Chapter 1

Note: I know this might be a sensitive subject, but this is not aimed at anyone, everything is solely for plot purposes. Also, the pennames were entirely made up to fit the characters, so if I accidentally 'got' one of yours, let me know and I will alter them right away. Have fun ;)

From his seat in the front rows, Ludwig scowled openly at the Universal Literature teacher, Mr. Edelstein. Truth be told, the man's intentions had been nothing but pure when encouraging his students to discover the pleasures of creative writing and he obviously couldn't possibly predict to what extent this whole thing would degenerate. And he wasn't even aware of it either.

A few months before, Ludwig had decided to follow the advice himself and so he had discovered what was, apparently, a very popular fanfiction site. They even had a section for his favorite anime – StreetLampFairyTale, and so he'd begun reading and leaving reviews at first, then trying his own hand at a couple of short stories. They had been well received too, so his interest in it grew steadily. He'd also been encouraged by the discovery that other two top students in his literature class had the same passion, namely Elizaveta Hedervary and Kiku Honda.

Ludwig had sat behind the two on a couple of occasions, in different classes, and so he'd secretly discovered they were active on the same fanfiction site as he and they had a joint account where they co-authored stories under the penname ninjafryingpangirl. Of course, it had never crossed his mind to ever approach such a sensitive and… personal subject with the two of them (because it was a personal subject, Ludwig writing romance fanfiction was not something to be ever disclosed, to anyone alive!) and he'd never read any of their fics either, since they had only written for fandoms he was unfamiliar with.

So things were great until three days before, when something terrible had happened and now his little world of dreaming, creativity and word magic was irremediably tainted.

A new author had popped up in his fandom and had posted a chapter of absolute infamy. The 'story' - if it could be called that – was indescribable in its atrocity against his favorite characters, who had become the subject of 7000+ words of something so very explicit that Ludwig had to mostly skim through it, cheeks ablaze with indignation (and not only). He had seethed silently in front of his laptop for a good half an hour afterwards, before realizing it could all be fixed and sighing in relief.

The damn piece of garbage was in blatant breach of the site's posting rules, which meant it could be reported! Ludwig was also active on a forum for the fandom and if enough people there were to support him in this endeavor, they could send an email to the admins reporting it together. And since his anger had cooled off a little bit, he decided to leave an anonymous but very polite warning to the author (caramel_mafioso, what kind of stupid penname was that, anyway!):

Anon - Fiction MA is not allowed on this site. The Fiction M rating is for the implied or a short non-descriptive moment between the characters. Graphic descriptions for foreplay, masturbation, oral, and penetration/thrusting falls under the MA rating which isn't allowed here (as stated in bright red in the Rules & Regulations section.) There are other sites to post explicit content on if you find the rules here unfavorable.

Civil enough, right? Only the following night, instead of finding the offending story deleted, he saw with absolute dread that it had been updated with a new chapter! Not only that, but at the end of it caramel_mafioso had left the following author notes:

"Ohhh, thank you guys so much for the support, I really didn't think I'd get so many reviews, follows and favorites from the first chap! (to his horror, only now Ludwig saw how many people had actually given positive feedback to this unsavory character!) To anon reviewer: if you want anyone to take you seriously, get an account and log in next time, you nine-year old troll."

Ludwig had been so mortified by this brutal reply – which had felt like a slap in the face – that until now he'd been unable to react to it at all. Homework pilling up had also prevented him for getting on the forum and bringing up the problem, but now as the Austrian teacher kept explaining something in his emphatic manner which the blond suddenly found extremely irritating, he made a drastic decision.

Whipping out his phone, he went straight to the review page of the blasted 'story' and left the following anon comment on the latest update:

Anon - You have a lot of nerve insulting commenters who give you a heads up about the rules simply because they gave you warnings to the rules that YOU AGREED TO before posting! As if you know them personally!? It sounds more like YOU are a child throwing a tantrum because someone told you you can't do something! Not only does this make you look childish and hypocritical, I also get the feeling you want pity reviews in order to further increase your review count, which you don't deserve anyway! How dare you treat people so awfully just because you didn't like something some individuals do, or have said. Especially if you don't know them! Also, I strongly advise you to take down this awful crap you've been shamelessly shoving in everyone's face or I WILL have it reported!

Cooled off somewhat, he pressed the Send button and tossed his phone on the desk, sighing. At least he'd given it straight to the little bastard (although it was probably a girl, it was usually girls writing this sort of sordid crap). Some ten minutes passed in peace, during which the blond began to diligently take notes, after which a loud gasp came from somewhere in the back of the classroom.

"FUCK! Someone trolled my fi-" a shocked voice exclaimed, the outburst quickly muffled. Then someone else laughed and said 'Serves you right, idiot!'.

Ludwig turned his head abruptly, plagued by a sudden horrible suspicion, but saw nothing but straight faces until finally being met with Ivan Braginski's slightly disturbing smile directed straight at him and there it stopped, because he couldn't see past Ivan's solid frame further back. He resumed his position with a scowl and a shudder creeping down his spine. What the fuck?! It wasn't Ivan, was it?! No way, the penname didn't match Ivan and he could hardly imagine the Russian being up to such a shit. Still, he'd heard what he'd heard and unless this was some crazy coincidence (and Ludwig didn't believe in coincidences) that bastard was also one of his classmates.

Still, the day passed without him finding out who the person was and the next morning threw an even more appalling surprise his way. caramel_mafioso had not dared to update again, but there was a new story in his fandom by none other than ninjafryingpangirl and the innocent, unsuspecting Ludwig had decided to give it a try in good faith, with some excitement even, considering he actually knew the authors. And he'd always thought Lizzy and Kiku were both perfectly nice, polite and decent people, but he was sorely proven otherwise upon being confronted with their virtual creation. The sheer amount of… graphic obscenity he was met with over no less than five pages in one shot made his hair stand on end.

And this atrocity too had also gathered a record amount of comments, some stupid user going as far as to point out that it was about time someone had finally brought some real spice to this fandom. He further went on to discover that ninjafryingpangirl and caramel_mafioso had left each other long and highly praising reviews, mentioning 'vivid description of feelings', 'realistic narrative flow', 'richness of attributes', 'a great attention to details' and other such things that made Ludwig want to throw his laptop out the window. How dared they, the shameless bastards?! Anyway, both their stories were noncompliant af, so he wasn't going to let this slide a minute longer!

After quickly copy-pasting the initial warning he'd given the other culprit on Liz and Kiku's review page as well, he went on the fandom's forum and, with a mixture of further indignation and secret satisfaction, discovered that both ninjafryingpangirl and caramel_mafioso were active there too - they'd each left a few innocent introductory lines which misleadingly betrayed nothing of their actual foulness.

Gritting his teeth, the German typed the following post:

silver_eagle: Fellow authors and readers, please bear in mind that this site doesn't allow the posting of MA rated stories! Frankly it saddens and upsets me to see that our fandom has been invaded by this kind of work, so please refrain from posting or encouraging such material! If we don't stick to the rules, then we have no respect for this fandom and for this site!

Unknowingly, he'd made a fatal mistake because in the course of the next six hours all Hell broke loose.

The three stories he'd posted so far were riddled with anonymous flames, throwing appalling insults at both his work and his person. But the worst thing by far was the review he got from the infamous caramel_mafioso themselves on his latest update.

caramel_mafioso: I'll give you this – you've got a good plot going and I didn't see any contradictions or loose ends so far. Also, there are enough descriptions, the characters are well built and their interaction is realistic and natural enough for most of the time. BUT. You have so more work to do when it comes to writing romantic scenes, the characters must show actual emotion worth putting into words and less… stiffness if I may say so. Actually, I advise you to avoid writing experiences you've never had, the result can't possibly be too good. I hope this is helpful.

THE FUCKER! Okay, so partially this kind of… maybe… made sense and this person wasn't a complete idiot or an illiterate, Ludwig would give them that, but this didn't make them less of a fucking shameless incubus! And the comment hurt like hell.

After spending some good fifteen minutes just staring at the comment with narrowed eyes and boiling in silence, the blond cracked his knuckles and retaliated on the forum.

silver_eagle: I see that some authors on this forum purposely continue to disregard the friendly warnings made to them and update their stories despite being in flagrant breach of regulations. I'm looking at you ninjafryingpangirl and caramel_mafioso!

To be continued