Literature / Tails of Fame

"Y'know, there's really not much difference between being famous or infamous."

—Rast, long after his Start of Darkness.

Tails of Fame is a web novel written by Tyk 5919, and the first entry in the Tails Series anthology franchise.

In a universe where humans and anthropomorphic animals coexist, Rast Racklyn, a rat living in the city of Stercullo, has grown bored of society's indifference to crime and longs to become famous. After Rast is humiliated in the middle of one of his college classes, the rat is suspended. While he's away from college, Rast decides to rethink his life, and does something he never thought he was capable of doing.

Things soon spiral out of control very, very quickly from that point afterwards.

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Tails of Fame provides examples of:

• Anti-Climax: There is no battle, fight, or confrontation of any kind with Rast or Douglas in the final chapter. Rast is shot at a gas station while buying snacks, and Douglas turns himself into the police to get full immunity. Shortly after this happens, the story ends.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Tomas and Dante, the college students who publicly humiliated Rast for their own amusement. Even a month after their deaths, not a single person at their college campus missed them, and assumed they were merely expelled.
  • Seamus Osgranov, the Pig Man who harvested human organs and committed a mass shooting in an amusement park, is violently tortured to death by Rast and his corpse is chopped to pieces.
  • Rast Racklyn, the egotistical rat who cared about raping and killing as many people as possible to gain an infamous status, is shot in the back of the head on Douglas' orders in the final chapter.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Douglas not only gets away with everything he did in the story, but he also manages to get Seamus and Rast killed, ensuring that he can continue his nefarious crimes without either of them ruining his plans.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Deconstructed. Rast, Seamus, and Douglas have their own personal agendas, but Rast is the one who decides the three of them should work together to gain more profits. Problem is, they can't stand each other and frequently backstab each other for their own personal gains. By the time the story's over, Rast kills Seamus on Douglas' orders, and Douglas has Rast killed, and later gets away with all his crimes.
• Bring My Brown Pants: When Doug first meets Rast, he points a gun at the rat and nearly kills him after thinking he was a police informant. Rast manages to convince him he's not—but not before he wets his pants.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: All three villains frequently try to betray one another, with Seamus, Douglas, and Rast all entering a three-way stand-off in chapter 10 after coming to a head. Doug even lampshades this at the end of chapter 8.
  Douglas: "I never got to where I am now without fucking people over."
• Death by Irony: Rast wanted to die with the world knowing that he was one of the city's most infamous serial killers. He ends up getting shot to death anticlimactically and his murder is mostly forgotten about a week later when a rising pop star is killed.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Rast Racklyn is one for a Villain Protagonist. The story thoroughly shows just why Rast, alongside Douglas and Seamus, is not even the slightest bit sympathetic and why you shouldn't root for him at all. Rast repeatedly rapes and murders innocent people, he has no problem with assisting Doug or Seamus in their illegal activities, his sympathy and fondness for his "friends" is shallow and non-existent, and Rast, to put it plainly, is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who only cares about himself and will do anything in his quest to reach infamy.
• Deconstructor Fleet: Several tropes are deconstructed or subverted repeatedly. While the story starts out cliché, it swiftly shifts into a different direction, and continues doing so until it ends.
• Disproportionate Retribution: In chapter 16, a teenager calls Rast a "faggy ratty." How does Rast respond? By following the teenager's family to their home, breaking into their house at night, and raping and murdering the entire family.
• Downer Ending: Douglas orders Rast to be killed after he raped and killed an innocent family and left evidence behind at the crime scene. He later gets an immunity deal after giving up the names of several associates, and also after threatening the lives of three TPO agents' families. Even though Seamus and Rast are both dead by the end of the story, the damage they inflicted upon Stercullo alongside Douglas resulted in the deaths of hundreds of lives and the possibility of a race war starting. And since Douglas got away with everything, it's likely that he'll end up causing more chaos in the city.
• Evil Is Petty:
  • In the first chapter, Rast passively-aggressively insults a random human being just because he's wearing shoes, and calls him stupid for wearing footwear instead of being barefoot.
  • The same chapter also has Rast stealing twenty dollars from a homeless person while he's sleeping.
• Eye Scream: Rast gouges out Seamus' left eye with a spoon, and after he cuts the optic nerve, he digs it out with his bare claws.
• Fame Through Infamy: Rast's overall goal. After realizing that doing the "right" thing got him nowhere in life, Rast decided to start raping and killing innocent people so he'd go down as one of society's notorious killers. This is subverted by the end, where he's shot at a gas station shopping for snacks, and no one except for Douglas and a few TPO agents even know of his criminal activities.
• Fatal Flaw: All the villains have one.
  • Rast's is Egotism. He longs to be famous because he feels that he's entitled to it, having spent all of his life being a "selfless, nice" person. He cares about nothing but making as many snuff videos as possible in order to build his criminal reputation and to satisfy his sadism, and constantly gets upset when anyone (rightfully) insults his "art." In the penultimate chapter, Rast has the audacity to rape and murder an entire family and leave their corpses to be found just because one of them called him a "faggy ratty." When Douglas finds out about this, he's so infuriated by Rast's pettiness and stupidity that he has him murdered.
  • Seamus' is Greed. He cares about nothing but making as much money as possible, and will do anything possible to get rich, even if it means backstabbing Rast and Douglas or killing his own, perfectly loyal employees. It reaches a point where he kills hundreds of people inside of an amusement park merely because he read a single message on the dark web (which was in fact fabricated by Douglas) saying he'd earn a billion dollars if he shot up the park. Douglas uses this to show how much of a liability he is, and orders Rast to kill him.
  • Douglas' is Paranoia. Despite being Secretly Wealthy, and having plenty of assets and mercenaries at his disposal, he thinks that the police will eventually catch and throw him in jail for the rest of his life. He constantly overthinks situations, is certain that his incompetent lackeys will lead to his downfall, and backstabs anyone if it'll ensure he'll stay out of prison. By the end of the story, Douglas is so sure he'll get caught by the cops that he turns himself into the cops. He ends up giving up the names of over one hundred of his associates in exchange for immunity, and gets away with everything.
• Freudian Excuse: Deconstructed with Rast. His hatred of society and his desperation to become popular is understandable. But various characters (including Linkard Reid, who actually supports Rast) point out that nothing justifies raping and murdering innocent people, even though Rast claims it's the one thing that truly makes him happy.
• Freudian Trio: Seamus is the Id, Rast is the Ego, and Douglas is the Superego.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Rast starts out as a mere Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. He gradually evolves into a serial raping mass murderer who makes snuff films and sells them online for money.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Happens in chapter 16 with Douglas and Morris Glendale. Despite the former being the leader of a criminal organization and the former being a detective, both of them somehow manage to sit down at a bar together and talk over a few drinks. Of course, the entire time they're passive-aggressively saying that sooner or later, one of them will break and that the former will end up in prison, or the latter will end up dead.
• Groin Attack: As Rast is torturing Seamus to death, he cuts off his penis with a pair of bolt cutters.
• Karma Houdini: Douglas Kevro gets immunity for every crime he committed in the story, and the ending shows that he's going to continue his life of crime without any scrutiny from the police.
• Karmic Death:
  • Seamus Osgranov is tortured to death in one of Rast's snuff films. His body is later chopped to pieces and sold to his own butchery.
  • Rast Racklyn is abruptly murdered at a gas station, and he never gains the level of fame (or infamy) that he was so desperately trying to achieve.
• One-Hour Work Week: It's mentioned only once that Rast works in a home improvement and appliance warehouse, despite the fact that Rast repeatedly mentions he has a job, and there isn't a single scene showing him at his job.
• Pants-Pulling Prank: Rast mentions in chapter 15 that when he was in high school, he nearly bashed someone's skull in with a dumbbell because he was pantsed during gym class.
• Potty Failure: There are a few cases where Seamus pisses or shits himself in order to gross out others for his own amusement, or because he's too lazy to find a toilet.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Unlike Seamus, who has loads of fun playing with the Idiot Ball, Rast and Douglas think before they act to ensure their illegal activities don't arouse suspicion from the police. Douglas in particular will even spare people or pay them off, because he knows that killing them will only lead to more problems.
• Sliding Scale of Plot Versus Characters: Tails of Fame is entirely character-driven. The story revolves around the (mostly bad) choices that Rast, Seamus, and Doug make, and whatever they do drastically alters the plot and leads to consequences based on what they do.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Dante and Tomas only appear once in chapter 2, and are killed early on in chapter 3. But they're the sole reason behind Rast's Start of Darkness; the sex tape they made that humiliated Rast is what led to Rast making snuff films.
• Smug Snake: Rast, Seamus, and Doug are all very smug and overconfident criminals. They constantly argue and talk down to each other, while acting that they're the smartest member of the trio. And whenever something goes wrong, they try to blame the other two criminals instead of owning up to their actions.
• Snuff Film: When Rast rapes and kills his victims, he also records himself doing the deed and sells the recorded files online.
• Start of Darkness: After Rast is publicly humiliated by Tomas and Dante, he decides to get back at them by raping and killing them on camera. But Rast enjoyed torturing them so much that he decides to become a Serial Rapist and Serial Killer so he can experience that joy over and over again.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: There is no buildup or foreshadowing behind Rast's death. He's nonchalantly buying some snacks at a gas station, and then someone shoots him in the back of the head.
• Toilet Humour: Deconstructed. Seamus, being a Pig Man, is prone to farting around his friends and constantly talks about bowel movements. But no one finds his "humor" funny; Seamus just indulges in these disgusting jokes solely for the sake of annoying others. And instead of being funny, Seamus' knack for toilet humor is nothing more than disgusting.
• Villain Protagonist: Deconstructed with Rast. See Deconstructed Character Archetype above.
• Villains Out Shopping: Despite Rast being a rapist and serial killer who makes snuff films, he's also a student in college with his own circle of "friends." There are multiple times in the story that merely focus on Rast chatting with his "friends" at an arcade, or simply eating lunch at a diner or a café.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Subverted. Rast, Seamus, and Douglas genuinely do hate each other. The banter they constantly have and mean-spirited comments they throw at one another is meant to be insulting, and the trio constantly keeps trying to screw each other over.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Douglas tends to plan ahead, but he knows that plans have a habit of going awry, and he's smart enough to quickly think of a backup plan in order to get the results that he wants. Douglas even lampshades this while he's talking to TPO officers in exchange for an immunity deal.
  Doug: "See, that's the funny thing. I didn't plan for any of this. I planned to have multiple plans in case my initial plans failed. My initial plans failed, so now I'm here."
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In chapter 12, Seamus murders his entire crew of anthros who helped him in his organ harvesting ring after taking an offer that would land him a billion dollars. Later on, he kills Greg and Tinlil—the only remaining allies he has left—just because he wanted to hog all the money himself.
• You Need a Breath Mint: Rast, Seamus, and Douglas all have bad breath, which at least one character comments upon. Rast's breath smells like cheese and garlic; Seamus' breath smells like onions and beer; Doug's breath smells like garbage and carrion.

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