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Fanfic / An Unexpected Child

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An Unexpected Child is a Superjail! For Want of A Nail Fan Fic co-authored by Cooljoe64 and our very own guardianemessiah. The plot revolves around the Mistress becoming pregnant with the Warden's child after the events of the season 1 episode "Ladies' Night". The fanfic is fifteen chapters long and, considering its wordcount to be over 15,000 words, could qualify as a Novelette.

The writing styles between the two authors are notably different. For example, while Cooljoe64's writing style is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, guardianemessiah (better known as Voltalia) writes with little to no errors at all and writes with wit and and sophisication. It should also be noted that before abandoning the fic, Cooljoe64 wrote the first four chapters (the last one Voltalia proofread for him). She then accepted to take over the fanfic from that point on.

Voltalia made a sequel to this fic called All in the Family, which is twenty-one chapters long. Word of God says both of these fanfics, as well as Passion Of The Guardiane, are going to be part of a trilogy that centers around the Guardiane.

This fanfic contains:

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     Tropes A-G 
  • Aborted Arc: There was a subplot concerning the inmates trying to survive in the Earth's Core maze early on in the fanfic. In fact, had Cooljoe 64 not abandoned the fanfic after only completing the first four chapters, he probably would've expanded upon it and kept it going. Instead, Voltalia had the inmates go through the maze with little transition and exit, only to find there's nothing waiting for them. And then they were never mentioned again.
  • Babies Make Everything Better: Deconstructed and then reconstructed. Initially, the Mistress's pregnancy doesn't instantly make everything better with the Warden. She's not even sure she can take on the responsibility at first. Warden actually has to put effort into his relationship with his rival in order for her to be more trusting of him. He also decides, as time goes on, that he needs to face his consequences head-on and not try to run away from them. His crappy childhood with a Jerkass father serves as further motivation.
    • Mistress's decision to keep the child is also motivated by the fact that she had no present father growing up and was raised by only her mother for eight years before she died.
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: The Warden and the Mistress... need more be said?
  • Bonding over Missing Parents: In Chapter 6, Warden and Mistress have a discussion about their parents, especially Warden's Missing Mom and Mistress's Disappeared Dad.
  • Characterization Marches On: The most notable changes can be found in the central parents-to-be Warden and Mistress.
    • Warden, for example, is apparently self-centered in the beginning. By the end, he is willing to be there for Mistress and their child.
    • Mistress is unsure of what to do with her child at first, but grows to love it and apparently trusts Warden enough to be in the kid's life once he starts growing up.
  • Circus of Fear: The circus Warden puts together in Chapter 10 may count as this due to having meat hooks, barbed wire, and mutant animals.
  • Comically Missing the Point: In Chapter 1, Jared questions Warden's plan to trick Alice and the Hunter into getting along while they're in the maze.
    Jared: Sir, do you actually believe that ten thousand inmates will make Alice and Hunter get along?
    Warden: You know you're right. Better make it 50,000 inmates!
    • Another instance pops up prior to the exchange above.
    Warden: I want you to look at this. It's a maze soon to be filled with all kinds of my inventions. I was thinking a hundred inmates, but they may die so how about a thousand?
    Jared: Sir, I don't think that anyone could survive your maze.
    Warden: Why, thank you, Jared.
    • And then there's this in Chapter 12.
    Anais: Uh, sir... I think it's time...
    Warden: Suddenly, I'm not so sure I want to continue the circus today. How could you possibly top a woman knocking over a pillar and killing several members of your audience?
    Mistress: Not for another circus act, you idiot. She meant time to have the baby.
  • Continuity Nod: The Hunter, who is from the second season, shows up a couple times. However, Lord Stingray, who also debuted in the second season, is only briefly mentioned in Chapter 6.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: There are actually several throughout the fanfic that manage to be as gory as the deaths in the original show. However, the two most notable ones would have to be snakes bursting out of a random inmate named Charles after eating some soup Warden made in Chapter 4 and a juvenile Mexican inmate named Django being rammed by a giant boar the size of a lion into electrified barbed wire.
    • Does being eaten alive by mutated locusts count?
  • Dead Guy Junior: After Mistress gives birth to a baby girl a month early, she decides to name her after her mother in her memory. For the middle name, she uses the name of Warden's deceased mother. The deceased's names are Marguerite (first name) and Diane (middle name).
  • Depending on the Writer: The writing styles between the two authors Cooljoe 64 and Voltalia are clearly different, especially when it comes to the first four chapters that Cooljoe 64 wrote before leaving the fanfic to its proofreader. The spelling and grammatical differences are most noticeable, but characterization and the plot direction are also to be noted, especially when it comes to the latter.
  • Description Porn: This is a common trait that shows up during Voltalia's parts of the fanfic. One notable excerpt is on Alice's "Goblin Queen" costume:
    Out stepped Alice in a dress that left very little to the imagination. It was ombre-colored with lavender as the starting color and a pinkish crimson as the ending color; it did not cover her breasts, save for metallic silver star-shaped patches covering her nipples, but only exposed them, circumference and all. The only parts that were truly covered were her broad shoulders, the always-somewhat obvious bulge where her privates were, and the rest of her torso. Her ruby-red hair was in a thick braid and decorated with oddly-colored hibiscus flowers. Without her Tom Ford shades, her eyes revealed themselves to be a deep, deep blue and already starting to take shape in the feminine form. Her mask was also lavender and contained amethyst gemstones on the sides. On her feet were sandals from the Roman days.
  • Disaster Dominoes: Chapter 12 has Bruce punching Alice in the dick which throws her backward onto a pillar, knocking it over and crushing part of an audience to death, causing Mistress to faint and go into early labor, delaying the circus for a few days while Mistress has the baby.
  • Face Death with Dignity: In Chapter 6, after the surviving inmates escape the Earth's Core maze only to find that the exit was leading to nowhere, the Native American inmate Caleb Stringarrow goes back into the maze to kill himself.
  • Fainting: This actually occurs three times over the course of Chapters 12 and 13, beginning when Mistress faints after the pillar has landed on the audience (Monster Faint). Warden has a Girly Man Faint twice (no screaming in either one) when Mistress's assistant tells him it's time and when Mistress starts pushing.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: Warden has "playfully" called the jaguar-headed black bear who is first introduced in Chapter 9 and performs in the circus... Clawface.
  • The Fundamentalist: In Chapter 7, Dudley Jacobson, Anais's father, is a radical Christian who blatantly tells the Mistress over the phone that she will go to Hell for having premarital sex and drives her to the point of crying.
  • Good Girls Avoid Abortion: At the beginning of the fanfic, Mistress initially contemplates abortion but eventually decides to keep the baby.
  • Groin Attack: In Chapter 12, while the two trans people Alice (the male-to-female) and Bruce (the female-to-male) are brawling during a circus act, Alice is given a very hard punch to the dick that impacts her enough to fall back onto a pillar, knocking it down upon some audience members and crushing them to death.
     Tropes H-M 
  • Hellhound: The three-headed dog in the Earth's Core maze from Chapter 5 is this.
  • Impractically Fancy Outfit: Alice, Bruce, and two other performers' outfits are this, although with Alice, it seems more intended for fanservice than anything else.
  • Instant Birth: Just Add Labor!: Played with. In Chapter 12, Mistress's water breaks while she is angrily insisting Warden that she is fine and that her contractions are just cramps. Given that this is her first child, this would actually be unlikely. Fortunately, this trope is partly averted as Warden and Anais are able to move her to another room, the duration of the labor is a bit longer, and the Delivery Guy is Mistress's doctor.
  • In Spite of a Nail: Warden still has the Hunter and Lord Stingray with him. (At least until Chapters 6 and 12.) See Continuity Nod.
  • Last-Minute Baby Naming: Averted on the Mistress's part. The Mistress names her daughter after her own mother while using the name of Warden's mother for the middle name. She had already known that since after she had found out the sex!
  • Lethal Chef: In Chapter 3, Warden demonstrates his cooking abilities, which are so bad that a steak comes to life and attacks Mistress.
  • Love Confession: Warden gives this to Mistress in Chapter 10. Of course, she ends up rejecting his offer to go out with her due to having to deal with a baby and running a prison at the same time, leaving virtually no time for romance.
  • Maybe Ever After: The fanfic ends with this when Mistress hints to Warden that she might go out with him after all just before she and the rest of Ultraprison leave.
  • Morning Sickness: The Mistress exhibits this until Chapter 7. One particular scene in Chapter 3 has her vomiting all over Warden while they are riding in the air.
     Tropes N-S 
  • No Indoor Voice: Kayley Chang, one of the college students introduced in Chapter 12, has a tendency of shouting everything she says. However, this is justified since she is said to be partially deaf.
  • Offscreen Breakup: In Chapter 13, Anais's mother Kelly reveals to her daughter over the phone that she and Dudley have separated. She never explains why this is.
  • Orphaned Series: The fanfic almost became this when Cooljoe 64 abandoned it after the first four chapters due to losing interest in the story. Its proofreader Voltalia, who by contrast was very interested in the fic, took over and wrote the other eleven chapters.
  • Oh, Crap!: This shows up quite often throughout the fanfic, beginning when the Mistress tells the Warden that he's the father of her baby and ending when she goes into labor.
  • Psychic Dreams for Everyone
  • Shameless Fanservice Girl: Alice's Goblin Queen costume, which debuts in Chapter 10, is certainly risqué for someone performing in a circus but why should she care?
  • Shout-Out:
    • Alice's act as the "Goblin Queen" as well as her costume are meant to be a reference to Labyrinth's Jareth AKA Goblin King, specifically cosplayed by JewWario in Suburban Knights.
    • Alice knocking down the pillar accidentally is an homage to the animated Disney film Hercules, while the Warden yelling "Timber!" and a random inmate named Timber responding are extracted from another [adult swim] show, Robot Chicken.
    • At one point, while Mistress is starting to tell Warden off, she calls him Tuxedo Mask.
  • So Proud of You: Chapter 14 ends with Warden telling the Mistress how proud he is, and how proud her mother would've been, of her for giving birth to their child.
     Tropes T-Z 
  • Thanking the Viewer: Voltalia pulls this off in an Author's Note on the last chapter.
  • Unlimited Wardrobe: The Warden and the Mistress start going through several costume changes from Chapter 8 onwards, beginning when the Superjail crew dress up as giant bears.
  • Verbal Tic: Chapter 11 introduces many college students, including Fifi the French-Canadian girl who speaks like a stereotypical Canadian by using "Eh?" at the end of every sentence.
  • The Voice: Anais's parents Kelly and Dudley Jacobson never appear in person. Instead, they are always heard on the other side of the phone.
  • Wacky Cravings: The Mistress's cravings are said to involve raw meat, live grasshoppers (or locusts), and hot sauce. She even eats a couple of the flesh-eating locusts in Chapter 10.

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