Home Part 3-C

[tamakito]

Spoilers: Up to 2.22
Warnings: Kidnapping, violence, ableism, homophobia, physical abuse by a caretaker, a smidgen of Stockholm's, serious injury, tertiary character death.
Rating: R
Word Count: Whole fic: 52, 000; Part 3: 23, 340
Disclaimer: RIB and FOX own everything ever.
Beta: rdm-ation

1A | 1B | 2A | 2B | 3A | 3B | 3C

This prompt. If Will wants a

Comments

[ellydash]

God. I just. Wow.

A link to this popped up on my tumblr dash, and I'm so, so glad, because otherwise I might not have seen it and then read it and I would've been missing out on something seriously great. This made me nauseous and shaky and upset and I'm still glad I read it, and that is a testament to what a good job you did with this premise. The tension you sustain here is especially fantastic; my heart was in my mouth during the entire last part. Terri was just the right mix of terrifyingly psychotic and pathetic, and even though I never empathized with her, I was able to understand why she did what she did. Rachel made my heart break throughout this entire fic, especially here:

But Terri smelled nice, she was soft against Rachel’s side and she was teaching her to sew, and - they had to humor her anyway - and she kissed Rachel’s cheek when she did well and her lipstick felt sticky on Rachel’s face, and… it wasn’t terrible. It didn’t hurt like Shelby did.

That, to me, was the saddest part of this by far (maybe only outweighed by Rachel trying to keep her poker face, and thinking that was silly, and then realizing why it wasn't).

I also really loved how you used Emma and Sue -- your Sue, by the way, was especially wonderful, and got me laughing when I really needed a laugh. In the end, what made this so powerful for me were those little moments that rang so true to the characters: Sue explaining to Emma that she needs Will just as much as Emma needs him; Finn planning a party with The Wizard of Oz napkins because he knows Kurt and Rachel will like it for different reasons; Rachel and Kurt planning what they'll do once they get free.

Tl;dr: thanks for breaking my heart so skillfully, and for writing this.

[tamakito]

Goddamn you person how did you even do this, like, you'd read this whole ridiculous thing as soon as it was even posted, I want your mad skills.

SO BUT IN MORE IMPORTANT NEWS OMG THANK YOU SO MU-U-U-UCH basically just sobbing right now because this, obviously, took me rather a long time to write, and lol by the end I pretty much had convinced myself that it sucked anyway, so you are basically my kiss of life rn. I AM GLAD YOU SAW THAT LINK ALSO BECAUSE HOLY SWEET HELL. This is an awesome comment.

SO BUT TO BE SPECIFIC, whoa, okay, I'm sorry it made you nauseous and shaky! I mean I meant it to be upsetting but damn, I'm sorry about that part! OVERKILL, ADI. So I'm extra tickled you're still glad to have read it, and I'm just over the moon you got Terri and felt for Rachel, esp. in those two parts, which I quite enjoyed writing but didn't think anyone would really... notice, I guess? I have a lot of Rachel/parent feelings, idk idk.

And I'm so happy you liked Emma and Sue! Ugh I meant for them to be in it so much morrrrre, the adults did not get enough play here. OH WELL TIME LIMITS FTW, would never have finished else lol.

SO LIKE. I am mad pleased you liked those little moments and that you liked the FIC and that you left me this beautiful comment and no THANK YOU.

[ellydash]

Haha, I think it was one of those things where the link was posted right after you posted the fic? And I saw the link right away and started reading? And I literally read for a living so I'm really good at doing it fast. :D

No but that feeling you get after you work super hard on a fic (especially a fic this long -- I've never written anything over 20k words but I can imagine how much effort and energy and time this thing took, holy cow) and you're waiting to see how it went over and you don't know yet -- that feeling is not fun. So I'm happy I got to be that first person for you that lets you know you did awesomely! Because you did. :DDDD Oh, and don't be sorry for my reaction to it! Like, I don't know, if I didn't have that kind of reaction I'd be sort of worried about myself? Because, idk, I feel like a fic dealing with this sort of thing should elicit that kind of response, or something close to it.