Roses in Rain, Chapter 10: It Ain't Me, Babe

Otherwise known as the chapter where Shit unexpectedly Gets Real. It ends on what I like to believe is a Wham Line, but that might just be authorial optimism (or, you know, egomania) speaking. Either way, this is where it becomes clear things are a lot nastier and the stakes far higher than the protagonists thought, and it's also about where we leave the outskirts of Parody and hang a left for Deconstruction Territory. I suppose someone had to try and deconstruct Mary Sues, and the amount of time and mental energy I've spent on poking various manifestations of the beast with sticks, I figure it might as well be me.

This is always where Roses in Rain was meant to go. Though acquaintance with rokesmith has definitely seen me refining and building on my original, rather sketchy ideas for the second half of the fanfic, the intention was always to try and tell an actual story in between the send-ups. That story? Was always going to be a lot darker than the rather light-hearted tone of the opening chapters might suggest. It's taken a lot longer than I thought it would to get there, but this is where the road was leading us from the start.

Rain is only funny because we don't have to live with her. To Youji and Ken, she's no more than faintly amusing. Here's where we start finding out why.