z

Young Writers Society


18+ Language

There's a Fine Line Chapter 1.1 (Swearing warning)

by zaminami


Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language.

**Tom's PoV**

Tord gave me the biggest shit-eating grin on his face at me, slowly inching towards a big red button in the middle of the stark-white secret lab. “Alright, alright, you got me,” he sighed in his cringy Norwegian accent, still not giving up the (slightly insane) smile. “I only came back to get something I left behind.”

“Left behind... what?” I asked in my own deep British voice, my “eyes” arching into a puzzled look. An accident when I was three had left me with no eyes but the ability to still see.

I was a little scared at what Tord was implying, to be honest. The commie bastard is known to be an arsonist, a sharpshooter, a man who likes weapons in general.

Tord’s smile turned to a smirk as he brought his fist down on said button and some mechanisms clanked and jingled. I held my breath as a large, metal box came down, opened up and...

Revealed the ugly golden hat the commie wore when we joined the army.

“My hat!” Tord shouted, stating the obvious, as the hat plopped down on his head.

I held my finger in front of me in confusion, my face no doubt scrunched in a puzzled way. “... oh.” I had expected more.

“What were you expecting?” Tord laughed in his crazy cackle. “Besides, it goes really well with my giant robot.”

I laughed, thinking he was joking, until I realized he wasn’t. “Wait, WHAT?”

He stepped to a glass tube that had rose to the floor. I knew I had to do something, and fast. I ran up and shoved him, throwing him to the floor with him groaning in pain. “WHAT THE HELL?” I shouted at him. “A giant robot?! What are you thinking? After all Edd and Matt did to forgive you - well, mostly Edd, but that’s not the point - and you repay them by betraying them with a giant robot? What is wrong with you!”

“Well, Thomas, the world isn’t going to take over itself!” Tord cackled.

“FUCK taking over the world!” I screamed at him, thankful that Edd and Matt were still at the grocer’s. “Why would you do that anyway? Your family is here, Tord! That’s all you would need! Your family, your friends.

"Power is stupid. It never gets you anywhere, except drag into even more darkness. Believe me, I would know. Why would you even think that you could get anywhere in life acting like this?” Tord managed to stand up after the painful blow of me shoving him down, opening his mouth to say some smart-ass comment. I growled at him and blocked the button. “You know Tord, I was actually thinking about giving you a second chance. I thought that maybe you have changed from the selfish, disgusting, condescending, and conceited creature you really were. Maybe you had changed from this horrible person who would shoot someone in a moment’s notice.

“But it turns out I was wrong. You’re the same guy. Yes, you were slightly all of the personality traits I had just mentioned, but it was extremely subdued. But this turn of action? This shows me that you are all of those things in full. But I can add a few more things to the list. You are sly, conniving, corrupt, evil, even.”

These words are obviously hitting Tord hard. He looked hurt and actually stumbled back when I said the word "evil." Good. The commie deserves it.

“No wonder I would never be friends with you.” I punched him. “No wonder you had to have adoptive parents.” I punched him again. “No wonder your only ‘friends’ took you in because they were just happy to have everyone together again, or out of sympathy.” I punched him a third time. He was just taking the blows. “No wonder you were forced to move from Norway.” I kept punching him with every sentence. “No wonder that, to make a statement in the world, you had to become a wanted man of the very enemy we were forced to defeat when we joined the army.

“No wonder nobody loves you. Sure as hell I wouldn’t ever.”

Tord winced and buried his head in his hands, sinking to the floor of his own accord. He fell to his knees and onto the ground, making a noise like he was sobbing. I huffed and left the secret lab, knowing he could easily reach the button. I unlocked my closet and rummaged inside of it with my tongue sticking out, keeping an eye on the commie. I won’t risk anything. My hand hit the thing I was looking for and I smiled, pulling out the hammer that was a remnant of when we "fixed" the house.

I swung the handle of the hammer around and around, whistling as I did so. I walked to the button and lifted the hammer up. Tord looked up from his hands, eyes wide and puffy from crying. Interesting. I then swung the hammer, smashing the button’s control panel. The smashed glass tube – or what was left of it, anyhow – retreated to whence it came.

“There,” I sighed. “No more giant robot.”

Tord buried his face into his hands, shaking. A mumbled “thank you” emanated from him. Thank you? Thank you? From the man who betrayed us, who tricked us, lied to us, deceived us?! Yeah right. I pivoted on my heel, my checkered Vans squeaking against the white tile, and started to walk away when I felt something wrap around my ankle a bit violently. I looked down, seeing a familiar commie hand. I rolled my eyes.

“What do you want, commie?” I snapped.

“Don’t leave me here with them,” he whimpered.

I became alarmed. “What are them?” I asked him. Ohshitohshitohshitohshit don’t let it be a creepy stalker, I thought. I canNOT have that happen to me again.

This was referring to the time, when I was in middle school, where I had a stalker. She left sappy love notes on my locker and I always felt like I was being watched in school and when I was going somewhere not in the house. Actually, that’s what prompted me to become an introvert. To make myself used to being alone so I wouldn’t have to deal with the feelings of eyes following me around all the time.

“You... can’t hear them?” Tord asked, clearly confused.

“...no? I can’t? Hear what?”

“The voices,” Tord said, in a low whisper.

Oh shit, even worse. Voices? That explains the weird mumbling he would do, and the crazy look in his eyes. That also explains the power craze... right? Voices usually make people have some sort of power craze, at least according to the mystery books I used to read when I was in 5th grade.

“Voices? Tord…”

“I hear them all the time,” Tord confessed softly, looking up at me with wide sad eyes. “When I wake up, they whisper in my ear to kill so-and-so or to give this order or do this to become powerful. They claim that the only way to make a statement on the world is to take over it. They follow me throughout the entire day, telling me these things and trying to make me do them. In my dreams, they take the form of shadows, whispering in the dark about what I should do the next day.” He looked truly scared. “I don’t want to listen to them, but my brain does. That’s what scares me. I can’t control myself listening to them. I’ve watched myself pull out a gun and shoot someone. Even then, I listened to myself talk and I watched myself almost kill you with that giant robot, just because the voices told me to.” He started to cry again. “I’m scared, Thomas. I’m scared! Help me, please.” His voice had dropped to a whisper with that last phrase.

I took pity on him. It was pretty obvious he wasn’t lying and, for some reason, I was getting flashes of him, with a hard look on his face, shooting someone and then locking himself in his room, shouting at himself to snap out of it. I had another vision of him smiling and saluting to his soldiers, mentally chastising himself for being so evil. One last image showed before my eyes of him curled up in his room after one of our fights, angry at me for calling him ‘commie.’ “I’m not one, I’m not,” he whispered. “It’s them.”

The visions disappeared and I shook my head. I could just write them off as delusions, but they felt so real. I decided to look into it later, to figure out why exactly this was happening to me.

I shook myself mentally as I realized what I just felt. What the actual hell, Tom? Tord is a monster! But… he looked so scared, and real – not like the lying commie he usually is – and he was gripping onto me so hard that I didn’t believe he was faking it. I decided to take pity on him. It’s not like I couldn’t take him down later.

I crouched down and slid my arms under his own, hugging him tightly. Tord shivered in surprise, but hugged me back tightly and burrowed his face into the crook of my neck. I had to admit, it actually kinda felt good. He sobbed into my shoulder and I sighed, looking the crying commie over one last time before I picked him up bridal style. Tord gasped in surprise.

“I’m taking you to the living room,” I explained. “So you can lay on the couch. The floor is cold and uncomfortable.”

Tord shot me a dazzling, crooked smile. “Okay,” he said, hoarse from all the crying he did. I smiled too, since I couldn’t resist. I probably just saved his – and the rest of our – lives. And I felt good about it.

A/N: Yes, Tom swears a lot. Sorry if you don't like swearing. Chapter 1.2 will be in Tord's PoV, so this'll be interesting, haha. -- Kara


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Tue Sep 19, 2017 4:16 am
Casanova wrote a review...



Heya, DemonGoddess! GooseLuck here to do a review for you, so let's take flight, shall we?

The first thing I have to notice on this is the characters, which I'm finding interesting. And I know it's a fan fiction, but I don't know the original work either so I'll have to take all this and assume you changed the how the characters were or something to that extent, so bear with me.

For some reason I can tell that the characters are there and lively, but I feel like Tord is lacking something in this chapter? He goes from serious to smiling and crying and things like that, so I feel what he has is too many things going on and you're not focusing enough on a singular personality trait for him and I think that you could really do a lot if you would go into more detail about one or two traits at most. Anyway, onward.

“I hear them all the time,” Tord confessed softly, looking up at me with wide sad eyes. “When I wake up, they whisper in my ear to kill so-and-so or to give this order or do this to become powerful. They claim that the only way to make a statement on the world is to take over it. They follow me throughout the entire day, telling me these things and trying to make me do them. In my dreams, they take the form of shadows, whispering in the dark about what I should do the next day.” He looked truly scared. “I don’t want to listen to them, but my brain does. That’s what scares me. I can’t control myself listening to them. I’ve watched myself pull out a gun and shoot someone. Even then, I listened to myself talk and I watched myself almost kill you with that giant robot, just because the voices told me to.” He started to cry again. “I’m scared, Thomas. I’m scared! Help me, please.” His voice had dropped to a whisper with that last phrase.


Aye, here you have potential and yet you don't use it. Instead of just words, and instead of just saying,"he started to cry again," you have so much potential to add more emotion. Describe his shaking motions, describe is franticness, describe his pacing, describe things like that to not only say he's going through a lot, but to make sure it's ingrained in the reader that yeah he definitely is.

I think that's all I have to say on this one and I hope it helped.

Keep on doing what you're doing and keep on keeping on.

Sincerely, GooseLuck




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Fri Sep 15, 2017 11:20 pm
Mea wrote a review...



Hey there! I thought I'd drop by with a quick review today. I believe this is fanfiction, so I apologize in advance for not being familiar with the original work.

I like how you convey Tord and Tom's complicated relationship. I can really feel the history these two have. Tom in particular feels like a pretty round character - his anger and then his choice to show Tord mercy is definitely the high point of this opening chapter.

“Left behind... what?” I asked in my own deep British voice, my “eyes” arching into a puzzled look. An accident when I was three had left me with no eyes but the ability to still see.

Firstly, especially since the character is in the middle of an intense moment, it's really weird for him to randomly describe his voice as deep and British. Especially since most people, remember, don't think of themselves as having an accent because how they sound is normal to him. Tom would probably describe himself as being British, but wouldn't say he had a "British voice" unless specifically prompted.

Also, um, I'm about 100% sure it's completely impossible to have no eyes and still be able to see, unless you mean through some sort of psychic seeing or something, or unless his eyes were replaced with cool future tech, and if that's the case, then it'd be good for you to specify. Is this the official in-universe explanation for what happened? Because seriously, how does he see?

Actually, though, I can't decide whether you should give more detail throughout about the situation or not. I personally found everything to be moving too fast and to be extremely confusing. But, since this is fanfiction, the average reader will already be bringing a lot of context with them, and repeating stuff they already know will just slow the narrative down for them. So I'd recommend making a conscious decision about whether you want this to be accessible for new readers and/or readers who are a bit rusty on the details of the original story, and then either add or take out information based on that decision.

That being said, I think that, even for people who are familiar with this universe, you start this story too much in the middle of the action. It's just whiplash - it's an important scene, and presumably there was plenty of buildup to it in the original version, but since your readers are coming to this "cold," throwing them into the deep end (to mix metaphors) may be a little too intense. I'd suggest backing up a few scenes and starting there - then you can also seed foreshadowing for the differences you're putting into this AU.

Final nitpick - I feel like you could refine and condense some of the monologues.

Other than that, this was pretty great! Again, the characters were probably the strongest part, as well as Tom's decision at the end.




zaminami says...


Hello! Just wanted to clear up about Tom's eyes:

In Eddsworld, Tom is the anti-hero with BLACK eyes. Like, all black (search Tom EW and you'll see what I mean). To make the future of the story work, I made Tom have no eyes. However, the phenomenon is never explained.

For YWS I was going to write a chapter that explains exactly what had happened before, so the readers would understand what was going on fully :D so yeah, I was planning to do that later.

Thanks for the review! ~

Kara

PS: do you want me to tag you with future chapters? (I ask everyone this) thanks! :D



zaminami says...


Hello! Just wanted to clear up about Tom's eyes:

In Eddsworld, Tom is the anti-hero with BLACK eyes. Like, all black (search Tom EW and you'll see what I mean). To make the future of the story work, I made Tom have no eyes. However, the phenomenon is never explained.

For YWS I was going to write a chapter that explains exactly what had happened before, so the readers would understand what was going on fully :D so yeah, I was planning to do that later.

Thanks for the review! ~

Kara

PS: do you want me to tag you with future chapters? (I ask everyone this) thanks! :D



zaminami says...


OH NO IT PUT IT TWICE IM SO SORRY



Mea says...


It's fine, it happens. xD And I'll pass on being tagged for now, but I might dip in and out of this as I'm looking for things to review.



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Fri Sep 15, 2017 11:01 pm
Dracula wrote a review...



Hey there, Demongoddess! Dracula is here to review. :D I'll start of with a few nitpicks...

Tord gave me the biggest shit-eating grin on his face at me
This sentence could be cut in half. 'Gave me' and 'at me' say the same thing. Also, because Tord gives the grin, you don't need to tell me that it's on his face because I've already assume that. So, the sentence could be shortened to 'Tord gave me the biggest shit-eating grin'. Try not to 'waste words', because you want to use all the words you can to immerse and grab the reader.

I crouched down and slid my arms under his own, hugging him tightly. Tord shivered in surprise, but hugged me back tightly and burrowed his face into the crook of my neck.
Tord has a bit of a monologue like Tom, in that big paragraph where he's explaining about the voices. But that one seems a little forced. I've highlighted the above sentences to show how Tord shivers when Tom hugs him. Some little actions like that would be good within his speech, to show that he's struggling to reveal this information about himself. Because if it was so easy to let it all out, I find myself wondering why he hadn't done it before.

Now for the good stuff. Most of this is good, really. The major strength is your characters and all their emotions. There's a couple things I'll point out...

still not giving up the (slightly insane) smile.
I like how you inserted that extra detail in the brackets. It's a unique addition to Tom's character and I liked the added insight into his personality.

“You know Tord, I was actually thinking about giving you a second chance.
I thought you showed Tom's disappointment and anger very well. He gradually gets more and more frustrated until, in about the middle of this, he's practically giving a monologue. I don't think it seems forced at all, though, because I can imagine Tord watching in disbelief as Tom yells at him. You've written this part smoothly and convincingly, well done.

That's all from me. I'll head over to part II now. :D




zaminami says...


Thanks for the review fam :D

Do you want me to tag you when more stories come out?



Dracula says...


Yeah, I'd like to read it!



zaminami says...


Thanks :D I'll tag you when chapter 2.1 comes out



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Thu Sep 14, 2017 3:00 pm
AlexOfLight says...



So this is what could have happened.




zaminami says...


It's what DID happen lol

this is years in the future



AlexOfLight says...


It is the second half of The End part 2.



zaminami says...


YES IT IS I'M SO PROUD :D



AlexOfLight says...


In that part, Tord gets to the robot and a whole bunch of craziness happens, and Tord get's badly injured. That's what I meant.



zaminami says...


I know

I've watched The End many a time

But yes, this is my AU version :D

what happens after you will laugh. it's GREAT




Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others.
— Groucho Marx