

Fanworks masterlist

freac_camp_au

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welcome to Freak Camp

2020-11-23T18:13:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Introduction
On October 9th, 2010, A Monster By Any Other Name (or as we casually call it, Freak Camp) came into life as a tiny snowball on top of an Appalachian mountain.

Now it is unseasonably temperate in Cancun.

(By which we mean: 150,000+ words in less than two months.)

Who we are
brosedshield and lavinialavender are two recent college graduates (and creative writing majors) who were roommates and excellent friends for most of their college career. Thus, their minds have melded. They discovered Supernatural simultaneously in January 2010, right at the start of their final semester, and it promptly took over their lives, including academia. By virtue of watching two episodes a day (six on Saturdays), they caught up with S5 halfway through the semester. Then Lavinia dragged Brose into fandom. And the rest is history.

Who to blame
It amused us, as we snowballed along, to half-seriously designate who was in charge of what themes. There was much crossing over, we each took part in the other's field at least once, but we also often told the other, "You get to figure the rest of this out - you're in charge of it, after all."

This list will undoubtedly be frequently edited as we go along.

lavinialavender: Trauma, Fluff, Sex, Politics, Research/Details, Maps, Title/Summaries, Timelines, Consistency, Editing, Amazing Word Count Production (Part Two)

brosedshield: Plot, Gore, Torture, Explosions, the Director, John, Dean’s Dialogue/Narration, Amazing Word Count Production (Part One)

Disclaimer
We don't own Sam, Dean, or any of the other SPN characters, objects, or ideas. (Nor Nancy Reagan.) Rebecca and Kayla, though, we are very pleased to claim.

Acknowledgements
First off, we would like to thank each other, without whom this story would never have been written. Seriously, neither of us could have done it alone.

Second, we share enormous gratitude to whereupon, our amazing spectacular beta. She is so supportive, encouraging, and has an amazing turnaround time. :D Also, thank you mimblexwimble for first giving us initial feedback.

Third, the concept for this fic was first inspired by another - the Branded Yours series by feather_touch, which is also about the boys being unrelated, Sam growing up somewhere nasty as he's been identified at an early age as a type of monster, and Dean eventually riding in to save him. There the similarities end. We both read the fic and started talking about what it would be like to really explore a world where Sam grew up like that...and since we found sufficient evil in our souls, we decided to write it. At length.

Brose would also like to acknowledge every crappy romance novel she has ever read both for the cliches, and for giving her a burning desire to make it make sense.

Additionally, she would like to credit another fic that was NOT a crappy romance novel: It's Always the End of the World Somewhere by dachinchilla, which is Dean/Cas (of all things) and a high school AU. Beautiful story, and one of the first truly excellent slash fics Brose encountered, so it has greatly inspired her as we wrote this.

And thank you, matitablu, for pasting the text onto the picture of our awesome first journal header (now located in the profile)! Thank you, whereupon, for being as brilliant as a writer and beta as you are in making our second journal header for Part Two. :)

( WARNINGS - MANDATORY TO READ BEFORE BEGINNING THE STORY )

Now that you are thoroughly warned - Enjoy!

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Timestamp: Still Life, by whereupon

2019-01-30T23:11:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Another story from whereupon! And one more to come after this one.

Title: Still Life
Author: whereupon
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Chronology: somewhere in their hunting life
Word count: 1,511

( Still Life )

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Timestamp: Witness, by whereupon

2019-01-26T23:01:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

You guys. The last chapter of Freak Camp has gone to the betas.

I'm in a pretty deep sense of shock, but fortunately have many FC-related projects ahead of me, like these timestamps from whereupon I'm about to share with you! There are two more after this one I'll be sharing over the coming week.

Title: Circle
Author: whereupon
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Chronology: somewhere in their hunting life
Word count: 966
Story notes: This came from a discussion we were having about the kind of rumors that might spread even to civilians after starting among the hunters who know about Dean and Sam and don't approve, to say the least.

( Circle )

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Timestamp: Circle, by whereupon

2019-01-03T23:02:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Happy New Year! We are VERY CLOSE to sending the final chapter to beta, you guys. We're on the last edit sweep and figuring out the very. last. lines. Which feels pretty momentous after eight years of writing this, as you might imagine, and worth taking the time to get right.

In the meantime, have a truly wonderful hurt/comfort timestamp from whereupon.

Title: Circle
Author: whereupon
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Chronology: somewhere in their hunting life
Word count: 3,362

( Circle )

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Timestamp: The Lightning, the Thunder by whereupon

2018-10-28T21:53:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Happy Halloween! Here is another lovely atmospheric timestamp from whereupon.

Title: The Lightning, the Thunder
Author: whereupon
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Chronology: somewhere in their hunting life
Word count: 1,800

( The Lightning, the Thunder )

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Timestamp: Sing an American Tune, by lavinialavender

2018-10-23T23:26:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Believe it or not, this is a story I had outlined and half-written a few years ago, and it unexpectedly became much more relevant in the last few months. I desperately wanted to finish it weeks ago, but it also got really hard to write, for reasons I think you may understand.

Nevertheless, here it is, the story that some (::cough:: my dear co-author) said could not be written! And then she came through for me in the final stage of editing and put the same excellent work she puts into our chapters, including some turns of phrase that all her own, so I have to give her a good deal of the credit, too.

Please read to the end for a special Closing Note and present as well!

Title: Sing an American Tune
Author: lavinialavender
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: way too much relevance to RL news right now, ugh
Chronology: vaguely outside the chronology of Part Two Chapters 38-39
Word count: 4,304
Credit: Thanks to brosedshield, whereupon, onlythefireborn, sylvia_locust, and firesign10 for the excellent feedback.

( Sing an American Tune )

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Part Two: Chapter Forty (2 of 2)

2018-09-01T00:02:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Part 1 of Chapter Forty

( Part 2 of Chapter Forty )

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Part Two: Chapter Forty (1 of 2)

2018-09-01T00:01:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Second-to-last chapter! Holy shit, this was an incredibly difficult one.

Please see the intro post for information and warnings.

Chapter rating: R
Specific warnings: graphic references to child sex abuse and rape
Word count: 11,997
Beta thanks: Thank you so much to whereupon, anotheroracle, firesign10, and sylvia_locust, all of whom improved our story in different ways, but I have to give a special shout-out this time to firesign10, who alone saved us from calling Bobby "Bobbly" in the middle of a very serious scene.

Important author note: Hey, we just made a mailing list! Subscribe here if you want to hear about our future projects, including possible original-fic adaptations of Freak Camp! We promise not to spam. Seriously, these updates are not going to be be super frequent, unless MANY AWESOME THINGS happen in a row.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

( Chapter Forty )

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New fanart by a new artist!

2018-08-21T22:57:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Beloved readers (and I have never meant that more; your responses to my soapbox posts on Current Events were overwhelmingly positive and amazing, you just blow me away and we are so lucky to have you engaged with our story), the penultimate chapter of Part Two has gone to beta! And I have a much-delayed earlier gift to share with you all now.

My longtime friend oliviacordray is not actually a reader of Freak Camp, as our subject matter is not her cup of tea (an entirely fair response for many, many people), but despite that, she recently blessed me with an illustration of my choice! And she is familiar with the boys from Show, which gave her some connection to the characters.

I requested one of my favorite scenes, which happens to be in Chapter 30 (the one where Dean is blinded by a witch):

Then the door swung open, and Sam called, “Hey, Dean.”

Dean sat back down on the bed, but he couldn’t force himself to look any more relaxed. Sam was back, but Dean couldn’t see him, couldn’t check how he moved or even if he had a huge-ass bandage around his head, or if some potato-faced creature had just stolen Sam’s voice and memories and was about to rip Dean’s throat out. Paranoid? Sure, but he couldn’t rule out the possibility, because nothing was impossible when it came to Winchester luck.

“Hey,” Sam said again, closer yet quieter, and goddammit, Dean actually jumped when Sam touched his hand. Then the mattress dipped, and Sam tightened his grip. “You okay?”

Dean tried for an easy laugh. Not even he could pretend it worked. Without thinking, he reached for Sam’s face.

As I said when she first shared it: This scene/moment has long been a favorite of mine, and I’ve yearned to see it illustrated, and I’m just SO damn lucky to have amazing artists as friends who contribute their time and talent to making that dream come true. <333

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Timestamp: Wayside, by whereupon

2018-07-31T23:55:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Another present that is not the next chapter, sorry not sorry, because it is a REALLY QUITE EXCELLENT timestamp from whereupon!

Title: Wayside
Author: whereupon
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: allusions to homophobia, racism, suicide, but nothing outside what you get in any episode of Show (besides, of course, Sam and Dean kissing)
Chronology: somewhere after Chapter 37 (Sam is at least 21)
Word count: 5,362
Notes: This is a lovely traditional hunt story that whereupon wrote for my birthday, and it was a wonderful present indeed. Enjoy!

( Wayside )

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Preview of Part Two: Chapter Forty

2018-07-22T23:59:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Happy summer to everyone in the northern hemisphere! So, guess what, I turned thirty (30!) this weekend, and it blows my mind I've been writing this story since I was a 22-year-old baby. I don't know how we did it, but we definitely had more time to write back then and certainly never dreamed we'd still be writing this into our thirties.

The chapter (the second-to-last one for Part Two) is nearing completion, but it's taken so much longer than anyone should have to wait, so we wanted to give you a small gift to tide you over. It's the opening scene of the next chapter, and pretty disconnected to everything that follows, so it works well on its own.

Before I do, indulge me as I make an addendum to my last post, because I had this draft in progress and even though I don't think it perfectly articulates what I'm trying to say, I'd rather share what I have than none of it:

I'd like to address the response of "disappointed you're choosing to be political" directly.

There is nothing more political than deciding who's human and who isn't. Who's entitled to due process, humane treatment, civil and human rights, and who gets none of those things. Whose children can be taken away indefinitely by the government for no cause other than who they or their parents are or their struggle to survive in a world that wants to kill them.

Our story has always been a story about what America does when it's scared, and how that manifests is innately political. Politics permitted and enabled the construction of Freak Camp, paid for the gas that runs the ASC vans, budgeted the guards' salaries out of taxpayer money. We make no apologies for the manifestation of politics in our story, or for stepping outside the fiction world we created to point to the real children being hurt right now, every day, in ways they were not before, by the government that is supposed to represent us.

And I would note in all the words our story contains, we've never named a political party at work, or even to which party Jonah Campbell is registered or how he votes. That is all beside the point.

Political parties change names and values over time, but the struggle to decide who's human and who is not is an eternal one, certainly going back to the first days of this country, and there is nothing more important, at the end of the day.

And now I am OFF the soapbox, thank you for your time. On to the chapter preview! Enjoy! (Not a single beta has seen this yet, you have been warned.)

( Preview of Chapter Forty )

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Timestamp: Appellation, by whereupon

2018-06-21T00:27:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

And now I have a most excellent present for you all, to tide you over until the next chapter!

Title: Appelation
Author: whereupon
Rating: R
Warnings: Verbal threats of the type you would hear in Freak Camp
Chronology: a little before Chapter 37 (i.e., Sam is around 20)
Word count: 8,323
Notes: This started from a conversation about how far Dean would go to get Sam back, if someone dared refuse to cooperate in helping him, and Dean had reason to fear the worst.

In addition, whereupon made a PLAYLIST for this fic, specifically for the coda at the end! She called it "Mary's 'listening to while driving my kid around to get him to fall asleep' mix."

( Appellation )

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Status update and the News

2018-06-14T23:25:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Hi everyone! Status update: we are editing the next chapter. It has taken longer than planned not only because of the usual unexpected ways life hits you like a truck, but also belatedly realizing these last two chapters have literally ALL THE EMOTIONS, including stuff we've never yet dealt with in this story, all packed in! It is A Lot and we want to do it justice.

It has also gotten harder to give Freak Camp our undivided attention because of the News, which is striking home with our overly-long but much-loved fanfic in a way I never ever expected and definitely never wanted.

Look, when we started this story nearly eight years ago, in the oh-so-innocent year 2010, I thought the parallels to current American atrocities began and ended with Guantanamo Bay. The bigger influence was, of course, thinking of the Holocaust camps during WWII.

And then last week I find myself watching footage of my senator trying to enter a facility with blacked-out windows, where reportedly hundreds of children are being kept after my government forcibly took them away from their families, and I almost lost my mind.

At some point last year, I realized that the (so-called) President talks like a Freak Camp guard. And I think I already observed how our recent chapters (including one, funnily enough, about horrific scandals involving state-sanctioned violence against children that wake up the country!) are just surreal to write now, despite how we mapped them out years ago.

But now every day I'm reading about atrocities that are closer and closer to what we've written, and it makes me want to run screaming into the sea. This is not fun. I do not enjoy these parallels.

Writing these last two chapters is going to be cathartic in a way I never expected them to be, but it will not be near enough. Nothing will be, in fiction alone. So I've set up a recurring donation that's split between a bunch of not-for-profit groups dedicated to helping the kids and families now detained at the border (or consider the Young Center for Immigrant Children's Rights and the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services), and I hope you will too. Even if it's just a few dollars a month, it will help so much if we all do it together.

And (more directly to fellow Americans here) make sure you're registered to VOTE in November! Vote these Freak Camp-wannabe motherfuckers out.

Thank you.

-Lavinia (with Brose co-signing this)

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Timestamp: Fucking freaks (Victor/Kayla/Crusher torture!porn)

2018-02-17T18:58:00Z

Posted by: brosedshield.livejournal.com

Title: Fucking freaks
Author: brosedshield
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: All promises about no gratuitous violence does not apply to this fic. This fic is pure torture!porn. It contains explicit vaginal and anal rape of a child and the unrepentant horrific headspace of rapists and sadists. Please DO NOT read if you have the briefest shadow of a doubt that that would be something you want to read. If you are new and not sure what horror happened even when there wasn’t any GRATUITOUS violence and porn, please see full list here.
Spoilers: sometime before Chapter 26
Pairing: Victor/Kayla (Dream)/Crusher
Timestamp word count: 2352
Summary/Notes: The one redeeming (and it doesn't really redeem it, honestly) aspect of this fic is an analysis of Victor’s and Crusher's characters and their relationship. They are two horrible people and they enable each other. Kayla is in this fic because she is a named character of FC, and the author is evil. As far as Victor and Crusher are concerned, she could have been substituted for any number of victims.

If you want a brief summary of the character development points I consciously explored in this fic...check out the first comment to this post. Again, DO NOT read this fic if torture!porn is not your thing, or at least vaguely on the horizon of your possible things. Thank you, and read safely!( When Victor entered the break room after a particularly cold, fast round of the camp... )

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Part Two: Chapter Thirty-Nine

2018-02-09T23:35:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

To those still with us: THANK YOU. This is the third to last chapter.

Please see the intro post for information and warnings.

Chapter rating: NC-17
Specific warnings: graphic references to child sex abuse and rape
Word count: 8,559
Beta thanks: Thank you so much to whereupon, anotheroracle, firesign10, and sylvia_locust, for excellent feedback. All remaining errors and weirdness are our own.
Art credit: All hail quickreaver for contributing her time and talent once again, bringing our story to another level of quality.

Important author note: Hey, we just made a mailing list! Subscribe here if you want to hear about our future projects, including possible original-fic adaptations of Freak Camp! We promise not to spam. Seriously, these updates are not going to be be super frequent, unless MANY AWESOME THINGS happen in a row.

Chapter note: Like with the last chapter, we planned the events in this chapter seven years ago, and yet they end up being weirdly prescient for these days.

Proceed with caution. This chapter takes you back to Freak Camp.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

( Chapter Thirty-Nine )

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Timestamp: Rumble by whereupon

2017-12-23T19:51:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Title: Rumble
Chronology: Part Two, somewhere between Chapter 37 and 38 (i.e., Sam is in his early twenties)
Author: whereupon
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Word count: 2,570
Notes (by Lavinia): This timestamp is something like a sequel to one I wrote: Dean Winchester vs. Sarah McLachlan, and I like it much better.

( Rumble )

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Timestamp: Flaw by whereupon

2017-12-23T19:26:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Happy holidays, all!

The next chapter is nearing completion, but unfortunately won't be here by the end of the year (it's quite a bit longer than the last few). Instead, we have a couple timestamps by our longtime beta, whereupon.

Title: Flaw
Chronology: Part Two, somewhere between Chapter 37 and 38 (i.e., Sam is in his early twenties)
Author: whereupon
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Word count: 1,230
Summary: It was good, all the way up until they left the room.
Notes (by Lavinia): This timestamp is a wonderful mirror to one of the first ones whereupon wrote for us, which I recommend re-reading. They are two different takes on the theme of triggers in a diner.

( Flaw )

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Part Two: Chapter Thirty-Eight

2017-10-27T22:35:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Please see the intro post for information and warnings.

Chapter rating: PG-13
Specific warnings: gun violence, child death, shameless defenses of a corrupt national security state
Word count: 4,482
Beta thanks: Thank you so much to whereupon, anotheroracle, and sylvia_locust, for excellent feedback. All remaining errors and weirdness are our own.
Art credit: Many, many, many thanks to quickreaver for working us into her packed schedule. We are so lucky that she chooses to spend time illustrating our story instead of another better deserving and more profitable project.
Chapter note: This chapter kicks off our END GAME plotline. You may not believe us, but we decided on the events in these final five chapters back in 2010/2011, when the world and future looked very different to us in America. Yes, most of the scenes are only being written in full now, and the events of this year certainly influence our choice of details, but we sketched out these final events seven years ago. It feels pretty damn surreal to be writing it now.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

( Chapter Thirty-Eight )

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Part Two: Chapter Thirty-Seven

2017-07-11T01:19:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

WHAT'S THIS? A chapter update on a NON-FRIDAY? Well guess what, I am MOVING on Friday, so you get the chapter NOW.

By the way, I don't think I ever addressed the latest LJ ToS update and unsettling Russian activities everywhere, but if you're still here just to read our story: we also exist on AO3. We will continue posting chapters here until we are shut down -- but the good news is that we have six (6!) chapters left, by our best estimate (give or take no more than two), and they are all going up in the remaining months of 2017 if we can possibly wrangle it. They are already pretty far along, and we are determined.

Please see the intro post for information and warnings.

Chapter rating: PG-13
Specific warnings: references to unhealthy drinking habits
Word count: 5,244
Beta thanks: Thank you so much to whereupon, onlythefireborn, and sylvia_locust, for excellent feedback. All remaining errors and weirdness are our own.
Chapter note: This is our biggest jump yet (three years!), hold on.

Chapter Thirty-Six

( Chapter Thirty-Seven )

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Part Two: Chapter Thirty-six

2017-02-03T20:27:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Please see the intro post for information and warnings.

Chapter rating: R
Specific warnings: references to sexual trauma and sexual violence
Word count: 6,534
Beta thanks: Thank you so much to whereupon, onlythefireborn, sylvia_locust, and firesign10 for excellent feedback. All remaining errors and weirdness are our own.
Art credit: All praise to quickreaver for providing the gorgeous artwork. We are so lucky to inspire her.

Chapter Thirty-Five

( Chapter Thirty-Six )

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Preview of Chapter 36

2016-12-23T21:12:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Happy holidays!!!

I wish I could share the cranberry-nut cookies I just made with all of you, but due to the restrictions of the internet and geography and space, I will have to settle instead for sharing close to half of the next chapter with you. And it should explain why we've had a hard time getting our head back into the chapter since the election.

But please enjoy, and comments make great gifts for authors!

Fair warning, the betas have not yet seen it. Also, warning for discussion of sexual trauma.

( Start of Chapter 36 )

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post-election status update

2016-12-01T22:55:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

So, the guy who talks and acts like a Freak Camp guard got elected president.

One of your co-authors (yours truly) is a hardcore political junkie, so there was a high level of distraction in the weeks (...and months) preceding the election. I was looking forward to regaining that time post-election. Suffice to say that did not happen.

Both of us have been reeling and struggling to find the energy to re-focus on the next chapter (which, you will see, is hilariously off-tone to the events of the world around us). But it is coming. There are only seven chapters left, as best we can estimate, and a lot of content is already written for several of them.

Brose and I agreed, in the weeks following 11/9, that we are going to finish this story even if the end of the world (in one sense or another) is coming. And we're going to have something of a writer's retreat for a few days this next week, as we are meeting again in person for the first time over 18 months (!) in Chicago, to see a certain hit musical by the name of HAMILTON. The weather will probably keep us indoors, and since neither work nor family or friends will be around to intrude, the chapter will be a priority.

We love you all. Stay safe, take care of yourselves and your loved ones. As this tweet says: be the woman hitting a Nazi with a handbag you wish to see in the world.

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Part Two: Chapter Thirty-Five

2016-09-05T23:04:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Please see the intro post for information and warnings.

Chapter rating: PG-13
Specific warnings: trauma and references to sex abuse of children
Word count: 7,254
Beta thanks: Thank you so much to whereupon, onlythefireborn, sylvia_locust, and firesign10 for excellent feedback. All remaining errors and weirdness are our own. So very much our own.

Chapter Thirty-Four

( Chapter Thirty-Five )

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Fanworks update

2016-08-01T22:04:00Z

Posted by: lavinialavender.livejournal.com

Belatedly, I have a couple things to share --

I was made aware that quickreaver's fanart for the last chapter wasn't visible to everyone, which is TERRIBLE. I believe I fixed the issue, but I'm sharing it again under the cut:

( Don't call me pretty )

Second: Hannah, a lovely fan over on AO3, made an 8track mix for our story!!! I am just CHUFFED. It's called "Safe is when I'm in your arms." Enjoy!

Third: we're about to begin the second editing sweep for Ch. 35, the last step before it goes to beta.

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