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fablesrose · 6 months ago

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Season 3

Ch 19 - The Jailhouse Job

Series Rewrite Masterlist

Pairing: Eliot Spencer x Ford!Reader

Description: Nate is now in jail for the stunt he pulled last season saving the team. Despite this, he still finds a job in taking down his warden.

Words: 7.7k

A/n: Hey guys, sorry this took so long. This summer has been busier and more stressful than I had anticipated with work, trying to figure out my physical health, and a number of other factors in regards to my future. Unfortunately I am still under a lot of stress, so I'm unsure how regular updates will be, but I'm hoping to post once or twice a month for now. I've been so touched by the support coming through and the desire for this series to continue and I am so thankful for all of you, I hope you enjoy!

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I stared at my laptop sitting on the coffee table in my living room. Over the past month that Nate has been in jail awaiting trial, I have been contemplating what my next steps should be. When I started working with the team full time, I had temporarily shut down my socials and suspended my website for freelancing. Still, I had a somewhat regular stream of repeat clients asking if I had any project openings. Thus far I had simply told them that no, I didn’t have any openings and possibly even pointing them to possible alternative freelancers that I had worked with previously and thought they did a good job.

Did I take it back up again? Was this last job with the mayor and Nate going to jail the sign that I needed that this was the time to walk away? If it was, could I really follow through? Or was I so deep into this already, in too deep with the team, too deep into crime, in too deep for Eliot, that I wouldn’t be able to get out until the whole world fell apart?

And so, I just started at my laptop. At my emails, sitting in my inbox. They might as well have been collecting dust. I sat, thinking about everything and nothing at all.

I wasn’t sure how long I had been there when a knock came to my door.

“It’s open,” I called, remembering that I hadn’t locked the door when Sophie came and went earlier today to check on me.

I didn’t move from my spot, staring at my laptop. It felt as if my eyes were glued to the spot, that pulling my gaze away would be painful, or at least physically difficult.

“Hey, sweetheart.” The deep voice floated to my ears, one that I wouldn’t forget. It somehow pulled my eyes from where they were nailed in front of me towards the door where Eliot stepped through carefully.

“Hey,” I said softly in reply.

“How’re you holding up?” He stepped around the furniture till he found a chair he liked near where I was sitting.

I sighed, “Okay. Those first two weeks I was so stressed that I don’t remember much, to be completely honest. Now I’m just tired and trying to figure out what to do next.”

He tilted his head a fraction, “Like what? What to cook for dinner in the next day or two or…”

I huffed, “More like what to do with my life.”

Eliot’s brow furrowed in confusion, “What do you mean? You’re gonna stay with us right? Help us break Nate out of prison?”

My lips curled into a small, but sad, smile, “Do you guys even still want me around when Nate’s not here?”

He scoffed, “Are you kidding? Of course we do. Didn’t you hear Nate on that boat? We’re family. To be honest sweetheart, I think we all like you better anyway.”

My smile cracked into a wider one, “Really?”

“Really.”

We just sat looking at each other for a few moments before my eyes dropped to my hands for a moment, “So, uh, where you just popping by to check on me or…”

He coughed, “Uh, actually I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, uh, remember the job we did in LA? With the two David statues?”

I raised an eyebrow in confusion, “Where I met you and helped with my first job? That happened well over a year ago? Yeah, what about it?”

He agreed that we were thinking of the same event and stuttered over his words a bit, trying to figure out how to articulate what he wanted. Eventually he said, “I just… I wanted to let you know that I’m glad I met you and inadvertently pulled you into the job.”

This conversation felt like it was getting deeper and more heartfelt with every exchange, and I wasn’t sure if I liked it. It was nice, in an uncomfortable kind of way and I knew he meant well, but I couldn’t stop myself from lightening the mood a bit with a more awkward angle. “You mean that you’re glad Maggie brought me along on your date?”

Blush rose across his face and scrunched in what seemed like disappointment, “It was Nate’s idea. For the record, I would have rather taken you out on a date, but Maggie had the museum access.”

That stopped me in my tracks and it was my turn for blush to spread across my face and surely my neck and ears. I wasn’t sure what to reply, so I didn’t even try.

Eliot seemed to register what he said, and quickly changed the subject, “Besides that, we kind of came up with a plan to break Nate out. Sophie is heading to the jail and is going to tell him. Do you wanna come over and listen in?”

I could still feel my heart racing, but this was a good excuse to get out and escape the hypnotizing gaze of my laptop. And if it got Nate out of prison and the team back to rockin’ and rollin’? Then it was a double or even triple win in my book.

We crossed the hall to Nate’s apartment where the team has continued to meet up and use as their - our? - headquarters. I had been unsure of how I felt being in there with Nate being in jail so I hadn’t come over very often. Hardison did make another upgrade to the room with a tall desk facing the screens placed behind the couch wide enough to fit all of us.

When we walked in Sophie had begun explaining the plan to break Nate out. Hardison was somehow channeling the conversation through the speakers like a phone call so everyone could hear and had the security footage on the screen so we could watch. Sophie and Nate were separated by some sort of plexiglass as they chatted from the prison phone booths. I had gone a couple of times to visit him so I was somewhat familiar with the room. It all seemed performative, the glass walls for some sort of privacy, the plastic phones to talk through even though you could still hear through the glass. All for the illusion of separation.

From what I gathered of the plan, we would have to break him out directly after his hearing at the courthouse. Eliot would take out any FBI agents and guards on the outside. Parker would be waiting in the elevator shaft to do the actual breaking out of the cuffs and his guards. The rest of us are on distraction and misdirection duty until we can all load up and drive away.

“No,” Nate said when he heard it.

“No!?” Sophie replied.

“Uh… no,” he repeated.

“What do you mean no?”

“It’s a horrible plan. None of it times out, and there’s no way you can get to the car that fast,” Nate explained.

“Ah, but you’d have to admit, it’d be a lot more dramatically satisfying if I’m the one driving the getaway car.”

I shrugged in partial agreement to the both of them. The way Sophie explained the plan was for her to meet Nate right when he came out of his courtroom, putting her behind him in getting out of the building. Nate was right, where it would be impossible for her to be driving the car to pick them up (the way she described it), but she was right that it would bring a full circle moment to the operation.

“You know they record these calls,” Nate whispered, as if it would help. Sophie raised a cellphone at him that was plugged into the wall next to the prison phone she was talking to him through.

“I created a carrier signal for our conversation,” Hardison explained, “But I’m dumping another conversation onto the prison recording system.”

“Spanish soap opera?” Eliot asked as he passed a beer to Hardison and my drink of choice to me.

“Oh yeah, check it out man. Look, it turns out Pepe’s twin brother Peppi is actually Guadalupe’s baby’s daddy.” Hardison explained the plot he was transmitting to the recording system.

“You seriously keep up with that?” I asked. I could vaguely hear it in the background of his systems.

Hardison shrugged at me.

“Is this thing two way?” I asked him.

“It can be, you wanna say hi?”

I casually nodded. Once he gave me the go ahead I said, “Hi Nate.”

He startled a bit on the camera feed when he heard my voice, “Hey Birdie.” He hesitated for a moment before continuing, “You didn’t have a hand in that plan, did you? Because I would expect better from you.”

Sophie looked a little offended in the camera feed.

I laughed, “No, I haven’t had any involvement in anything until just now.”

“What have you been doing the past couple of weeks, then?”

I rolled my eyes, “having an existential crisis over what to do with my life. Do I go back to boring normalness or risk following your footsteps and landing in prison with you? Any advice? How’s the food? And the beds?” I said the last half sarcastically, but the first statement was very much true and I tried not to show it. At least, not too much.

Nate chose not to answer me verbally, but I watched as he twisted around in his chair until he found the camera pointed at him and Sophie and gave it a pointed glare.

“Hey,” I said flippantly, “you chose this. Don’t kill me for asking.”

Behind me, Parker walked in with a large duffle.

“He don’t want to do it,” Eliot told her.

“Aw, but I love jumping down elevators,” she reacted.

“I know,” Hardison validated.

“This is my special elevator rig he got me for Christmas,” Parker said as he put down the large bag.

“Alright, look, Nate, you took the fall for us,” Eliot began.

“After you lied to us!” Hardison cut in, “He’s a liar.”

“You took the fall for us.” Eliot continued, “You went to jail so we wouldn’t have to. We get that, so we’re square. But now, you’ve got to let us get you out of prison.”

“But if we’re gonna do that…” Parker added.

“And not all of us are convinced that we should,” Hardison also added which earned an raised eyebrow from me.

“Then we have to hit you at your next hearing,” Parker finished her thought. “That prison’s escape-proof.”

“Okay, you know what? Fine, Nate,” Hardison said. “We’re still out here, we’re doing the job. We help people nobody else helps. That’s important. You want to stay around and miss out just because you gotta figure out your guilty conscience, that’s your loss.”

Nate began to respond with his nervous ‘I’m explaining’ laugh when Hardison turn

“Guys, no.” Nate said firmly. He then spoke slowly, as if spelling it out for us, “I committed a crime, I got caught, now I’m going to serve my time.”

“Boo,” I said as I took a sip of my drink. “Can’t we live by the spirit of the law, not the letter?”

“And what law would make this okay?” Eliot asked skeptically.

I shrugged, “I don’t know, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?”

“That sounds right,” Parker said, somewhat helpfully.

“Nate,” Sophie said pointedly. “What kind of world would it be if everyone who committed a silly little crime went to prison, huh? Complete madness!”

Those of us in the office shared a baffled look. While I was being somewhat contrary, it was clear that Sophie actually believed what she said. And I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

“Did you get the kielbasa?” Sophie asked.

Nate nodded and held up a packaged sausage with a bow on it, “yeah.”

“There’s an earbud inside,” she explained with a dramatic wink that I could see through the fuzzy camera.

“Now listen to me,” Nate doubled down, “in no way, shape, or form are you going to break me out of this prison. Understood?”ed his screens and programs off, cutting off the call.

“What a burn,” I said to the quiet room.

Eliot approached me, “Sorry about bringing you over here, that wasn’t how I thought that was gonna go.”

I shrugged, “I’ll admit, it stings a little, but that’s not your fault. You can never tell what Nate’s gonna do. Besides, you didn’t bring me very far and I got a drink out of it.” I raised my drink and Eliot tapped his beer against it.

“To whatever future you choose,” he said spontaneously.

“To whatever the future may bring,” I replied.

I stayed around and chatted for a little while, but eventually retreated to my own apartment. There were enough emotions for today.

A couple of days later Hardison invited me across the hall to help assemble or create a helicopter-esc gadget. The small talk didn’t last long and we slipped into a comfortable silence, the contraption alternating between us as we fiddled with pieces and screws.

“Were you serious, the other day?” Hardison finally asked, breaking the silence.

“About what?” I replied somewhat distractedly as I struggled to thread a screw correctly.

“About figuring out what you wanted to do now that Nate’s behind bars.”

“Oh.” I paused before answering, “I mean, kinda.” I kept my eyes on the pieces and focused on putting them together even though I could feel Hardison’s eyes on me. “I kind of wondered if him getting arrested was the universe’s way of telling me that this was the end of the line for me and this life. That the opportunity and path had reached a dead end and it was time to go back to where I belonged, with a quote on quote ‘normal’ life.” I could tell Hardison wanted to say something, but I continued before he had the chance. “But, I’ve mostly decided that I’ll stick around for as long as y’all let me, wherever it leaves me.”

“Y’all? Really? I think you’ve been spending too much time with Eliot,” Hardison teased at my unconscious choice of words.

I finally looked up at him, “Slip of the tongue from when I’ve said it ironically. I don’t know if I ever remember hearing Eliot say it.”

Hardison shrugged, “He’s some sort of southern, I’m sure he says it.” There was a lull between us before he continued, “But regardless, I’m glad you’ve decided to stick around.”

I smiled at him in appreciation when I heard Nate’s voice come out of his computer that was sitting next to us on the counter.

“Oh, no. Mnh–mnh,” Hardison replied immediately. “No, we extended our hand of forgiveness, and you slapped it away. Now go away.”

“Please, please, I just want you to check the records of inmate Billy Epping. Fast.”

It sounded like there was someone near him as a distant voice said, “Who are you talking to?!”

Hardison rolled his eyes and started typing on his laptop before pulling something up. “Whoa… Okay, uh, William Epping’s conviction was for transporting liquor across state lines, but his sentence was way longer than anyone’s received for that crime since, like, the Pilgrims, man.”

“That’s suspicious,” I commented.

“That’s weird,” Hardison continued, “Your warden was consulted on the sentencing.”

“That’s really suspicious,” I amended.

“It’s hinky,” Hardison agreed.

Nate then turned to who I assumed was Billy and assured him that we would check it out. He then apologized and there were some panicked sounds coming through his comm that wasn’t from Nate.

“Uh, Hardison, Y/n, why don’t you guys gather the team and get me a background check on the warden.”

“You stabbed me!” The other voice called.

“Oh, come on, just a little,” Nate minimized.

“Was that necessary, Nate?” I asked.

“Yes,” he responded without elaborating.

“Nate, did you find us a client in prison?” Hardison teased.

“Yes, we are going to help Billy Epping, and maybe take down a warden at the same time,” Nate said matter-of-factly.

Billy exasperatedly demanded who Nate was talking to and eventually came to the conclusion that he was going to pass out.

Hardison turned to me and muted us on the comm network, “What was that about signs of the universe?”

“I’m not sure what this sign is telling me other than that Nate, my uncle and the person who raised me, is insane. Which I already knew and am still figuring out how that reflects on me.”

“Fair.”

We gathered the team and started preparations to do some recon. Hardison did the background check on the warden, Adam Worth, and drew up some credentials for Eliot to go into the prison as a doctor. He would be there to keep Billy safe and give information to Nate. Parker and Sophie (she had told us her real name at this point, but wanted to be petty and not tell Nate, so it was easier to just call her Sophie) were going to be working the courthouse and judge, getting information on Billy and their relationship with Mr. Worth.

Hardison and I dressed up a bit to meet with Mr. Worth on the pretense of business.

“How I got started?” Mr. Worth repeated Hardison as he poured us some drinks, “Well, hedge funds, actually. And then a little bit of international finance. But then ten years ago, I hit on this – National prison properties. Get the government out of the justice business.” Everything that came out of his mouth sounded like a political slogan. This man seemed to be born a politician, and from what Hardison found on the background check, it seemed to run in his family. His grandfather, father, and brother were all in pretty powerful political positions, but the Mr. Worth that stood in front of us couldn’t seem to get elected in his campaigns.

When asked for our names, we introduced ourselves with the best English accents we could muster and maintain for this whole meeting.

“Brilliant,” Hardison remarked, “Corporate-run prisons, five facilities, thousands of inmates, it’s tremendous.”

“Indeed, it’s a marvel,” I added with a smile despite the fact that my thoughts and feelings on the matter were quite contrary.

Mr. Worth led us over to his sitting area of his office, Hardison came behind me as he took a step to Mr. Worth’s computer and planted a bug into his system.

“The U.S. has the fastest growing prison population in the world,” Mr. Worth explained. “Well, it’s like the real estate boom,” he laughed, “except of course, the problem with real estate, you eventually run out of land. You never run out of people to put in prison.”

“Hmm, we haven’t had much success in the private prison concept in England,” Hardison said. “Our investment firm has large real estate holdings for construction of facilities.”

“You see, any yahoo can lay some concrete and throw up some razor wire,” Worth countered. “The profit comes from proper management. For example, the big money for us is in prison labor.”

Hardison pulled out his phone to ensure that his bug was accessing the system, but this had him a bit distracted.

“Really?” I asked, pulling the attention to me and to keep the conversation going.

“Yes. Goods and services made by prisoners in America – two billion dollars a year. One out of every five office chairs and desks, made in America, made by convicts. And those jobs are not going to the Chinese,” he laughed and raised his glass in a cheers.

Around this time Eliot arrived at the prison infirmary and handed over his credentials. Before we left, Eliot was agitated.

“What’s up?” I had asked him.

“We tried to break him out, but now we’ve got to do this job. We shouldn’t just be at his beckon call after he ran a con on us,” he said through slightly gritted teeth.

“Well, when you see him, don’t rough him up too badly,” I commented, not denying his feelings. I was a bit peeved too, and I knew Eliot wouldn’t do something rash, I said it in a teasing way to try and lighten his mood.

He looked at me for a hard moment before he sighed, his shoulders dropping, “Fine, I won’t do anything.”

“I never said that,” I corrected, that teasing lilt still in my voice, “You can still scare him a little bit.”

His expression was a bit skeptical, but intrigued.

“Please? For me?”

His face broke into a smile, “Okay, I think I can do that, sweetheart.”

And he did once he and Nate were alone after he was introduced to Billy and assured he would be safe.

It sounded like they popped into a dental office to talk and with some rustling and clinking of buckles, it sounded like Eliot was physically strapping Nate in.

“Restraints,” Eliot said. “They’re in the infirmary manual.”

Then the sound of a dental drill came through the comms.

“That’s – uh – for the guards, right?” Nate asked with a bit of a nervous laugh.

“Do you know what I usually do, Nate, to the people that run a con on their own team?” Eliot asked seriously with a pause. “That almost get people killed, ‘cause they’re out of control?”

“Are we okay, Eliot?” Nate asked, that tone of nervous challenge shifting in his voice.

I smiled to myself behind my glass. Eliot knew what he was doing when it came to scaring people, even when trying to be subtle.

As an answer, Eliot turned the drill off and started relaying the information that we knew on Worth. He told him about his family’s political dynasty and his failure to get elected himself which led to him going the business route.

“Okay, first, we have to figure out how to nail the warden on whatever scam he’s running here,” Nate said. “Second, we’ve got to get Billy out of here in case things go bad.”

“Told ya, this place is escape-proof,” Eliot countered. “Twenty-first century prison, fewer guards, more tech. Infrared cameras, motion sensors, lockdown doors.”

“Okay, does Parker have any ideas?”

“She’s working with… Sophie.”

“What was that?”

“Sophie told us her real name. I’m not allowed to say it in front of you.”

“Seriously?”

“Her and Parker, they’re running the judge.”

At the courthouse, they were able to find a bunch of files of inmates and evidence of a safety deposit box. Hardison and I wrapped things up with Worth to go do some research and discuss what they found.

It turns out that the judge who sentenced Billy opened up a safety deposit box around the same time that he started sending civilians down for hard time. Four other judges seemed to do the same.

“I mean, there are hundreds of cases here,” Sophie said once she, Parker, Hardison, and I got back from our respective assignments. “And these are just the ones we found.”

“Records I pulled off of Worth’s computer show that each time an inmate checks in at Rockford, their judge gets an email. Now, it looks coded. I’m thinking, Cayman Islands bank account?” Hardison speculated.

“Hardison,” Nate said through comms, “private prisons have a contract with the state just like any company that provides a service. Now, do they have to maintain a head count?”

“Yeah, Rockford can’t drop below 70% occupancy. If they do, they lose their state funding. No state money, and they close. They came very close two years ago,” I answered.

“Hmm, so private prisons are like the hotel business. They live and die by occupancy, headcount. Now, Worth wasn’t gonna lose $100 million in profit just ‘cause he didn’t have enough hard-cases to fill the prison, so he puts a few judges on the arm to send him non-violent offenders, easy prisoners to supervise.”

“But why these people?” Parker asked.

“Because they’re citizens,” Eliot said as he walked in from the neighboring room. “‘Cause they’re honest, middle class citizens. These are the people, they don’t wanna cause any trouble. They can’t afford a lawyer, so if some judge sends them away, well, yes sir. They were taught to trust the courts.”

“They believe in the system,” I added, summing it up.

“So, Nate, whatcha got?” Sophie asked.

“Well, Worth makes money sending innocent people to prison.” Nate answered, “I have just the thing.”

To put it simply, Nate did have just the thing for Mr. Worth: make all of his ambitions come true and get him elected United States Senator.

Sophie got Worth on the hook for the election by posing as the current senator’s campaign coordinator, vying for reelection. Parker posed for pictures that got photoshopped to make it look like the current senator was having an affair. A scandal that could lose him his job. Hardison and I put together a campaign ad for Worth that Sophie also showed him and caught him hook, line, and sinker.

“Now, I’ve got to give it to you Nate,” Hardison said once Sophie got back. “Nobody can read a mark quite like you.”

“Oh, come on,” Nate replied, “he tried to run twice and failed. That had to have been eating at him. Now find me a way out of this place.”

“Oh, now he wants to get out,” I said sarcastically with the intent to tease, but Nate chose not to comment.

There was a pause before Eliot started speaking from inside the prison infirmary, “Billy showed me where he found the first dead gang member. Blind spot – no cameras.”

“Nice coincidence,” Nate acknowledged.

“Yeah, and Hardison checked the incident reports, all of them happened in camera blind spots – places convicts wouldn’t know existed.”

“Guards,” Nate concluded simply.

“They killed him, accident, whatever. They let Billy here find him, wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Can we use the blind spots?” Nate asked. “I really want a back door out of this place.”

“No, Nate, I can’t access those cameras from here,” Hardison said. “They’re dumb, they run straight to the server.”

“Yeah, and they could have upgraded the motion sensors and the infrareds since these plans,” Parker added. “You’re gonna have to map it out. Old-school.”

Nate and Eliot proceeded to map out the prison, finding every security camera, motion sensor, lock bolt, and heat sensor in the prison. Eliot marked it on his phone and Nate dictated it to us back at the office so we could map it both on a digital blueprint and a physical map taped to our clear erase board.

Once they had finished the rounds in finding everything Hardison said, “Nate, if you could see this, you would not be encouraged”

“Yeah, I see it,” Nate said a bit distractedly, telling me that he had it mapped out somehow and somewhere and he was looking at our predicament at that very moment. “I hope Sophie has more luck with the warden.”

“Who’s Sophie?” Parker asked.

“You remember, we’re not supposed to use her real name with, uh…” Hardison answered.

“Right, Nate hasn’t earned it yet.” Parker then started repeating Sophie over and over again in different pitches and tempos as if to remind herself.

It got to a point where I knew Nate must have been losing his mind and I was getting a bit irritated myself, so I took it upon myself to cut her off, asking her to show me the ranges of the security equipment we just mapped out to see if there were even slivers of blind spots. I already had an idea that there were very few if any, but it distracted Parker from saying Sophie over and over and helped me get a better idea of what we were working with. She happily redirected and started rattling off information at me and pointing at the map with Hardison piping up occasionally about a specific tech thing here or there.

Eventually Eliot came back and we started analyzing the digital blueprint we made of the security measures, trying to figure out how to get Nate an escape route.

“Alright, we cut that wire,” Eliot said, pointing at the screen.

“No, no.” Hardison said, “Look, once a lockdown is called, all these sensors go hot and all those door bolts drop into place.”

“I got it!” Parker said as she sat up from where she was lying down on the table desk. “The furnace room.” She then stood up and walked to the front of the room to face the rest of us who were extremely skeptical. “There’s no sensors because it’s too hot. They crawl straight down along the heating pipes until they reach the sewage system. Ha ha!”

“Now Parker, it’s a hundred and fifty degrees in there,” Nate pointed out through comms.

She paused before answering happily, “The average human can withstand that for 27 seconds.”

The boys rolled their eyes and turned away from her.

“Could they make that crawl in 27 seconds Parker?” I asked, trying to point out the problem.

She hummed and hawed for a couple of moments but before she answered, Sophie walked in.

“Worth is on the hook,” she said as she joined us in the living room, “But, with $250,000 of ours as a buy in.” She was referring to getting Worth to transfer a quarter million into a ‘campaign fund’ account, it seems he wanted us to match it.

“Ouch,” Nate commented flippantly.

“Oh, did I say ours? I meant, what’s left of your life savings. Yeah, we took it out of your account.”

I winced, but still had an amused smile since Sophie was trying to rub it in, but we had to use Nate’s money to make Worth look even more incriminating.

“Any luck here?” Sophie asked us, all of us answering in the negative, except for Nate.

“Yeah, yeah, got it,” he answered, convinced he was right. “B corridor, through to the kitchen, into the freezer, into the freezer air exchange, into the machine tunnels, which will lead me to the roof, or the parking lot.”

“You gotta beat the lockdown door to the corridor,” Hardison reminded him. “There’s a thousand pounds of pressure on that bolt.”

“There’s motion sensors in the kitchen,” Eliot said.

“And infrared in the machine corridor,” Parker added.

“All to get to the roof or the parking lot where you’ll be trapped and probably brutally gunned down,” Sophie pointed out. “Got a way out of that?”

“I’m working on it,” he replied, not as confidently, but still determined.

“Okay, you do that, I’m sure we have all the time in the world,” I responded a bit distractedly as I analyzed the blueprint in front of me, not seeing a possible way out, but there had to be one. There had to be.

Sophie and I were brainstorming with Nate on how to bypass the security measures and get out safely. We eventually got it mostly figured out with Nate taking the route he dictated. For the first door, he would need a wedge to keep it from latching. I proposed a folded up newspaper if he could get his hands on one. Parker said that if Nate could fog up the kitchen enough, he could bypass the motion sensors in the kitchen. If Nate could disguise his heat signature with materials in the freezer, he could get by that obstacle too. As for being trapped afterwards, we needed a distraction on the roof so Nate could get through the parking lot and into Worth’s car. He was the only one who could conceivably leave the prison in a lockdown.

Eliot, Hardison, and Parker went back to the prison to lay down some ground work and prepare for the escape. Hardison brought some clothes to switch with Worth’s drycleaning for Nate to change into afterwards. He was also going to tip Worth off that Sophie might be crooked. Eliot was there as physical backup and protection. Parker was going to be flying a remote controlled helicopter for the rooftop distraction.

I stayed behind with Sophie to make sure everything ran smoothly.

What we weren’t expecting was when Hardison was going to tip off Worth about Sophie, he got an urgent call that pulled him away from their meeting. Hardison checked Worth��s computer to find that all of the security cameras had been turned off, faking a system reboot.

“Eliot, get ready. They’re coming for Billy,” Nate said when Hardison told him what was going on. After a few moments of what sounded like Nate making preparations, he said, “Parker, please tell me you’re at Hardison’s new van.”

“Yeah, it’s really nice,” she answered nonchalantly.

“Did you bring it?” he asked, referring to the remote helicopter.

“Wait, are we doing that now?”

“Yeah, we’re gonna break out right now.”

I looked at Sophie. This was certainly unexpected, but hopefully we had prepared enough for it to pass.

“Sophie, y/n, I need you to help guide me through it.”

“We’re on the count,” Sophie immediately replied.

“Nate, when they call ‘lockdown’ every door in the prison seals tight,” I reminded him.

“Right, on it,” he answered.

There were a lot of thumps over the comms telling me that Eliot was keeping the guards at bay. I had to take a deep swallow when I heard him demand a guard look at him before he knocked him out.

“A little sloppy,” Nate told him when he arrived.

“New glasses,” Eliot explained.

Eliot was wearing glasses when I met him, though I didn’t know his name was Eliot or that he was the world’s best retrieval specialist at the time. Whenever his glasses are mentioned, my mind seems to slip back to then. How he brought me champagne, complimented me, listened to me. How warm his hands were when they brushed against mine. How I’ve come to learn that they are always that warm. And how gentle they can be when they held my fingers when he said goodbye with a slight bow. How as he stood back up the lights of the party glinted off his silver frames and made his eyes sparkle.

I had always wondered if they were real, but mostly assumed they were fake. Him using new glasses as a reason for him being sloppy made me think that they actually were prescription. I should ask him about that.

Nate grabbed Billy and they made a dash to the doors while ‘Lockdown’ got called over the intercom along with an alarm and a countdown. Billy lamented that they weren’t going to make it before the door closed and it sounded like he was right.

After a moment, I heard a door open and Nate say, “Newspaper folded eight times can hold a ton of weight.”

I smiled to myself as it sounded like he took my suggestion.

Sophie’s phone began to ring. She looked at it and tossed it to me, “It’s Worth calling the bank, stall him please.

I instantly answered the phone, thickening my voice to have a more pronounced Boston accent along with my customer service voice, “First Boston Independent Bank. How can I help you?”

“This is Adam Worth. I want to close an account. Move money out of it right now,” he said, somewhat out of breath and anxious.

“And what account is it?”

“$250,000, the Worth campaign fund.”

“I’m sorry, sir, for a transfer that large, we require an in-person request to verify identity.”

He sighed and immediately hung up.

“Well, that should stall him. He’s heading to the bank now,” I told the group even though I’m sure they heard already.

Nate and Billy got to the kitchen where they separated, Billy going further into the prison, and Nate starting his route out of it.

“Nate, the motion sensor,” Sophie reminded him.

“Steam’s filling up now,” he answered. I started gently chewing the tip of my thumb when he told us that he beat the motion sensor.

I sighed and released a bit of tension, but he wasn’t out of the woods yet. I could tell Sophie was feeling the same as I was as she continually told herself to breathe.

Soon enough he told us that he made it through the maze of security measures and made it to the parking lot where he was home free in Worth’s car, who was on his way to the bank.

Sophie and I let out a breath of relief. Now all that was left was to send some helpful anonymous tips to the State police, specifically, the newly promoted Detective Captain Bonanno, who was on the mend.

With Hardison switching Worth’s dry cleaning with some of Nate’s clothes, making them fit better than anything Worth owned for himself, it made Worth look like even more of an accomplice of his escape when Nate exited Worth’s car at the bank. Nate made sure to catch himself clearly on a security camera. Worth took all of the money out of the campaign account, including the $250,000 of Nate’s money, making it look like a bribe. It seemed like the judges that Worth had on his payroll would also be on the receiving end of an investigation since the police found a list of them in Worth’s car.

Now that that was out of the way, we all had to exit the city. Quickly. Hardison was getting flights and I had most of my essentials gathered so that we could all head to the airport as soon as Nate walked in the door. I had prepared to be a fugitive when we took down the mayor, but now it was actually happening with Nate escaping from prison. I had stepped across the hall to my own apartment to grab a couple more things. Just when I was zipping up my bag, I heard Nate open up his door across the hall. I exited my apartment just as the door closed behind him.

I crossed the hall and was about to open the door again when there was a very distinctive click of a gun, right behind my ear.

“Don’t move,” a voice said behind me. Based on my experience with Sophie, I should have been able to guess the accent, but I was a bit too preoccupied to really think about it.

I turned my head slightly to see that there were five men standing behind me. I wasn’t sure where they came from to get behind me so fast, but they were all armed and pointed their firearms at me and the door in front of me.

I did what he said and didn’t move. I knew that the rest of the team was going to be opening the door any second, so I willed myself not to cry. I took a deep swallow, but could feel my eyes start to sting. There was always something when it came to this team, wasn’t there.

I could hear Hardison through the door mentioning rendezvousing in Paris when the door swung open to reveal the team. He immediately paused and the moment I made eye contact with Eliot, he took a forceful step towards me, ready to fight. Nate stopped him, grabbing his arm, but Eliot still tugged a bit before halting. They both gave me reassuring looks with a fire behind their eyes when a woman walking down Nate’s stairs pulled everyone’s attention to her. The thought crossed my mind wondering how she got up there when there has always been at least one of us in the apartment. These guys seemed to move like ghosts.

“Buono sera, signor Ford,” she said, definitely Italian.

Nate stared her down, but his body language seemed relaxed considering there were still several guns pointed at the back of my head and through me to the rest of the team.

“Why don’t you have your boys here put their guns down and we’ll head downstairs to talk?” He phrased it as a question, but his tone made it sound like there was no room for argument. This was still a bit confusing to me as it seemed she had all of the leverage here, again, since I had several guns right behind me.

Luckily, she nodded. The men lowered their guns and I quickly walked through the door. The Italian woman gracefully followed Nate as he exited the apartment past me and walked down the stairs, closing the door behind them, keeping her goons in the hallway. I let out a shuttered breath, and Sophie comfortingly stroked my shoulder and arm. My bag slipped through my fingers and fell to the floor with a thump that startled me as I had forgotten I was even holding it.

It seemed to snap the rest of them out of it as well. Eliot stepped up to me, hands gently on both of my arms and looked me over, making sure I was okay. I just nodded at him to say that I was. Hardison and Parker were discussing who they were, why they were here, and where they came from.

“They came out of nowhere,” I said a bit distantly. “I blinked and they were behind me.”

“Highly trained,” Eliot said. “But you’re okay, you did good. You didn’t lose your head.”

“If you say so,” I let out another deep breath that made me feel a lot better. I walked over to a chair and flopped myself on it. “So, guess we aren’t going to Paris?”

Hardison looked at me, “Probably not anymore.”

“We have to figure out what that woman wants first,” Sophie said, sitting more gracefully in one of the chairs than I did.

Parker started spitting out theories which Hardison seemed to encourage with a couple of his own. The rest of us just sat in silence, knowing that this was more of a waiting game to see what Nate came back with.

It didn’t take long before Nate came back into the apartment, a full glass in his hand. We all sat around the table, anxiously waiting for what was in store for us. Nate didn’t leave us waiting as he told us who exactly the Italian wanted us to target.

“Are you out of your mind?” Sophie exclaimed. “Nobody touches Damien Moreau!”

“Nate, Moreau finances the Sicilians, the Russian mafia, the Colombian cartels,” Hardison rattled off.

“Yeah, he moves money for the North Koreans,” Eliot added, “stolen artifacts for Iraq, nuclear materials for Iran.”

“Moreau is the big bad,” Hardison emphasized. “He is the central bank for international crime.”

Parker was flipping through the files that the Italian had given to Nate and just barely spoke up, “Nate, these files are CIA, FBI, Mossad, Japanese security.”

I peeked over her shoulder to see that she was correct, these files came from every major government and security agency. I didn’t know who this guy was, but I could tell that we were in a real deep shit from both sides it seemed. Two parties, both very powerful and very connected.

“So… who is this woman?” Sophie asked.

Nate told us that while she confirmed she wasn’t police, she didn’t expand much into who she was. He also added that she gave us a six month timeline.

“She wants to hire us to go after Moreau? Absolutely not,” Sophie said, the others quickly following with similar sentiments.

It got to the point where the one sided argument started to get out of control so Nate had to stop them.

“Guys! Just wait a second. This is not a job.” He then proceeded to tell us that if we did it, we would be free of Nate’s… legal troubles, in so many words. If we failed, on the other hand, Nate would be imprisoned in an absolutely horrible way and the rest of the team would be killed. Nate wouldn’t even repeat what she said they would do to me.

“She’s blackmailing us?” I asked, both parts in disbelief and resignation.

Nate stuttered, trying to find a way to deny it, but eventually just agreed that yes, she was blackmailing us.

“Sucks to be on the wrong side of that, finally,” Parker said.

“You don’t have to say ‘finally’ as if it was inevitable, Parker,” I said with a sigh.

“Right now, they have the leverage, so what we have to do is we have to get it back,” Nate tried to say reassuringly.

I could tell I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t quite convinced.

“We can’t go straight at a guy like Moreau,” Eliot said. “They’ll vaporize us.”

“Right, so what we do, is we do like we’ve always done in the past: we do jobs that help people. Only this time, some of them are gonna lead us right to Moreau.”

“Okay,” Hardison said, but he didn’t sound skeptical, it almost sounded like he was on board. “I mean, I do have a pretty big client list waiting for us to check out.” Yup he was on board. Hardison pointed at Parker and she gave a shy smile that said that she was in too. “Oh, we back in business,” Hardison said with a smile.

Nate nodded and tapped an uneven rhythm on the table to somewhat signal that there was nothing else to discuss.

We all stood, walking away from the heavy conversation.

I eyed the glass of whiskey that Nate had been holding this whole time, made eye contact with Nate and then Sophie before deciding that I was going to make the choice to not worry about it. It wasn’t my problem.

“Well, I’m gonna head to bed and dream about the horrible life of servitude and death that I’m going to experience if we don’t pull this off in the next six months. Hope you all sleep better than me, and I will see you in the morning!” I called with faux cheerfulness as I walked out of Nate’s apartment to cross the hall to my own. I snatched my bag that I had dropped when I was released from the line of fire and dragged it to my apartment where I left it in a similar position, not wanting to deal with it at the moment.

I really just wanted to sleep.

A/n: Reblogs and comments are welcome and encouraged! Thank you for reading!

Tags: @instantdinosaurtidalwave @kniselle @technikerin23 @kiwikitty13 @plasticbottleholder @mushycore @who-actually-cares-anymore

#eliot spencer x reader #eliot spencer #leverage #rewrite #slow burn #multichapter #nate ford #sophie devereaux #alec hardison #parker #ford!reader

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fatuismooches · 1 year ago

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SMOOOOCHES!!! hello sweetheart!! ໒꒰ྀིᵔ ᵕ ᵔ ꒱ྀི১

I hope you’ve been well since the last time I came on here!! (little update on my test results: everything came back clean except a few things came back indecisive but nothing to worry about! Chronic illness doesn’t seem to be getting any worse as of right now.) but asides from that here’s a little drabble as I was re-reading a few of my earlier drabbles from last year!

We know fragile!reader despises examinations and having to endure the painful injections every few weeks when Dottore batches up a new medicine. However, what if it backfires completely? Causing fragile!reader to be in an even weaker condition, barely able to move and clinging onto Dottore as tightly as they can. Perhaps running a fever, feeling miserable as they feel as if though their whole body is being pricked by thousands of needles as they shake from their fever. Dottore would try his best to not let his emotions show, but deep down he’s panicking and trying to figure out how he can cancel out the current “medicine” running through their body. To say Dottore feels guilt is an understatement, he knows that any medicine that they take can easily backfire quickly, but he never would’ve thought the symptoms would be so severe. :( once their condition stabilizes I like to think Dottore keeps them close for at least a few days, just to make sure everything is fine. Even if it means they’ll be all clingy to him, he’d rather they be safe and alive rather than induced in a coma once again.

A bit of fluff: I like to think Zandy definitely also tries to cheer you up after the whole ordeal. He’s not sure why you weren’t visiting or reading books to him anymore, other than that “you were busy with Dottore”, is what you had told him. But even the little baby knows you look more weaker (even if it’s been a few days, your condition had still worsened anyways). So perhaps he tries to draw you adorable silly drawings, and also show you his “safe” experiments. (Lest he get a scolding from Zandik or the clones again…)

‘m giving you so many chu chus n cuddles like always smooches hehe gonna make your cheeks all rosy pinky! <33 I hope you have a lovely day n spend it with a smile like always!

-from your dear boo boo bear 🎐 anon! ౨ৎ

HELLO MY DEAR 🎐 ANON!! Ahh I'm so glad your results were okay! I'm so happy for you and for getting through all of this! *hugs you* And I LOVE this brainrot! ❤️ I've always brainrotted about this idea hehe because angst of Dottore failing... teehee.

Dottore, being the skilled scholar he is, never fails to concoct new medications and treatments for you in hopes of creating something that sticks, along with the actual cure. These meds always go through a few rounds of testing, on his experiments of course (as you said before) but sometimes there is only so little that can be done. After all, your body is very different from the average person's. So, there have been times when the things he's given you didn't agree with your body very well, but they were never anything drastic. However, that was until this instance.

Dottore is a confident man. He's smart, he plans ten steps ahead, and things always go exactly as he orchestrated or predicted them to. So that's why he expected nothing different to be with this batch, maybe you'd have a few minor side effects that he'd note and so on, but he expected you to be fine, to then whine about how all of this was so much work, and he'd only hum at your complains to which you'd pout at. In the beginning, you seemed fine. Looked fine, your vitals were fine. But in a matter of minutes, when you got off the operating table, all of that changed, as dizziness and blurriness.

You tried to wave off Dottore's concern, observing your worsened state immediately, but your resistance was futile as your knees buckled, though your husband caught you before you could fall. Your skin was on fire, sapping away your strength as you couldn't even bring your hand up to stop your hacking and coughing. You try to speak but everything hurts far too much for you to muster your words, and you can barely process the muffled voices, footsteps against the floor, and hands running over your body (he must have called a few segments in too.) You pass out soon after, unable to see the blank look on Dottore's face, how his hands don't shake, how he is unfaltering and flawless in his steady work to counteract what he put in his body. Unable to see what only you can see - what he's really feeling underneath everything.

You don't wake up until a few days later, to which Dottore spent trying to figure out where he went wrong constructing this medication. If only he had been more careful, if he had run more tests, perhaps this may not have happened. Perhaps he wouldn't be the cause of your even weaker state. But even when you wake up, you just smile at him, assuring him that you're okay. You'd never blame him. Even though this was all this fault. He despises it sometimes, how you're so kind and forgiving. It's a weakness.

Sure, Dottore has a lot of work to be done, and having you around so much serves as a distraction to his work... but he'll let it slide. Just for a bit. At least it is a reminder to him that you're not permanently sleeping again.

Zandy, despite being left out of the loop many times, mostly due to your insistence that he not be burdened with your own troubles, can still sense something is wrong after a while. Yes, he's a child, but he's a rather smart one. And a very attentive one when it comes to his favorite person, you. He can see how much time you spend for "check-ups" with the segments and Prime now, far more than what it used to be... how you always look exhausted but force yourself to perk up and smile around him, assuring him you'll play with him "next time", even though numerous "next times" have passed. Zandy doesn't know the exact details, but that's okay, he can see what you're going through. So obviously he's going to try and make you smile! In the time he's not with you, he spends it doing all the things you like to do too. Drawing you two together of course, in a happy little house in Sumeru where the two of you play outside together all day with no worries! Maybe he even tried baking by himself to surprise you with something yummy (quickly stopped by a segment before he hurt himself or perhaps blew up the lab.) Maybe the child should take up sewing... maybe he can sew a little Puffttore squish ball for you! Oh, but you always told him to stay away from needles... well, it's okay if you don't find out until after the fact, right?

#smooches talks #🎐 anon #fragile reader <3 #dottore love notes <3 #zandy bb <3 #giving you a million more chu chus!! and cuddles!!#i always luv luv ur brainrots!#only one post for tonight bc im eepy

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httpsdana · 2 years ago

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can u write one for Marcus where he has feelings for the reader and being a nervous mess whenever she is there and he finally asks her out

Photographer~Marcus Rashford

*GIF isnt mine. credits to the owner*

Rashy is backkk. I updated my players list please start requesting again for new players

you can request from my prompt list

this is my master list

players/drivers I write for

y/n was the photographer Man United have assigned to be responsible for any photoshoot the squad has. So she met with the players at least once a week, and with her sociable friendly personality, she was able to be close to almost all of them. Marcus was her favorite, not only was he so humble and had a good sense of humor, but she adored how he gets so flustered during photoshoots with her. She wondered why he suddenly got nervous around, but never thought much about it, knowing she's gonna get way too delusional.

The last photoshoot before the summer break was for the new kit. Every player was supposed to take a few photos alone wearing the kit before some group pictures are taken.

"one last smile Licha...and we're done! good job Lisandro, take a break before the group photos" y/n waved at him, checking the last picture she took of him while waiting for the next player to come.

y/n felt the presence of someone in front of her, so she looked up and was met with Marcus's dark eyes gazing into hers

"oh hey Marcus, didnt know it was your turn. come on take a few poses" she gave him a sweet smile, before fixing the lighting and setting up her camera

Marcus took a deep breath, trying not to look too awkward in his poses, but he couldn't help it when the girl he's crushing on is the one taking the pictures

"loosen up Marcus, you're too tense" she pointed out.

He let out a sigh and ran his hand over his face.

y/n furrowed her eyebrows, putting her camera down and walking to him

"what's wrong?" she stood in front of him, looking up at him. He looked down at her smiling as she looked too small next to him.

"nothing-I just-nevermind" he stuttered, avoiding her gaze knowing he'd get way too nervous if she was staring into his soul

"come on tell me what's up" she pushed trying to get him to talk

He looked behind her, at her assists that were waiting for both of them to get back to work

He shook his head, not trusting his voice at the moment

y/n turned her head to look at were his eyes were.

"hey guys, take a break for a few minutes, I'll call you in a while" she waved at them, until it was only her and Marcus in the room

"you can't avoid it now Marcus. tell me whats wrong" she nudged her shoulder against hers

"I wanted to-would you-I'd like-oh my god" he let out a sigh in frustration, hating how he can't seem to form a small sentence because of her presence

"Marcus..." she started, taking a step closer to him, while he took a step backwards

"listen...I like you okay? and I've been wanting to ask you out since the begining of the season but I'm too scared to do that" he confessed, feeling a weight shift off his shoulder at his own confession

y/n smiled at him, while his eyes were glued to the floor too afraid to face her. She leaned up to bin, pressing a small kiss on his cheek

"I'd love to go out with you" she said, making Marcus's eyes snap to hers

"really?" he made sure that she wasn't messing with him

"of course" she assured him, making his smile widen.

He gave her a big hug, telling her to get ready tonight

"lets continue our photoshoot yeah?" she asked with a smile

He nodded, mirroring her smile.

For the rest of the photoshoot, Marcus was all smiley and giggly, and his photos turned out to be the best out of all.

#football #football blurb #football imagine #football one shot #football x reader #footballer imagine #manchester united #man utd #man united #marcus rashford one shot #marcus rashford fic #marcus rashford fanfiction #marcus rashford imagine #marcus rashford x y/n #marcus rashford x reader #marcus rashford blurb #marcus rashford

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marvelsdc22 · 8 months ago

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Depression Spikes

Intro: Well, lookie here, I actually got halfway through, I'm gonna try and post these once a week, this season is gonna have around 12 chapters, anyways, hope y'all enjoy~

Summary: When life and stress gets to you, you make a decision, whether it was a good decision or not is a different story.

You sat in your shared bedroom, staring at the wall in front of you, hoping… no, praying that the past few weeks were all just some nightmare and that you’d wake up tomorrow and everything would be fine, your best friend wouldn’t be locked away in a high security hospital, your dad wouldn’t of died in front of you, and you wouldn’t be holed up in your room, a new prosthetic on your arm and in pain, blocking everyone out including Lena who had been nothing but a doting girlfriend in your time of need, you just wanted this all to be some horrible dream, you wanted to wake up from it.

You felt bad that you weren’t speaking to Lena, doing your best to avoid her and everyone else that you possibly could, your depression had become even worse as time went on and you knew it would get worse the longer you pushed the people that loved you away but you couldn’t help but feel that maybe everyone would be better if you weren’t around, life would be easier if that was the case wouldn’t it?

After a few hours of staring, you heard the door open as Lena crept in, she had been trying everyday to get you to speak to her or at the very least acknowledge her presence “I brought you some lunch from the diner… It’s your favorite” she said, going and setting it down on the nightstand you were close to before setting her things down and kneeling down in front of you “I was thinking that we could go for a walk today, some fresh air would do you some good” she said, looking at you and wanting to reach out to you but she also didn’t want to scare you.

Seeing you like this broke a piece of her heart, she hated seeing you this way and she was running out of ways that she could try to break you from this trance that you had gotten yourself into “Come on, we can hit that ice cream shop that you love” she suggested, cautiously reaching out and resting it on your leg, feeling some relief when you finally met her gaze, the two of you locking gazes before you felt tears building in your eyes.

When Lena saw the tears, she immediately engulfed you in a hug, letting out a breath of relief when she felt you slowly wrap your arm around her and holding you tighter, whispering ‘I love you’ and ‘I got you’ in your ear as you finally let yourself sob, all of the feelings that you’d been holding in for the past few weeks finally coming out as you shook in Lena’s hold “I’m sorry” you croaked out in between sobs, wishing you could’ve been better.

Lena slowly pulled back and cupped your face gently “Honey, you have nothing to be sorry for… These past few weeks have been insane, no one would know how to process what all you’ve been through, just know that I’m here for you and I’m not going anywhere” she assured, squeezing your arms before gently wiping the remaining tears off your face “Lets get some food in you and we’ll go on that walk I promised” she suggested, handing you the bag of food before stepping away to grab you a change of clothes.

xxxx

Later on that night as Lena was making dinner, you were on the phone with your mom, her ecstatic to hear your voice again, Lena called her every other day and would update her on how you were doing but nothing compared to actually hearing it from you “I’m sorry we haven’t been able to talk much… It’s been hard for me to adjust” you apologized, looking at the prosthetic that was hanging at your side, you still not fully used to it “I understand, dear… It’s rough not having your father around anymore, I keep thinking that he’ll come walking through the front door, acting like a goofball” your mother said, giving a sad smile as she looked at her now empty living room.

After talking with your mother for a bit, Lena called saying that dinner was ready, telling your mother you loved her and would talk to her tomorrow before you headed into the kitchen, not feeling overly hungry but you knew you had to eat something to regain the energy and weight you had lost during your trance period “Thanks Lena” you said, offering her a small smile as she handed you a plate “Of course, I hope you enjoy it” Lena smiled, turning to fill up her plate when she heard you set yours down before grabbing her wrist.

Once she looked at you, you shook your head and gave her wrist a small squeeze “No, I mean thank you for being here for me… I know I didn’t do anything to deserve it, I was pushing you away but you stayed with me anyways and I will never be able to tell you how much I appreciate what you have done for me” you said, biting your lip as you looked down at your feet, unable to hold her gaze anymore since you felt immense guilt for treating her the way you did.

You looked up when you felt her finger gently lift your gaze, gently running her thumb along your bottom lip, pulling it free from the confines of your teeth “You were hurting, yes I was hurting too but you were hurting more, I will always stick with you, we’ve been through so much for me to just give up on this when you’re in the worst pain imaginable, I love you and I will tell you that everyday until my last breath if I have to” she said softly, looking into your eyes that were now burning with tears once more, the two of you leaning in and sharing a soft kiss, this was a work in progress and both of you were determined to walk through this thing called life together.

Taglist:

@unexpected-character

#lena luthor x reader #professor!lena x student!reader #lena x reader #lena luthor x gn!reader #lena luthor imagine #dc x reader #dc #supergirl x reader #supergirl #The Professor And I

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sae-something · 3 months ago

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Wanted to make a little update post of some sort but it turned a little long. I also write about the mdsa stuffs so consider this a heads up.

This week I've just been feeling broken and exhausted. Some new flashback or something popped up in therapy on monday. If it holds truth, it could mean that the mdsa stuff went on a lot longer than I thought til now. I shouldn't be as surprised because there had been flashes and fears before, but I just really, really wanted to suppress that and be like "okay, if it happened at all, at least it was only for like two years". That suddenly stretched to the possibility of a period of (at least) 5 years.

Had online A today and just cried, a lot. The little detective part (trying to understand, make sense) is bleeding through a lot. Also a lot of grief about A being so kind and caring - today some part asked her, 'Why was it so hard for mom to be nice to be when it seems so easy for you to do?'. I immediately added, 'Well, of course, maybe it's not easy for you at all, I don't know'. But A made it very clear that it is easy for her to care about me.

And then she offered to check her email 'once or twice' next week (during her week off), so we can 'keep a bit of connection'. I checked if she's really sure I won't ruin her vacation, but she insisted. It really means a lot to me, though I don't know that I'd have words.

At some point some part cried out, 'I'm just so scared of having to go back [to mom] when the year is over' (the no contact year technically ends late january). Haven't really had time yet to talk through the details with A, but I really don't feel like reconnecting with my parents. This part talked a little bit about 'being bad' for not going back, and A said something about how that probably explains a bit about why (as a kid) I kept going back to her, kept looking for her.

I interrupted and said, well, I feel the same way now - I fear people might have understood me taking a break, but making it more definite will make people go 'how can a daughter do that, abandon her mother like that'. I cried and said how scared I am A will think that. She replied something along the lines of, 'When we talk about this more I will tell you that I don't think you are ready to go reconnect yet, there is so much still happening, you are not at a point where you can hold yourself and connect with her'.

We didn't really dive into it but it meant a lot to me that she said that. It brings some space and relief. And I know we'll talk about it more over the coming weeks & months as that anniversary comes up.

Anyway. This has been a bit of an update. I've just been in pain (?body memories?) and exhausted. I would never tell anyone else this, but the little detective part is just constantly repeating "but if this happened at 8, I would have remembered, 8 is so old! You don't just forget things when you're 8!". I just can't understand it. I feel like lots of strong little magnets that I just can't push together. Everything is bouncing off of each other and nothing connects.

And also the actual content of the ?flashback? from monday just feels disgusting and impossible. Nothing, like, new or extreme or anything. Just, how could she? How could she stand next to my bed and stroke my head and chat about my day, while also, while also there was a hand beneath the blanket doing things that were not happening, things that were not felt, things that were not real. But it hurt and it hurt and it hurt and it hurt. How could she have been like that? How can someone do that? Act so nice and have a monster hand doing monster things?

(I know those are dumb questions. I know many people all over the world do all kinds of horrifying things to little kids. The questions are just stuck on a loop inside my brain...)

I'm so tired. Gonna have to fix some food now and then just flop on the couch.

#personal #therapy schmerapy #mdsa

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kitscodingblog · 2 months ago

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Coding Update 7

I'm gonna try to keep this blog updated at least once a week so I make sure I'm always doing SOME sort of coding.

Something something read more.

So the Alien Invasion game is coming along pretty well. I'm learning a lot of tools very quickly. Which also means I'm forgetting a lot of stuff quickly sometimes haha.

So here's some of it. AlienInvasion is basically the whole game stuff, including all the sprites and other key information. It had me do a lot of creating Classes in separate files, then importing them into the main file to keep things clean. Which I get is mostly to keep everything clean and organized.

I'm also, as a full disclosure, mostly just writing the code it wants me to write. So this isn't wholly my own or anything.

Also I have NO idea what sprite group is. I think, if I'm understand it right, it's basically creating a stored group/list thing for the bullets and aliens?

Also there's this. The super().__init__() . I have, literally, no idea why that gets called. It never explained it or made an reference to why its used in the Sprite function. It just said "we call super() so it works properly" and I was like but WHY?? What does it MEAN??

I still don't know.

Also as you can see here, this is everything slimmed down to make the code easier. It had me write out what each of those events do first, under run_game(self), then it was like "we'll refractor this so the code is easier to read." Plus it makes it 100x easier to adjust the code.

I could go into the specifics of them but nah. Just know that they do what they are supposed.

Though while writing the bullet function, it originally let me spawn as many as i wanted as i spammed Spacebar. As I was testing it, I was like "huh.. Those bullets are off screen but I'm pretty sure they still exist. Which means eventually this will be a huge problem." And sure enough, the next part was like "those bullets will add up and slow down everything, so let's fix that." Which means I'm at least thinking about the right things sometimes! Yippie!

So as of right now: I have a moving ship, a bunch of aliens, the ability to shoot up to 3 bullets on screen, and I can close the game. The next part I think is making the aliens move and get blown up!

I did have a hard time doing the on-your-own problem though. It wanted me to create a bunch of stars, like I did the aliens, which worked fine AT FIRST. But then it wanted me to randomly space them, so it looked more like a real night sky.

The problem? If a star spawned outside the borders of the game, my whole thing FROZE. It became completely unresponsive. I also couldn't figure out how to get it to choose a random number for EACH star. It basically chose a random number when loaded and stuck to it.

I ended up looking up the code for how they did it, but i still didn't really understand it. Oh well. I'll go back to it some other time.

I also tried to do an easy Leetcode problem, the famous "two sum" interview question. Basically, it needs to pull numbers from a list to add up to the target sum, then print out their location within the list. so if its two numbers that equal 9, and they are in the list spots 0 and 4, it'll print [0, 4].

I know WHAT it wants me to do, and I know WHAT i want IT to do, but not HOW to do it. Which...made me really frustrated. I think its just cause I don't know how to use sorting algorithms, or any of the search ones. Which is a whole nother beast to manage. I'm honestly not sure how to even APPROACH that. Or where to study it. So I'm putting a pin in it for now.

I think I might learn some of it when I do some of the other projects, but I guess we'll find out. If anyone has any advice to learn that stuff please feel free to send it my way.

I think the other thing is it's gonna start making me think in math terms I don't know or understand. Like I was watching a show about programming and they were talking about uh.. Lambda math or something? and I was like "nope I have no idea what you are referring to." I'm under the impression I might be OKAY without knowing a ton of math, but uhhhh. We'll see I guess?

Anyway, I'll keep you posted. The most important part is ya gurl isn't giving up. We gonna do it to win it!!!

-Kit

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bruxairacunda · 2 years ago

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P5 HEADCANONS

So here I bring some Persona 5 Royal headcanons I have because I kinda need to let them out of my system.

Would love to listen about your headcanons as well. Also if you're particularly interested in any of them I'd love to elaborate more or even write a short fic or whatever, just ask! <3 Many of them are post-game soooooo this gonna have spoilers. Also I'm gonna refer to the protagonist as Akiren because I can't decide on which name I prefer. I'm not gonna include here HC about ships for many reasons, one of them being that I want to keep these as neutral as possible. Other is that I'm against the idea of having a partner as a "goal". However I love shipping so probably I'll post headcanons about some ships sooner or later

This is already WAY TOO LONG so for the moment I'm not including more characters. Definitely there's gonna be an update sooner or later.

Phantom Thieves

Each of them have a big PT flag like the one you can see at Akiren's room during Shido's Palace.

After the events at Maruki's Palace they built a small shrine for Akechi, as they don't know where his grave might be or even if he has one. Of course they also left a PT flag for him there.

After Akiren's departure back to his hometown, the rest of the group kept being regulars at Leblanc. At the beginning they only went individually as customers, then they started going as a group, and some time later Sojiro just let them use the attic as they wanted. To compensate, some of them help Sojiro at the store, the most invested in lending a hand is Haru

Once, thanks to Morgana's help, the PT managed to go pay a surprise visit to Akiren at his hometown. He was so genuinely happy he started crying. That opened the floodgates and everyone started ugly crying for a long time. None of them wants to talk about this.

It gets really hard for the Phantom Thieves to make new friends or have a partner for a while. The bonds they formed are so strong and deep that for most of them it's really difficult to have that kind of connection again with anyone, and anything less than that seems like a waste of time. This is particularly hard for Yusuke, Futaba and Makoto, whose social skills aren't that good to begin with, and for a really long time they don't feel like they belong anywhere else but the PT

The whole group tries to meet at least once a year, but it gets difficult as time passes as Akiren is back in his hometown and Ann lives abroad most of the time. If one of them couldn't make it to a meeting, they try to at least videocall while they are still together

Ryuji

He dyes his hair himself and despite being quite used to it he has indeed fried it a couple of times. The first time it happened his mom told him he was gonna get bald if he kept damaging his hair like that. He pretends he's not worried about it at all, but getting bald is now a recurrent nightmare of his

He was utterly convinced he was dumb and a lost cause until Makoto offered to help him study for real and showed him that he just learns different, and traditional school doesn't accomodate to his needs.

He's pretty good at doing household chores. He started doing them to compensate the terrible son he thinks he is (he's clearly not but our boy has self steem issues). Later he realizes it's just the normal thing to do so he and his mom share domestic chores

His bigger fear is to be in any way similar to his father. That's one of the reasons why he dies his hair (his father has it black). Also that's why he's very against drinking alcohol. He doesn't intend to even drink it himself and he's very wary around people who drinks. Drunk people trigger him real bad.

It takes him a lot of time to move out from his mom's place. He feels like he's abandoning her, just like his father did, and doesn't feel comfotable leaving her living alone. Once he finally leaves to his own place, he keeps visiting her frequently and calls her several times a week

I know it's a very common headcanon but I don't care. He ends up being a teacher/trainer/instructor in anything sports related. Kids and teenagers adore him and he loves his job. But it's also is very hard for him because he mades his students problems his own and suffers with them

When Ryuji starts job-hunting he stops dieying his hair and goes back to his original black. He once went into Leblanc just after a job interview with black hair and wearing a suit and Futaba almost kicked him out because she though he was a random guy getting too friendly. The first time Morgana saw Ryuji with black hair, he hissed at him because he didn't recognized him. He gets back to blonde once he has a job that allows it

With his first decent salary, Ryuji got her mom a one night spa break so she could relax for once.

Makoto

She finally admits to herself that despite her initial reticence she likes her PT outfit. As she grows older and she's able to separate herself from that projection of perfection she kept as a teenager, she starts wearing more "punkish" clothes (always under that classy aura of hers, of course)

She does the same with her enviroment, so once she gets her own place even if it's still organized and practical, she adds stuff that makes it more "Queen" and less "little miss perfect" than her room at Sae's . For example, she requests Yusuke a big painting of Johanna, so she won't forget her rebel spirit. She also has TONS of Buchimaru stuff she got at second hand stores that Futaba recommended her. And of course she has a boxing bag at the living room.

Everyone in the PT refers to her as the "mom friend", in fact they call her Momkoto...all behind her back of course, they are not brave enough to face the consequences. Ryuji slipped his tongue once and called her "mom" in front of the others out of habit. It's hard to know which of them both was most embarrased by it.

Whenever she rents a place to live she always tries for it to have some extra space she won't use that much so in case a friend needs somewhere to stay for a while she could offer them her place.

Her relationship with Sae improves drastically when she moves out. Funny enough, they start doing more stuff together than when they were both living under the same roof

Makoto wants to be a cop to try and change the system from the inside, that's why she wants to become a commissioner. Once she realizes it's almost impossible she has an existential crisis and doesn't know what to do with her life.

She gets into videogames due to her passion for Yakuza movies. Both Futaba and Ryuji convinced her to give a try to Yakuza games and she becomes obsessed. From them she jumps to more genres and her competitive nature did the rest. She once snatched in half a controller with her bare hands playing Mario Kart

After getting a motorcycle license she realizes she really enjoys the feeling of driving, so from there she went for a heavy vehicle license, then a special vehicles one...She kept it to herself (didn't see the need to say anything since nobody asked) and one day Haru told something about how it would be a lot easier to go to a certain place flying and Makoto offered to fly them there as she has a Private pilot license

Yusuke

Yusuke carries a sketchbook everywhere, even if he's not planning to draw anything or goes to a place in which he won't be able to draw. He just can't leave home without one

Of all the Phantom Thieves he is , by far, the one who spends more time at Leblanc

He and Sojiro get along pretty well, to the point that he becomes a father figure for Yusuke. Sojiro, far from being disgusted with this idea, embraces it and kinda adopts him. He even went to Yusuke's graduation at Kosei.

Despite his talent and dedication working as an artist becomes a struggle for Yusuke. Not only because how hard it is, but because the art he loves so much is many times used as a tool to get money and that clashes head-on with his idea of purity.

From time to time he disappears and it becomes really difficult to contact him in any way. He calls those moments "a journey of artistic and existential dread ", Futaba calls them "autistic burnout" (she's right)

It's really hard for him to keep a job. The moment something doesn't align with his moral compass he won't hesitate to speak out and most companies do not like employees who remind them the huge pieces of shit they are

At a certain point he gets into digital art as he has to admit it's easier to get by with commisions than just art contests. However traditional art keeps being his absolute fave and he always favours it. (I feel you, my boy, traditional artist speaking here)

Futaba (and Sojiro)

They both miss Morgana so much they end up adopting a cat. Sojiro allows it on one condition, he has the right to name it (it's terrible)

Every year at Wakaba's birthday Sojiro and Futaba celebrate it doing something she would have loved. There's always a lot of crying but for them is a very special day, even more than their own birthdays

Futaba gets a very VERY lucrative job in cyber security. She tries to give back everything Sojiro spent on her but he obviously refuses and won't accept a single yen. To compensate Futaba gets him really expensive presents from time to time

She doesn't want to leave Sojiro living by himself so instead of moving out, she gets a better place at Yongen-Jaya for both of them to live together.

Haru

Haru has little to none attachment to the money her father hoarded by exploiting others. That results in her not wasting it mindlessly, but using as much as she can to make other people happy (mainly her friends)

She always offers to lend her friends money if any of them needs it. They always refused until she told them "if you ask a bank for a credit you gotta pay interests, if you ask me for a credit my only interests would be company and coffee dates"

Haru commissions Yusuke whenever she realizes he's struggling financially. She asks for huge expensive art pieces, giving him complete freedom on what to do. It's her way to help him whitout making him feel that he owes her.

She later uses said pieces to decorate her coffee shop.

In her crusade to learn as much as she can about coffee, tea and coffee shops she makes a list of all the places in Tokyo (and other places in Japan) she wants to visit. Knowing that Yusuke would never decline anything food related she invites him to go with her, also wanting to know his opinion on the different places as she knows he would be brutally honest. That way coffee dates (in a completely platonic way) end up being a routine for both of them

On the menu of her coffee shop she has drinks inspired on each one of the Phantom thieves, fitting their preferences and named after their codenames at the Metaverse.

#persona 5 #ren amamiya #ryuji sakamoto #makoto niijima #ann takamaki #goro akechi #persona 5 headcanons #bruxaheadcanons #p5 headcanons #haru okumura #futaba sakura #yusuke kitagawa #phantom thieves #persona 5 royal #akira kurusu #akiren #sojiro sakura

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thewakingcloak · 1 year ago

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The State of Things Present

this post was available for patrons a week early! please consider supporting me over on patreon!

I kept trying to make this post fancier and better and more engaging, and then I realized I was doing that thing where I make myself too overwhelmed to actually finish and post it. The other thing was I kept gunning for a once-a-week posting, and uh… yeah that's not sustainable. So here we go!

The Ghost of Spacefarer Present appears before you He whispers, very quietly, yet in a voice that resonates: "Time to resurrect the Spacefarer"

Ok so the spacefarer (me??) was very tired, but he's awake now and doing things!

Life status

We moved! My wife and kids and I packed up and headed some miles south of our previous house. It was a risk for sure. We didn't know how things would pan out. We really needed to get away from our old environment, our old town, our old house. We loved that house, and we'd said so to each other many times even as we were halfheartedly searching for a new one. But at some point that house had become too burdened with bad memories and traumas, not to mention that after the pandemic, we had no more real roots there. Everyone had moved away, the communities we were involved with had disbanded or changed. And anyway, my wife would be starting a new teaching job down south.

We were fortunate enough to find a new house we loved, and fortunate enough to be in a position where we could actually make the move. I'm aware this is a privilege, given the economy and the market, and so I can only express my thankfulness and consider it a blessing, especially as we healed through our grief.

I have an improved office now! This is where I work on my day job (software/web dev) and my unday job (Studio Spacefarer). With my genetics stacked against me, but also with my desire to be able to keep up with my kids and be there for my family, I collected a standing desk, a walking pad treadmill thing, and an ergonomic keyboard. I'm walking or at least standing most of the day now, which has made a surprising difference already.

I was gonna post a wider view of the office, but my 3yo son ran up while I was taking pictures and started "working" (mashing the keypad), so this is automatically the better pic. Them's the rules.

Anyway, in short, we made it, and it hasn't been a smooth ride the entire time, but it has been well worth it. I've been able to get back into gamedev, which has been a huge boon to my mental health too.

Speaking of… (ghostly drumroll)

Game status!

The good stuff. Here's where I'm at presently with Episode III!

The game is completable from start to end (definitely NOT feature complete)

Jumping, swimming, and dashing all work like a charm and are super fun

Three enemy types have been added, including custom A* pathfinding for the sea monster

Two new collection mechanics (one is heart containers, the other will be a small surprise)

Depth sorting and fake-3D, as mentioned previously, which lets me do lots of fun effects

Day/night are now on a new system, and cave darkness is now a thing (I tried to implement this in PD2 but couldn't figure it out)

Palette swapping for night and lighting effects now uses GameMaker's built in layer effects

Much of the game is now decorated

Updated the game's palette to be more pleasing

Better borderless windowed mode, frame toggling, etc. (I'd made a post about a third party plugin I used to do this previously, but not long after that, GameMaker added an official setting to be toggleable at runtime, so I switched to that… much easier lol)

New audio library which has been a MASSIVE boon (Juju's Vinyl)

New flexible debug/inspector mode which allows me to change values on the fly more easily

State machine rewrite using structs instead of data structures--extremely flexible and less error-prone (in fact the data structures here were the #1 cause of crashes in Episodes I and II)

Save system rewrite, also using structs instead of data structures (thus fixing the #2 cause of crashes in the first two episodes)

Adjusted the way walls get displayed in interiors--will make a post on this later

Lots and lots and lots and lots of bug fixes

Post end status!

I'm not exactly sure how to wrap this up lol, but y'all can be encouraging me, if you have the emotional space to do so! There's still a lot left to do on PD3, and it can be very daunting at times.

Next post up will be looking forward to the future of Studio Spacefarer. I'm very excited about this! Keep an eye out!

#gamedev #indiedev #the waking cloak #devlog #devblog #game development #protodungeon #gamemaker

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pitter-patt-art · 5 months ago

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Ace Attorney AU August oops-august-has-been-over-for-a-week Update!!

Hiiiii well okay first and most importantly of all! Happy investigations collection day everyone!!!! My copy is supposed to arrive by 10pm although I'm not sure I'll be playing it right away, but, hey, once it arrives I'll have in my possession at least one physical copy of every game in the series (2 for aai1, woohoo)!!! *Coughs* uh except all of the OG Trilogy which instead I own like 2 times over digitally (3 in T&T's case, thanks Wii) lmao. Ah well.

NOW the actual post. Yeah it's not August anymore but I've been recuperating or w/e so shhh, better late than never!

Overall I wrote over 50k words (actually in August itself) and posted 5 fics (with many more in progress), which is honestly just, wild???? That is so cool. Apparently the way to overcome writer's block is just overcommit to a month-long prompt list, who knew!

Here is my post about the first 17 days/AUs! And over here's my Ao3 series for these! Below the cut I'll wrap up the last 14 days of AUs, some thoughts, etc!

I am setting the goal for myself to actually finish writing these before the end of the year even if they're not technically "AU-gust" qualified anymore by the time I get to them sooo ...wish me luck!! In the meantime I am proud of myself for (tbh completely unnecessarily and to my detriment lmao) coming up with actually a full 31 solid AUs based on the prompts that I feel inspired by.

This post is gonna be a bit more rambly than the last one because I definitely did more of my writing last month the first 2 weeks rather than the last 2, but nevertheless--

Onto the remaining AUs!

18 - Space Travel

So, I actually started a draft at the airport before my vacation where I got wayyyy too sidetracked getting detailed about this one and thus ended up not being able to finish the post before takeoff lmao. I'm not sure whether it's annoying or interesting to include all of that here, but it's my post so fuck it, here's August 21st patt to tell you aaall about it so I don't have to: The Martian AU (I've only seen the movie and not read the book but i *did* literally just re-watch it because this thought crossed my mind lol. (Hello! It's future me popping in to say: fun fact, rewatching this movie literally ended up being the reason I knew a bar trivia answer last week lmao. Huzzah for the powers of Ace Attorney refreshing my movie quote knowledge.) Be glad this one occurred to me because my first inclination was to lean into the dark past of my vld phase (I'm super joking I had a lot of fun with it before the last few seasons haha sorry idk what to tell you friends) and see how much I'd retained if i tried to make that work but the martian sounded more fun in the end). Apparently my Thing™ is a) poisoning Phoenix and b) putting Apollo in an insane situation in which he's completely on his own--which all things considered is probably far meaner lol. I think Phoenix is to blame for creating his own problem here for choosing to eat the stupid necklace but I fully blame Capcom for all the BS Apollo has gone through after AA4 (bc...the stuff IN that game is. coincidentally also Phoenix's blame to claim. lol). That said I'm part of the problem teehee. Apollo can be Some Guy from the real world who gets isekai'ed and he can also be Mark Watney :P (sorry bud I love you but you have just the Worst case of unavoidable main character syndrome). ((Which is QUITE funny actually because I'll never get over Capcom calling 4,5,6 the """"Apollo Justice Trilogy"""" (it's really not and it's frankly insulting they're trying to say it is.) Like he's. Y’know. The main character in exactly one of those games...... so.)) What was I talking about? Lmao oh yeah so Apollo is left on Mars (not sure he actually has much in the way of Botanist™ vibes but the indomitable, never-say-die, highly sarcastic vibes.... ye haha that's my boy right there). Omg wait sorry I'm writing this and realizing this whole thing actually fits the 18th AND yesterday's (the 20th) prompt as well. Whoops.

Clay as the captain (let him do something, says I)

Trucy as I think the pilot ONLY because I am literally constantly on the lookout to make a Wright Flying Brothers joke, sorry

Klavier aaaas. Uh. So the German astronaut in the film is the chemist and navigator and I know Klav's not necessarily supposed to be actually German canonically but there IS something funny about it

Athena as the flight surgeon and EVA specialist (for a couple reasons but mostly so she can be a doctor lol. I imagine she also can be there for psych stuff too, like, it's a long ass space voyage, that does shit to your brain)

Kay as the SysOp and reactor tech, tbh mostly because for some reason i really have a thing for hacker/programmer Kay, i guess?

Ema I want to be there also lol so that would be exceeding the actual number of OG astronauts but eh it's my AU. The rest of these I'm just directly comparing to a crew member from the martian but I think some of the titles and tasks could be redistributed a little to allow an extra person as a treat for me.

Originally i kind of wanted Sebastian (....SIGH. or...Eustace. (I fear even though it's AAIC release day today, I truly may die on this hill forever, falling on my sword of devotion and gratitude to the fan translation team... That said, while I think Eustace is, like, a Deeply Fine name, I have to say that Excelsius is a fucking knockout name lmfao, that one took me out. Anyway, ahem: "I wanted Seb/Eustace...")) to be there too but I think that's getting into too many cooks territory just specifically bc I'd have too many voices to play with lmfao. So instead I think he's the operator who works the satellite and realizes Apollo is alive, I think he'd fit that well. NOT THAT that needs to be. Included. In the AU. I have...so much self control.

Anyway I have too many thoughts about it, it's a problem, ironically I think I would prefer to focus on the crew and not Apollo himself, so that would at least make it more than just a rehashing of the movie/book. (Or, the movie at least. Does the book spend more time with them? I should read the book.) ...I did, Of Course, also came up with a funny, pseudo-future-science-y way to do a Sibling Reveal in this one, so there's that, too, haha. OKAY AND, SCENE. Snatching my mic back from myself. I'm actually so devoted to the Martian AU now hahaha, I really didn't think I'd let that happen to myself but here we are... You'll see in a bit, but I for-better-or-worse do truly have an extended universe going on for it now, eheh... (Help.)

19 - Spies

Franmaya?? Franziska POV??? Here's the deal: I cannot BELIEVE I got this many days into the month and STILL hadn't come up with a franmaya-centric AU, it's terrible. Also I need a Maya POV if I want to hit my self-set, self-indulgent goal of having POV of every "main" character I can (did I exactly accomplish this no but that's perfectly fine obviously haha it was just a side achievement I had my eye on). So to that end, I ended up with something here that I'm not COMPLETELY sure I won't end up changing when I sit down to actually work on it, but in short: semi The Princess Bride vibes but with spies instead of pirates! Or uh! So um okay full disclosure lol I got all excited about an AU of this kind and then like an hour into daydreaming it into existence I realized I was heavily relying on / leaning into ASSASSIN territory rather than SPY. Which are notably different things. (Wait lol should I blame Spy x Family?? Totally Endo-sensei's fault and not at all mine, boom, take that.) ...And not to go even harder into sxf territory, whoops, but my idea was something along the lines of like, since Kurain School Channeling changes spirit mediums' appearance entirely, I was going to have Maya be something of an expert in disguise, and Franziska I was almost more or less going to let retain her actual position of international prosecutor with Interpol, although perhaps I'd lean more into a James Bond-esque intelligence agency sort of thing than what we see them do in-game, I'm not sure. Maya gets "killed" for real in 2-4 except she actually just becomes an international assassin(?) apprentice. Does this make sense? Probably not lol. But is it a little funny and a little sad? Yes, yes it is, and that's always my sweet spot as a writer. The only problem with this premise is I can't stop myself from considering what Phoenix would do / be doing in the background, because the problem with Maya "dying"-only-being-secretly-alive leaves at least twofold problems in justifying why Nick hasn't gone full conspiracy theory board stop-at-nothing-to-find-her, in that a) If she's not dead, Pearl can't channel her, and knowing Pearl I have to imagine that would be her first move to try tbh, and b) even if that weren't an issue, if the police were never able to track down Maya's body at all, I fully believe Nick would still throw himself at the problem until he's able to find answers irregardless, so. This ain't about him though!! So we'll just all have to deal with knowing he's taking reaaally really bad care of himself while he single-mindedly tries to figure out what's going on ahaha...ha. He's most absolutely the drowning child in the facebook post meme. Don't worry about him.

20 - Crossover/Fusion

Soooo. Okay. First may I say, I'm not the most crossover-fic-y person in the world neither as a reader nor writer. HOWEVER. Unfortunately. My one undying weakness has proven to be Ace Attorney x Legally Blonde (and more specifically Legally Blonde the Musical, the best version, though I do love Reese Witherspoon's performance ofc it's iconic but the musical is just MWAH ugh. One of my all-time favorite musicals and definitely the one I've listened to the most esp the past couple years hahaha.) The problem is, I've joked about so many slight variations / one very Long Intensive specific AA/LBtM crossover AU ideas, that trying to limit myself to a one-shot I could conceivably finish within a day proved too much for my decision paralysis and I didn't end up writing any of them lmao. Alas. Mostly, I just think it would be funny to see the characters interact in something of a vacuum just for fun, the problem is just that I happen to be uniquely terrible at not thinking through a Crack AU until I can, ahem, "crack" it, so to speak, to make it actually justifiably function. So in theory all I want to write for this day is some combination of like, Elle and Phoenix interacting and Miles and Emmett interacting, or the four of them having a conversation that goes something like "omg wait me too!! i also went from a creative undergrad degree directly into law to chase after some guy!! what are the odds teehee" while Emmett and Miles watch in horror, and also alternatively Emmett and Phoenix mostly bemusedly watching Elle and Miles geek out over like, fancy ass high class (pink) clothing like "uh yeah i have no idea what any of those words mean. she bought me this suit and i honestly wouldn't even be able to find the store again. oh no way he bought you yours too?? man, wild." Etc. (If anyone's interested in really watching me suffer and spiral: my longer and more intensive idea for an AU with them is to have them be tackling parallel cases where either of them (Elle and Phoenix) has specific knowledge that is helpful to defending the others' client, and they get like place-swapped through dimensional shenanigans somehow also related to the cases. And Phoenix has to abide by, like, nominally-accurate US trial law (I know he wouldn't really be licensed shhhh) -- by which I mean Emmett is sitting as his co-council and exercising the most restraint possible to keep from bashing his head into the table every two seconds. And Elle has to abide by guilty-until-proven-innocent Japanifornia trial law ("wait WHAT omg what do you MEAN the prosecution can just, like, not submit their evidence before the trial???? wait what do you MEAN we should just TAKE THAT that is EVIDENCE AT A CRIME SCENE--"). On the bright side, Elle gets to experience being one of the most normally-dressed people in a courtroom and not at all being looked down upon for her general vibes and wardrobe (like tell me she wouldn't fit right in in the ace attorney universe and seem completely ordinary), and Phoenix gets to experience a real jury (take that jurist system trial that Capcom would like to never ever talk about again) and also the judge going "so, Prospective Juror No. 103, do you understand that the defense in this criminal trial does not need to say a single word in order to be doing their job? the burden of proof lies entirely on the prosecution the entire time and the defense and defendant could choose to remain silent every day of trial and that would be completely within their rights, do you understand that? are you okay with that?" etc etc, shout out to my jury service a couple month ago and the kinds of questions a real life California judge asks jurors that would seriously blow the minds of every single character in Ace Attorney lmfao can you imagine? Anyway.) So yeah idk. Also something something, spirit mediums and the whole Greek Chorus bit from the musical... "School Spirit"... much to think about in crack AU land hahaha.)

21 - Absurd Tragedy

To be honest with you, this is the entire series lmao, so much so that I had trouble even thinking of an AU to be "alternate" in any way here, hahaha. What I sort-of landed on and have vague outline notes about in my doc is (not to make another excellent-musical-adaptation-of-an-already-top-tier-movie-which-is-itself-a-highly-unfaithful-adaptation-of-a-fairly-obscure-book reference) a Shrek the Musical "I Think I Got You Beat"-style debate about whose canonical absurd tragic circumstances are the worst, lmfao. Granted, this then turned into a "wait what if I use said argument as an absurd way in which to make Apollo and Trucy have a siblings realization completely on their own, which both compounds the fact they've both already lived such tragedy to begin with but also could touch on Phoenix knowing about it and not telling them about it", and uhhhhh lmfao a debate specifically between them is OBVIOUSLY not the romantic flirting banter of the song between Shrek and Fiona lmfao but like still, the general premise, just in a sibling bickering coat of paint instead. Also was toying with it being an Athena POV just to sell home / for the additional absurdity of the experience of "you've gone over to your friend's house to hang out and suddenly they're obnoxiously arguing with their sibling and their parents are nowhere to be seen and you're not exactly sure what you're supposed to do with yourself except awkwardly wait for them to be done" lmfao. Which I've most absolutely experienced from both ends multiple times hahaha. The alternative option for this prompt is just for me to write an excessively long essay debating and attempting to personally rank the main cast's level of absurd tragedy compared to each other, lol.

22 - Orphan

I wrote 324 words (slash one physical lined page in my actual notebook) of this while I was on vacation, lol. AU where Miles invites Phoenix to go watch one of Gregory's trials (or Phoenix invites himself, or Gregory invites him while Miles tries to hold the landline phone away from him, lol) and I mean of course the trial he goes to is The Trial (like, Jeffre... AW CRAP wait I don't actually know what Jeff Master's or Kate Hall's official names are lmfao uhhh. Well you know what don't worry about that. Happy AAIC day once again..? Lol. Anyway, the concluding day of Gregory's last trial, obviously, ignore the defendant's name.) Like, basically, here's my thought. AU where Phoenix is also there, and not only does that mean he knows what happened to Miles and Gregory but also, like, it's Phoenix. Tell me even at 9 he wouldn't be insisting on taking care of the poor kid who just lost everything and has nowhere in the world to go. Tell me he's not like, begging his parents they need to help him, lol. I think really this is just sort of an AU to explore one of my several personal headcanons for what Phoenix's parents are like, because I've spent a lot of time on a different version of them (coughs for the last AU on this list...coughs) but I also have a version of them which I find fun / funny where they're like, kinda hippy-dippy and like very hands-off (tbh almost all of my hc's about the Greater Wrights is they're very hands off, just in different ways) but in more of a "we want our child to experience the beauty and wonder of the world on his own time and not influence him or set rigid standards to conform to" kind of philosophy. Anyway my point is they like adopt/foster Miles somehow before Manfred can actually get his hands on him (he's still too busy dealing with the fresh bullet wound I guess?) This is just a gen au of course, not only because they're 9 lol but also the logistics of being adoptive/foster siblings gets weird quick lmao, but mostly I just find it interesting to think about what might have happened if Miles was in an environment where people paid more attention and cared more (and weren't explicitly influencing and manipulating him to exasperate the problem on purpose), because I have to imagine examining his nightmares a little more closely a little more quickly might have led someone (say, Phoenix who was also there in this AU) to find something slightly off about it or like start putting pieces together quicker, idk. I, uh, I'm not gonna lie to you, I don't actually remember how I intended to end this one hahaha ;; I started it but I was on vacation and neglected to outline / summarize the rest of my ideas the day of, so I guess I'll just have to see where my mind takes me when I get back to it.

23 - Musician

So my FIRST thought for this day was to use it as an excuse to finish my First Ever Ace Attorney Fic, which has been in WIP stasis for...uh.... 6. Years. i--SIX????? Shit. lmfao. yeah uh. I guess I created the first version of the doc (on my OneNote, god) back in 2018. So. Yeah. Hm. Omfg. This fic has partially existed since before Phoenix Disbarment Day. That is so. Wow. Damn. Y'all we're so close to aa4 time (2026) what the hell??? Ahem. Pianist Phoenix. That's. My point lmao. I know the original thing that sparked me loving this concept was actually some tumblr post I saw apparently a LONG long time ago, hahaha, and I know there's no way I'll find it with tumblr's abysmal search function, but just know it was not a completely original idea of mine when I say i fucking LOVE the headcanon that, you know what actually Phoenix CAN play the piano, he just chooses to do it as shittily as possible because that's kind of what he's like post-disbarment and he'd absolutely get a kick out of fucking with people like that even if they have no way to know they're being fucked with. It's like, he's no virtuoso or anything, but he can passably play the piano! He's just being an ass on purpose! It kills me every time lol. I won't say I think that's necessarily true in canon so ofc it's not like an end-all-be-all hc for me or anything but it's just sooooo funny to me that I like to break it out any time I possibly can. Look me in the eyes and tell me he wouldn't. Honestly, look me in the eyes and tell me if he actually put his mind to it in any meaningful way he wouldn't be able to get decent quickly regardless, considering the fact he became an accomplished lawyer on more-or-less a total whim. This to say: that was my intention, to finish this fic I've had brewing that was about Phoenix actually being able to play the piano and hiding it for a really long time but eventually being found out by Miles by chance. Except then I sat down on the plane and started writing a Pearl POV instead? In which she finds out about more or less the same exact concept but from Iris--also by chance, but less actually catching him playing and more being asked, "Oh, does he still play? He was always good at that." And then bc it's Pearl (Pearl I love you), of COURSE she goes and confronts him about it. Pearl might be the single most confrontational character in these games tbh which is SO FUNNY to me. Like I'm kind of exaggerating obviously but also am I? I know she has psyche-locks you have to break through multiple times throughout the series but stiiiill. Everyone else is so repressed and weird about anything remotely vulnerable, I stg. Props to Maya for making sure Pearl turned out pretty okay I guess, lmao. Anyhow yeah that's sort of the AU I ended up with. Pearl POV where she and Iris know they're sisters (don't get me started on this I have so many thoughts about the amount of information I'm positive Maya and Pearl are NEVER given skjflj) and Pearl visits Iris in prison regularly and on one such visit maybe she mentions Nick's job at Borscht and Iris makes a totally innocuous comment to the effect that Pearl learns he actually knows how to play the piano and she goes to get mad at him about it because he's definitely been pretending he can't and Pearl's pretty sure he's told neither Maya nor Trucy the truth and that cannot be left to stand.

24 - Pretend Hate

Okay, this exists in a similar realm to the Orphan prompt, except instead of Phoenix being there for the trial or the Wrights taking Miles in before Manfred can, it's more just AU where Miles doesn't actually cut all contact and he and Phoenix successfully end up exchanging correspondence (in semi-secret) during the time they're separated (i.e. they remain friends and close during the 15 years they're separated in canon). "Semi-secret" because they--esp Miles--somehow hide who exactly it is they're talking / writing to all the time but don't necessarily hide the fact they are doing that. Like, a fake cultural / language exchange program or something? I feel like there could be a world where Manfred really doesn't give a shit what Miles is up to as long as he's being molded into "someone Gregory Edgeworth would hate" (I don't think he would lol but that's another AU) and becoming a model von Karma protege prosecutor and such. He obviously goes to lengths to cut Miles off from everything he's familiar with in that he takes him to Germany, but I've always thought it's way more on Miles feeling guilty and blaming himself and thinking he's unworthy / pushing people away being the reason why they never talked before aa1 despite Phoenix's "attempts to contact him," whatever those may be specifically. And, yeah, I've watched that one episode of the anime but tbh I don't really use anime canon for almost anything besides maybe some of the fun visuals, haha, so I'm kind of disregarding that anyway. ANYWAY. My point is. The "pretend hate" part is that--sometime over the course of exchanging correspondence, Phoenix starts thinking something's weird and gets it in his head to "investigate" himself, since he's still in LA / has access to the scene of the crime and stuff, and then as a combo of him just plugging away at it until he has enough (circumstantial) evidence to be like "Miles I think you're wrong about this" and also a younger, slightly less repressed, slightly less in Manfred's pocket Miles actually being somehow willing to consider alternatives a little--they're able to put their heads together and eventually come to the (correct) conclusion ahead of time, before the 15-year statute of limitations, that it was almost certainly Manfred who did it. And then they work together to figure out how they can possibly PROVE that but they haven't thought of anything foolproof by the time aa1 events start rolling around (or at the very least, the 5-years-ago sections of aa3? It might make more sense if it's as soon as Miles returns to Japanifornia, and also I think Phoenix has way less reason to fall for Dahlia/Iris so hard if Miles is around and *coughs* available lmfao. Anyhow). So, in the hopes it'll keep Manfred from getting suspicious of Miles, they publicly pretend to hate each other, putting on a show of more of the canon attitude Miles esp. has before 1-4, but behind the scenes they're actually working together trying to think of a way they can definitely get a conviction to stick that Manfred won't be able to worm out of. And that's the AU! Idk, in terms of additional thoughts, I couldn't decide what to do / what would happen to Mia in this AU either, which doesn't super matter but did give me pause. So she might live, idk, depends the exact timeline. I do also think a scene where--Dahlia still hits on Phoenix in the reading room/courthouse library but he's like, actively there waiting for one of Miles' trials to conclude for a covert meeting, so when Miles gets there and is like "What are you messing with over there?" Phoenix is like "Oh, hey, check out this weird bottle some girl just gave me because apparently she fell in love at first sight, haha, isn't that so funny--" and then Miles recognizes it from the Fawles trial and they catch Dahlia earlier or something, idk. Or alternatively Phoenix was AT that trial so HE recognizes it. Or maybe it's funniest if he was there but doesn't recognize it until Miles does lmao, this is not the point of this AU but I can't stop myself from considering this part of it.

25 - Scientists

So THIS is the day I sort of alluded to earlier, many many words of post ago, where I got so invested in my The Martian AU that I started accidentally worldbuilding about it. What I've started and have about 400 words of (slash one notebook page, again from the plane after my vacation), is like, AU where it's NASA instead of law and I can make Phoenix go "What, like it's hard?" only it's about literally rocket science this time hahaha. Basically for this fic I just thought, well what if Phoenix just shows up as a flight tech or engineer or something (idk I don't really know that much about real life astronautics) as Miles is preparing for some space mission or something and he's just like WHAT are YOU doing HERE. I know I know I made Apollo literally be the titular martian and yes he ALSO has a (or tbh probably has a WORSE) canonical debilitating fear of heights, so, shhh, but I do like the idea that Phoenix is like, oh, who, me? In the flying metal death trap? No fucking thank you, I will be down here watching and talking directly to you through a headset or something. You cannot escape me however i can at least escape the building I'm in. No interest in seeing the Earth from above, thanks. Actually iirc Miles also doesn't love heights but meh whatever I'm fairly certain Phoenix talks about it the earliest in the series so there you go. Anyway, this would all be a mission prior to whatever mission it is that Apollo & Co. go on to Mars for the first part of the AU, so I guess you could consider it a prequel? And probably a fairly shippy one. I have other reasons for which it's fun for me if wrightworth is at least together if not outright married before the events of the "The Martian" part of the AU, so this one would be, like, about how exactly that went down.

26 - Victorian Era

Okay, once again, this just. IS. Literally. Dai Gyakuten Saiban / The Great Ace Attorney. Lol. That said, I've always loved the fanart I've seen of like Ryuunosuke and Phoenix (and respective Co.'s) interacting, or like, one or the other ending up in the other time period somehow, so I thought it'd probably be fun to try my hat at that. I feel like I've neglected the tgaa characters anyway, considering I actually somehow managed to reference PLvPW already, which is obviously significantly more of a spinoff and also just largely non-canonical, lmao. Also tgaa is just SO GOOD, augh. I'd love to have the multi-witness cross examinations from both of those games back sometime again, and I had so much fun with the jury in tgaa too, excellent mechanic. What was I talking about? So, I never completely decided on a concrete direction to take this, but even before AU-gust had started I'd already been toying with the idea of an AU where maybe Maya or Pearl channels a character from tgaa specifically because some documentary or special or something comes out talking about the real-life Herlock Sholmes (as opposed to the Totally Fictional "Sherlock Holmes" who Phoenix references in that one trilogy line, because I really think that's the funniest possible explanation for the discrepancy) and they're arguing over how that cannot possibly be a real person and no one was named that and etc etc and then to prove once and for all one way or the other Hurley is channeled and also for bonus joke content "recognizes" Phoenix at first (idk pretend his eyesight got worse in his older age, I know Phoenix and Ryuunosuke look, tbh, less alike than Ryuu and Apollo do, lmao, but again that's another AU) and then I get to play with Phoenix's mom's maiden name is Naruhodou and his middle name is Ryuuichi or such to that effect, because that is also a favorite headcanon of mine (not in small part because I can project my own life onto him by making him half-Japanese from SoCal, lol). So that's an idea I'd had that was already decently fleshed out and the ONLY problem is that if I'm having characters actually be channeled then there's a very real limiting factor of how many spirit mediums exist, and also that means Maya and/or Pearl don't get to interact with them, which for the sake of not overwriting would be good but for the sake of my love of a chaotic group conversation would be bad. But, uh, hopefully I do manage to hold myself to a less broad cast of characters, ideally, instead of bringing a bunch of them over to the other time period to see how they'd deal with that and interact en masse. Ha. Haha.

27. Younger / De-Aged

So here's another AU I'd already had idle thoughts about before AU-gust had even started! I...will get into this later, TRUST I will, lmfao, but I do have an extremely involved AU already in which Time Travel of the "regression" type is involved, i.e., they have their memories of the "future" but are thrown back into the past including their own younger bodies however-many-years-ago. So I've got that type of thing covered, I promise I do, haha. And additionally, I've actually already written them "younger" for my colorless AU way back on day 2, so I did think perhaps I'd just continue that one and say it was for this prompt (a smart person thing to do. this is the objectively correct option). On the other hand. I find pre-DL6 Phoenix and Miles reacting to how their lives actually turned out in the end HILARIOUS. Tell me it's not funny. And tell me it's not, like, some sort of depressing-yet-ultimately-hopeful for the older/current them to look at their child selves and be like Kid, Oh, You're Going To Go Through Some Shit, but also reflect on how they did make it and things turned out okay and life goes on etc etc. My problem with this kind of thing is that it's hard to come up with a justification for and that's not a problem in itself but it is a problem in me not knowing how i'm going to end a fic, which often gets me decision-paralysis-ed into not being able to start it in the first place, which did in fact happen to me here, haha. I think ideally I'd just do a quick "wait, was that a dream?" kind of thing where they (Miles and Nick) have a short conversation with themselves, but... Uh-oh, what, did you think that was all I had? You clearly don't know me at all. OTHER au option where young Phoenix is in the future/present and rather than himself and Miles it's the Wright Anything Agency who like, idk, find him roaming the streets of LA (fun fact! I actually came up with this AU one day while I was quite literally roaming the streets of LA myself at like 3am-ish. Do with that what you will). He is of course wearing a hat or beanie or something at first because come on, that's way more fun, and no matter how much Trucy, Apollo, and Athena are like "hm idk something about this kid seems familiar" I just don't think my first thought upon seeing some vaguely familiar kid alone on the street would be, like, "Oh, that's obviously a child version of my father/coworker/boss!" So. I'm not really sure that one has an end point either, though, so the same problem still stands, haha. The bad, someone get a spray bottle to spritz me, option of this is, obviously, to combine the two, so it's like the WAA find him first and then are like UHHHHH we need an adult (never mind actual adult-age-ness between them) and somehow end up getting Miles there too, but idk. I... should not. Overcomplicate. I shouldn't. Even, even if...august is over...so theoretically there's no longer any sort of On-Time component since it's late either way........ definitely not.

28 - Caretaker

Here are my exact notes / entire doc for this day. Ahem. And I quote: i brought up the lighthouse keeper thing but i dont know where that would be going exactly maybe this is a thing i could do franmaya for??? since i still havent gotten there? actually lol that as a lighthouse thing is funny. ghost romance? my three tropes rattle End quote. Anyway, shout-out to my friend hailstorm for being the one there to brainstorm "lighthouse keeper" with at the self-same bar trivia that I mentioned previously, lmao. I actually think that was even the same exact day as the The Martian quote was a relevant answer to a question. So yeah, even though I already kind of have franmaya planned for the spies day, that's both kind of sort of a darker AU overall and--WELP well, okay, so, i do, you know, recognize maybe a ghost romance isn't, uh, necessarily the fluffiest kind of AU lmao. Don't mind that. My point is, I love the vibes of a lighthouse keeper AU, and I generally like ghost romance as a trope, so that does feel like a viable option. Honestly, I kind of separately wanted an excuse to practice writing miego also, so maybe the Feys are just all chillin' in this lighthouse for...Some Reason, and that's side-plot relevant somehow, idk. I know Franziska and Godot exist in the same place for a minute in 3-5, but I honestly can't really remember them interacting? I think she'd fucking HATE him though lmfao. He'd think she's funny but I actually think she'd be too reactive for his most preferred teasing/fucking-with-people dynamics, haha. Regardless, if he is there at all, it's a very minor B plot, I think, 'cause this ain't about him, lol.

29 - Forced into Hiding

Achtung, baby, 2566 words of this are written! Lol. So uh, yeah. In short, AU where Klavier gets hounded by fans on the street while he's also having just a bad personal day, and the closest and best place he can think to hide from them is at the WAA. I, um, actually hadn't realized I'd written quite this much of this, haha, it was supposed to be short and fairly silly but then it turned into Klavier having a little bit of a panic attack maybe and getting consoled by Apollo, sure, of course, but then also having to deal with and experience some amount of closure / reach some kind of understanding with the Wrights, also. It's kind of part Klav character study, kind of part complaint against freaking Capcom for neglecting him (boo, I love him, stop ignoring him, or, yknow, worse, whatever the heck turnabout academy was supposed to do for him, which honestly almost felt like a step back to be quite honest). Okay, also, taking a slightly closer look at what I've already written, the REASON I'd thought I'd written way less than this is definitely because he hasn't even GOTTEN to the Agency yet, never mind spoken with any of its members, lmao. That would do it. In any case, I like the idea of Klavier having a bit of a vulnerable moment, and I also like the idea of him and Phoenix actually, like, talking for real, instead of, once again, whatever Turnabout Academy and DD was meant to tell me, which seems to be less than nothing. I kind of like the fact that it gave him a law mentor? I mean, she was very dead, but I have a very meaningful Use for her in later-to-be-announced-AUs-I-keep-teasing, haha. I of course considered other people and times when people in AA might be forced into hiding, but this felt like a silly but also meaningful way to do that without it just being an exploration of Miles and his not-suicide note (which wasn't exactly "forced" anyhow, he did that all on his own) or like, Zak Gramarye (who also completely did that to himself but w/e). Making it about Klavier completely escapes the bounds of canon, because canon is a weenie about talking about any of his actual feelings EVER, so screw you Capcom, I'm doing it for you. Don't worry about it. Trucy commiserating with him about still Loving someone, perhaps the very closest person biologically related to you you've ever known and depended on in your life, who not only did you very big harm personally but explicitly used you in a very real and participatory way to perpetuate the harm elsewhere and all the complexities about Feelings For And About Them Therein, and Phoenix somehow having enough self-awareness to recognize that shutting down completely and isolating yourself away doesn't actually do you any good even when you're at your lowest, and recognizing that Klavier doesn't exactly have a "Trucy" to be a focal point to draw him out of that, and that therefore he needs to be a bit more open to his peers. (Insert joke about "Well, I'm really definitely not suggesting you go adopt an entire child, that's really probably, uh, not the way to go, actually, but, you know. Everyone needs people, that just makes us human." Etc.)

30 - The Beginning of the World

So, hm, as it turns out, I got extremely sidetracked this day thinking about the next day on the docket. Whoops! Unfortunately this ultimately means my ideas for this day as of now are relatively uninspired: I had the thought that I could explore the beginning of Troupe Gramarye, which is its own sort of world, or else, maybe something about the beginning of the series itself but from the somewhat unconventional POV of a one Mr. Larry Butz. Yes, that's a bit self-serving in that it lends toward trying to complete a list of "main, recurring characters' POVs" that I've had as a sidequest all month, but, still. That said, just exploring actual canon through Larry's POV isn't exactly what I'd classify as an "AU" necessarily, so I feel like something would need to be different here. Okay, wait--not to draw inspiration a dang week late to the party, BUT. Now that I'm typing this up, I'm thinking, okay, maybe, what if. The "Beginning" of the series, technically speaking, is basically the fact that Phoenix gets put on (class) trial for stealing Miles' lunch money--which notably only happened because Larry himself picked it up when it fell on the floor. So, perhaps, what about an AU where he doesn't do that? I mean, I guess it would just turn the entire world of AA into something of a terrible series of tragedies with no real closure about them, lol, rip, but it could possibly be interesting? I dunno! (And, yes, I know DL-6 itself is more or less the basis of the series, if we're being ticky-tacky, but Phoenix wouldn't have been involved without meeting Miles, and that somewhat necessitates the class trial, and without him none of canon would get resolved, so. I will say, I do love going back to the earliest points to see how and how much you can make canon deviate or stay the same--reasonably speaking--via minor tweaks and butterfly effect and all that, so this could be interesting, although I once again must say I think it really just means a bunch of innocent people, Miles included, are going to be put away and possibly executed over murders that weren't their faults, lol. Hm. Much to consider.)

31 - Two(+) of the Above:

Beginning of the World + Younger/De-Aged + Canon Divergence (+ Feat. Jokers: Guardian, Everybody Lives)

With all of this, the ONLY prompts I've actually missed on this list become Animagus which I swapped for the Wings joker, and the last joker of the four, Thriller, which was never exactly a priority of mine because I'm not sure I'd write that sort of thing particularly well, so! Wild! Completionists everywhere almost rejoice, haha. SOOOOO. For the eagle-eyed readers out there, I'll bet you're just dying to know what this one AU I've been teasing all post could Possibly be to warrant such a build-up, right? (...Right?) The answer is the at-ow! (Phonetically, lol. I've been calling it that instead of out loud saying all the letters in AATTAU out loud every time.) My friend Ben can attest to the fact that this behemoth AU (her word which I'm stealing) has been in the works for, uhhhh... months?

MONTHS. AHAHA. Ha. That. Sure says March! It sure does! And it is not lying. Lmfao. (Ignore the time, I was working overnight then--my beloved work schedule whomst I miss dearly--so that's a perfectly reasonable discord-ing hour for March-me.) Also, once again, I'm choosing to blame Ben for my extensive AU problems, she sent me a very cute time loop AA fic that utterly destroyed my entire mind because it got the mere idea of "Time-based AU" caught in my endless void-idea-hole. So. Here's the real rub. The literal reason I started doing this AU-gust challenge in the freaking first place was that I was absolutely Desperate to find a way to overcome my writer's block. And one of the (admittedly many) reasons I wanted to do this was because I have been ITCHING to write this stupid behemoth AU for real. I have a massive outline doc already, I have a whole slew of scenes planned, I have lots of character archage, I have sooo many things I want to say and explore about them all you have No Idea. It's extremely self-indulgent and absolutely my personal magnum opus for all my very specific favorite AA headcanons and ideas and thoughts. And obviously, it worked! I did indeed overcome my writer's block! And I had so much fun doing it!! And I'll admit, from the very beginning, I had been eyeing that "Everybody Lives" joker prompt, because...that's it! That's basically the point of the AATTAU (Ace Attorney Time Travel Alternate Universe, if that wasn't clear, haha). I don't want to let myself get TOO into it, because Oh Boy, I sure will! If you let me! Haha. But basically the premise is EXACTLY what I stated in that very first discord message I could find about it. Maybe not so much "time travel" technically speaking than it is "gaining memories of everything that happened in canon right as the DL-6 earthquake happens", so it's more regression than actual time travel since they're in their own younger bodies and everything, but still. It's basically my excuse to treat canon like it did happen and YET allow for everybody to survive and for the very fun cocktail of traumas and joys that come from remembering what happened but having the chance for something different (and all the effort that goes into making something different happen in the first place).

Now, as far as AU-gust goes. I was obviously not about to even pretend I could remotely start this during August itself or justify connecting any of it to the series and the prompts I'd already written for it, lol, but I also couldn't get the idea out of my head, so I got it in my head I really wanted to end the month with SOMETHING that somehow tied into my AATTAU, if only to motivate myself to actually get on it and start writing out instead of solely outlining everything that's been in the works all these months. So to that end, I saw the "Everybody Lives" and the "Beginning of the World" prompts, and an idea came to me. I'd been dancing around the justification aspect of this AU for most of the time I've had it because let's be honest, it's just a very self-indulgent idea and it does not NEED "justification" to serve the purpose I want it to serve and be what I want it to be. But the AU-gust prompts gave me some actual inspiration and an Idea as to a way to solidify my unnecessary "justification" but in a way that it doesn't need to be directly part of the final product of the AATTAU (like, I could make it a separate one-shot and either just link it to and from the AATTAU fic itself, or if it all ends up being a series, then I could just include it in the series but it wouldn't be necessary to read to understand what's going on. And so, I present! The Ami Fey one-shot special I came up with just to fit these prompts :3 ...And by "i present" i mean, uh, I wrote 4k words of it on the 31st and didn't even come close to what I wanted to cover, because I suck at being concise. Lmfao. (Shocker.) Basically, I used Ami Fey as a semi-self-insert kind of godlike figure to reason out a semi-plausible way to make the concept I want to explore happen, happen. And I had a lot of fun, but I do still have a bunch to finish, but either way, I'm very pleased to have a (somewhat silly but ultimately fun for me) reasoning as to the gears ticking behind the scenes of my idea! To be somewhat less vague, the whole AU is predicated on the idea that, Phoenix and/or Miles (who remember from the beginning / from December 28th, 2001) meeting the other characters at-or-after the time they originally met in canon are able to recall their memories of the "original" (i.e. canon) timeline. I've used some magatama shenanigans to have some fun with this, and I'm now using Ami Fey and magatama shenanigans to explain how and why this is A Thing, even if it isn't necessarily the objectively most logically sound argument I've ever made. It's still a good one, in my book, and more importantly I like it, so that's all that really matters.

To briefly explain the "two" (by which I mean 5?) of the "above" I'm using here:

Beginning of the World: This fic specifically would show the beginning of the "world" of this AU specifically! Woohoo! Go Ami Fey, creating a whole new set of problems for our beloved little Guys to go through, hahaha. I think I may have based her character a little too much on Maya mischievousness, but, oh well. Let's just say that's where she gets it from.

Younger/De-Aged: As I've already kind of expressed, the premise of this AU is mostly just them being their own younger selves except they also have the memories of all of canon (and maybe a year or two after the fact, I need to confirm a couple dates).

Canon Divergence: I feel like this is decently self-explanatory, but then again maybe it's a bit cheesy to include this here, since it basically diverges from nearly the first major event of canon (DL-6), but that's not the only time things go almost-canonically but diverge a bit in some way, so I think it really does fit here.

Guardian: This one is a bit multi-fold. It somewhat refers to the way I'm making Gregory Edgeworth the de facto guardian (as in, legal guardian) of mostly everyone I possibly can because I love him and he would be great at it. But also, guardian in that, Mr. Savior Complex Phoenix Wright himself has literally all of the information at his disposal to try to "save" the potential Happy Lives of literally every person he loves, and, well. He does a pretty good job about it; not without cost, haha, but I feel like I can definitely call him a "guardian" of others in this AU. And, as for specifically the one-shot Ami fic, she is essentially the guardian of the entire Fey lineage, in this AU at least, so that also totally fits and is most immediately relevant.

Everybody Lives: I think this one is pretty self-explanatory at this point, lol. But for the one-shot: Ami is essentially trying to secure an "everybody lives" scenario, even if it hasn't been achieved yet, so it's more an aspiration at that point, but ultimately it is indeed successful. Now, "living" does not mean, like, "totally healthy" (mentally or physically), so there's lots more to it, but in short, yes, they live.

And......that's basically a wrap on that!

I mean, it isn't actually at all, since I still have to finish 26/31 fics, lmfao, but as far as the idea generation stage goes, and the use of the AU-gust prompts, that's what's up in my world! Somewhere out there maybe there's an AU of my actual real life where i finished more of these on time, but i'm still pretty pumped by all the work that's already been made on making so many AA fics a reality for me. I've come a long way since starting that first AA fic in 2018...!!

I still have all the aforementioned 26 fics to finish obviously, and I also have AU continuations planned for at the very least, day 2's colorless prompt and day 3's dark academia prompt (let alone day 31's, lol, but that's its own monster entirely), but I'm optimistic!

Thankfully I actually finished using nano to word track for me before they, you know, doubled down on AI and called everyone "abelist" (???) for not supporting it, which, uh. Well. But for my own posterity and if anyone's curious, here's what my word counts looked like throughout the month of AU-gust--admittedly including some planning and outlining:

It ended up being 51,377 words total in August on these AU prompts alone!

I feel like I wanted to say something poignant and meaningful at the end here, but it's almost 9:30 and I work at 4am tomorrow, so I'm going to go ahead and wrap this post up here, haha. If you read all of this, thank you very much for joining me on my little journey!

Once again, here is the Ao3 series where I'll post anything more that gets done, so if you'd like to see how any of these AUs turn out, feel free to keep an eye on that!

And here is the previous post with the 1st half+ of the AUs if you missed it and are interested now!

My copy arrived literally as I was writing this up so I've spent the last several prompts of this post listening to the AAIC soundtrack in the music collection, and, oh man, it's seriously so surreal this exists??? I might be an old fogey who has and will for an indeterminate amount of time continue to have trouble letting go of the fan translation names I've lived with for the past decade or whatever, but it's seriously so awesome the entire series is finally available internationally!! Let's hope for my sake AA7 doesn't come out before I finish any of my AATTAU, because that would really throw a bit of a wrench in my decision-making process, lol.

Bye for now!

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celestialiron · 8 months ago

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Echoes of Courage: Chapter 1

After much consideration (asking from you guys here!) & my best friends also telling me to "stop being a little bitch & post it!" (with all of their love lol) I'm going to be updating my story here too! I posted the link to the prologue since it ties in with the story too! I'll still be posting chapters to my AO3 for my story too, it'll be paused until I catch up to both here & AO3! Finally, it's my OCs time to shine!

But without further adieu, here's chapter 1 of my story!

WARNING: Everyone in the story are all adults (unless there's a flashback then I will mention it)! As well as a lot of harsh language, suggestive themes, violent scenes, and other triggering moments that will progress throughout the story (which will also be warned beforehand). So minors & TCEST shippers, DNI. Please be respectful of not only myself & my story, but also of each other. Be kind to one another.

Summary: This is a story of love, lost, family, friends and trying to get a hold of everything being thrown at them. This will be a tale for the people involved, but with the help of loved ones and getting to trust one another, they're hoping that everything will be put to an end once and for all...

The day started like any other Friday for a senior college student: stressed and tired. Izra Montague sure knew how to handle it, especially with all the classes as a senior music student who took so many credits to graduate on time with her college friends and start up her career. ‘Oh lord, it’ll be from today, 2 weeks until graduation and I don’t even know what to do for it,’ thought Izra, arm over her eyes as she lay in her bed, mind still blown as she found out she’s able to walk and graduate on time and hadn’t even thought of anything to do for herself. The amount of graduation parties from her close college friends were able to help her decide if she even wanted one or not, but still going to theirs. Deciding to do something more productive, Izra sat up from her bed, checked the time to see if she had enough time to make something to eat before her class. The clock read 12:00pm , to which she proceeded to get something quick to eat before her class. While getting dressed, deciding to wear dark blue jeans with regular van shoes with a plain black strapped shirt, wearing a flannel over it, Izra checked her phone for any messages from school, friends, whichever she can see first. The first thing she read was from the group chat with her friends April O’Neil and the Hamato brothers. Smiling while reading the text messages, Izra groaned as the group continued to ask whether she was going to have a graduation party or not.

LoserLeo: can you please make up your mind for once, Izz-Bizz? This will only happen once in a lifetime if we don’t celebrate your day! :(

Don-Bot: I mean if we really want to be technical-

Razz_Mikey: yeah, what Leo said! WE’LL PLAN EVERYTHING LIKE WE DID FOR APRIL’S GRAD PARTY

April’sNews: Well, let’s double think about that now, ESPECIALLY from that grad party :o

BigBearRaphie: I agree, we don’t want a repeat of certain people getting so drunk they don’t even remember they were calling their boyfriend, RIGHT LEO?

LoserLeo: HEY, WE AGREED TO NEVER SPEAK OF THAT OR MY EX!

Laughing at the last message that was sent in the chat, Izra started typing out her response, hoping it’ll calm the fire that will be set to burn someone soon. With the last message sent, Izra left her place and went off to class.

MysteryIzzie: thank you for bringing it up, I thought I was going to be the one to do the job, but thanks Raph! xD

MysteryIzzie: BUUUUUUT I will let you guys know AT LEAST an idea soon, I promise you all that! :) I’ll talk to you guys later, gonna head to class!

Meanwhile, the four Hamato brothers were up at the lair, all sitting in the projection room trying to plan what to do for their friend. “I mean, how bad would it be if we planned something soooort of similar to what we did for April’s party?” Leo suggested, trying to at least get the ball rolling if Izra was going to be indecisive. All three brothers glared at Leo, Donnie speaking up, “out of the question! We’re not going to be dealing with any repercussions to your dum-dum exes or booty calls if you get too drunk again and start making calls!” Glaring at him, Leo tried to say something (most likely the lines of ‘ it won’t and you guys need to stop bringing it up!’ ) Mikey exclaimed, very excitedly, “WE CAN DO A HUGE GROUP PARTY!” looking over at Mikey, who suddenly brought in a white board (most likely taken from Donnie’s lab, to which he was not too happy about), and started planning out ideas. “We don’t necessarily need to do single parties for everyone, when we can just combine it for everyone to enjoy! And this will be good for Izzie to meet more people than just her college friends, April, and us!” Once finishing up what he was writing, he showed a very large timeline of various names and in the middle read * PARTY* in huge letters and circled multiple times following it. Looking at the board, Raph was the one to speak first, “well, while this is nice and all Mikey, don't you think they should all at least, I don't know, meet each other first? Like what April did before? Also, Alexis can’t come that Saturday, she starts her new job soon and always has Saturdays to work.” A little saddened by the news, Raph gave Mikey a reassuring pat on the shoulders, smiling while staying positive for him, “you know she’ll want us to have it anyways bud, besides what you got going looks great!” With a nod, they all continued on, deciding who could come and who couldn’t come.

While figuring it out, with now the help from April who came over about an hour after they were still planning it out. It seemed perfect, however a couple of them were still a bit on the defensive side on whether Izra should meet with these other people earlier or not. “I’m just saying, we all know how Val is, I think it should be a first meeting at least with her of all people!” Leo exclaimed, already knowing how one of his other best friends was going to react to meeting new people, especially those she really didn’t know. Groaning in agreement, April dejected, “hey, maybe this will be a good exercise for her too! She’s got to be better at meeting new people! ALSO CONTROL ONE OF YOUR SUPPOSED “BESTIE” THEN LEO!” “Awe Apes, no one could replace youuuu!” Leo said, trying to get April to hug him, knowing she was joking about the last bit. Rolling his eyes, Donnie brought up a good point to them all, “well, as you should know too, Kira, Ruka and Valeria are long time friends so if anyone should also be able to “handle” her, it’s the both of them too. Especially since Ruka was nice enough to agree to this idea in the first place.” Nodding their heads in agreement, Leo smirked, deciding to mess with his twin, “awe see, they’re not even together and he still chooses Kira over us,” was said while chuckling, Raph and Mikey joining him about Donnie’s very much obvious crush on Kira while April sighed, patting Donnie’s battle-shell before letting him decide if he should kill his brothers or not. “You better sleep with one eye open Nardo, I know just how to mix specific herbal flowers with tea. You can thank Kira for that too,” Donnie growled, going on the defense about Kira (absolutely trying to block out his feelings at the moment). Making Leo swallow his saliva quietly before returning to the board, “ any-who , so it looks like we got ourselves the final people who could actually make it! Now the next step: asking them if they could or not,” with that in mind, all 5 were on the mission to get everyone ready to meet each other for the first time in such a huge setting.

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Later that day, Izra was heading out to a coffee shop before meeting up with April and the guys, needing some caffeine after the day of classes, glad it was the weekend to spend a break with friends. ‘Man, I can’t wait to hear what the guys had planned, almost had to turn off my phone so I wouldn’t get distracted in class.” Thought Izra, while waiting on her mocha frappe from the cafe she loved coming to since she started school. Thanking the cashier for the drink, she started to head out, deciding to sit at one of the tables that just sits closely by the cafe to catch up on missed messages and any assignments to work on. While mindlessly scrolling through her phone, Izra wasn’t made aware of someone looking at her, almost as if they were having whiplash at who she was. Before long, Izra heard someone call her name.

“Izra? Izra Montague?”

Stopping dead in her tracks from what she was doing on her phone, Izra froze, ‘Oh my god, is that…?’ she thought as she turned around to face who was calling to her. There stood a woman her age, about a height taller than Izra, a light caramel tan to her skin, her long brown curled hair up in a bun, wearing black leggings with gray flats and a plain grayish white shirt with a loose black cardigan to go with the outfit. Apparently, she had also ordered coffee from the same cafe, to Izra’s surprise that she didn’t even notice her there.

“Ruka? Is that really you?” Izra asked, wanting to pinch herself believing it was all a dream and she would wake up from it eventually. “Yeah, it’s really me…” Ruka answered, also seeming a bit hesitant on asking her the same question. “Am I dreaming or am I actually seeing you, Izzie?” She ended up asking, also wanting to believe that Izra was here and not stuck somewhere else and far from home. Tearfully, Izra got up from her chair, fully facing Ruka, smiling as bright as one can, “yes, I’m here… I’m the real thing, unfortunately,“ she laughed as Ruka covered her mouth from shock, tears slowly rolling down her cheeks as she smiled, running up to her long-time friend for a tight hug, as Izra gave her an equal amount of hugging too. They both stood there hugging for about 10 minutes, not wanting to let go as if either one would disappear from each other, letting people walk past them without a care in the world. Slowly they let go, very happy to have found each other again, Izra was the first to speak, “I would’ve never guessed for you to be living here ma’am! How long have you been here?! Who else is here?! Did you come here alone?! What happened-” before she could continue her questioning, Ruka stopped her before anymore was said, “I didn’t think so either, but if you have some time, we can catch up here, if you want to…” she asked hesitantly, thinking back to the old days and remembering what had happened back home. Noticing her hesitation, Izra paused, feeling a bit guilty about the things that happened back then, but she isn’t who she was back when she left home, not anymore.

“Of course I have time! I understand why you would ask though. Natalie almost couldn’t believe it either…” she started, staying a bit quiet before continuing, “listen, I’m sorry for what I said, what I did back home. I never intended to make ANY of you feel that way or the words that were spoken that day too, I was angry at the world, mainly myself really…” Izra looked to the side, not feeling confident about looking at her best friend at the moment. “I know it doesn’t excuse what I did, but I want you to know how guilty I’ve felt ever since and I worked hard to find myself again and then-” before she can continue on with her apologies, Ruka hugged her again, squeezing tightly, giving Izra reassurance, “I know you are. I know you felt guilty about it, we wouldn’t be best friends if I didn’t know you like the back of my hand.” She said, letting go for a bit to look at Izra, already knowing her best friend has well improved since her days away from home. “I already forgave you. We ALL have.” Ruka squeezed her shoulders, once again reassuring Izra everything is okay, “let’s continue this conversation sitting, as much as standing around is nice, I’ve been walking around all day and I need a break,” she said, both woman giggling while sitting back down to where Izra had just been, finally getting a chance to talk about everything .

Once the time hit 5 in the afternoon time, both Izra and Ruka were still on the table chatting away, happy to catch up on times they’ve both missed out on. In the midst of their conversation, Izra got a text from April, giving her details about the now planned graduation party they got going for her, except now it turned into a huge one since her other friends/co-workers are also invited, apparently also graduating from school too. With a sigh, Izra put the dates on her phone, seeing multiple events coming up after graduation. “Whoa, that sigh usually means you’re nervous and stressed. What’s the problem?” Ruka asked, already sensing her friend’s stress from across the tables. Sighing again, groaning in the process, Izra explained, “so, remember how I told you I’m graduating? One of my friends and her brothers are planning this huge graduation party but it’s the same day you asked me to come over for Kira’s and Val’s graduation/ceremony party too, which even after that is when I’ll actually catch a break from everything, LITERALLY.” With that said, Izra laid her head on the table, coffee long gone and now stressing about what to do for the issues she had going on. Laughing softly, Ruka patted her head, hoping to help her friend out in any way possible, “so how about this, you asked them what time it starts and whatever time they pick, you can meet us earlier. Think that’ll be fine with them?” Sitting up, Izra looked to Ruka as if she had just grown wings and was an angel sent above, “oh my god, yes that’s genius! I’ll ask when I see them later tonight!” Getting out of the chair, she ran towards Ruka, hugging her while tearfully thanking her, “I missed you so much, no one would’ve gotten it except you. Should’ve tried to find me sooner bitch!” Ruka laughing while hugging her back. Also getting up and throwing away their empty cups, they both stood still, not wanting either one to leave back to their places.

“So, wanna walk together until we actually have to go back to our places?” Izra shyly asked, not wanting the great time the two just shared together. Smiling softly, Ruka agreed, both continuing the conversation they had on their way back. Once reaching the subway station, Ruka finally asked what had been on her mind, almost hesitating on asking in general “so since you’ve seen Natalie, have you seen Alexis yet?” Hearing the question, it took Izra about a couple of minutes to respond, smiling softly, which surprised Ruka, “yeah, I saw her too. It was Natalie’s idea for us to meet again and oh boy did I get an earful.” Closing her eyes, remembering seeing Alexis for the first time in what felt like forever, but it had only been about two and a half years since seeing each other from home. Opening her eyes, they both went inside the subway cart, as she continued on, “it was brutal, which I understood from her point too. I let her have the moment she deserved, it wasn’t fair what I did to her too,” looking out to where each station was then down to her hands, “but in the end, she did the same thing like what you did. Forgave me.” She sighed, nervously twiddling her fingers, “forgiving me for leaving and not even letting anyone know I was okay. Though it was hard, in the end, the three of us hugged it out, while Fred was waiting for us too, giving me the biggest hug while calling me a loser in the process.” Both chuckled, Izra remembering fondly how her brother-in-law had taken upon himself, while using their cat Aria, to bicker like they used to back home.

Realizing she was almost close to her place, Ruka stood up to get ready to leave, taking Izra’s phone in the process. Confused, Izra waited until Ruka was done, realizing that she was putting her phone number in her phone. “Here, since you apparently upgraded your phone, I added mine again since I also got a new phone just recently.” Happy with the number, Izra exclaimed to Ruka, “I feel so honored. Before you forget, send me your address so I know where to go for whenever you’re not too busy with anything!” Once more, they both shared a hug, letting Ruka leave the cart to head to her house while Izra waits for the next stop to see April and the guys. Getting up, ready to leave from the next stop, she heard her phone ring, signaling a text message was sent to her. Once the subway stopped, Izra stepped off, walking towards the direction of the brother’s home, checking her phone for whoever sent her a text message. Smiling even more, realizing it was from Ruka, all the message read was:

Ruka: I’m really glad I saw you today. Something in me felt like I was going to run into someone & it turned out to be you :) I know it sounds cheesy, but I guess the spirits knew what they were doing apparently lol

Ruka: Also, I didn’t get the chance to say it when we were talking, but I’m proud of you. You look like yourself again & that’s what's most important. I know it must’ve been hard to learn to forgive yourself on your own, but as always, what happened wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t any of our faults. Everyone is going to be happy and proud of you when they see you again too sweetie! I just know it! <3

Having to stop to finish reading what she sent, Izra almost started crying right there on the spot. Wiping away the pre-tears that threaten to come out, she didn’t realize that Leo and April were on their way to get her, but stopped once they saw Izra fully stopped from walking, almost on the verge of tears. Looking at each other concerningly, having not seen her that way in a long while, walking slowly, with April speaking softly, not wanting to make matters worse, “hey, you okay? Do we have to go beat up someone? Or make a professor cry?” After that was said, Leo spoke up, “making a professor cry? I’ll go get Donnie,” turning around to make his move, before getting stopped by Izra, shaking her head smiling. “Guys, I promise you I’m okay. These are happy almost tears,” Izra said, looking at the two, happy that they were concerned about her wellbeing.

Making the quick decision to move on before much else was said, the three started making their way over to the projection room where everyone else was. Izra spoke before the two could question her, “do you guys remembered how I mentioned my friends from home? How I thought they couldn’t ever forgive me for leaving?” Confused, but the two nodded in agreement, remembering about a year and a half ago where they had comforted her that day from her guilt and depression. Smiling, she continued, “well, after so long, I ran into one of them from the café I go to before coming over. That’s why I was running a bit late tonight,” she finished, looking down to the ground while continuing their walk over. Surprised by what she just said, Leo was surprisingly the first one to ask, “what happened? I’m going to assume you both reconnected your friendship again seeing from your reaction not 10 minutes ago,” chuckling, Izra nodded her head, looking over at the two, making them stop walking to listen to what she had to say.

“It was…… Amazing. I knew you guys were right from the start that they were going to forgive me, but hearing it today from her felt….. Wonderful. We caught up on so much, we lost track of time, which also leads me to what I need help from you both too,” Squinting his eyes and before he could get a word in, April interrupted, “oh boy, what do you need help with?” She questioned, having the feeling that Izra was going to request anything from them. Hesitantly, Izra started, “well you see, she invited me to her home the day that it’s done being renovated, just a couple of more things to be done to the house and it’ll be complete!” It then turned into rambling, “the only problem is that the day it’ll be done is the day we have my graduation party with your coworkers too and it’s going to be my old friends from home, so we were going to meet up earlier before the party time start and they’re also busy with something else too, but if there was anything else that needed to be done earlier than I’ll gladly help if you guys need me and-” before the rambling could get any worse than it already was, April stopped her, putting both her hands on both shoulders, saving the three of them time and energy from it all.

“Girl, relax! I’m just happy you’re reuniting with your friends from home! I’m sure the rest of them will understand, well at least Donnie and Raph yes, Mikey however…” April hesitated, thinking about it clearly until Leo joined in, easing both their worries, “don’t worry about Angelo, mis amigas ,” Izra rolled her eyes at that, “I’ll sweeten the deal if it goes awol, but I’m pretty sure he’ll understand for the most part too. Just as long as you could help me with any of them too, guy or gal, y’know how I roll” Leo finished, a quick wink with a smile on his face too, evident that he too was happy for his close friend, going to be seeing her childhood friends again soon. Smiling brightly, happy for the help and support from her close friends, Izra hugged them both. Letting go afterwards, she gave Leo a good smack upside the head, exclaiming how she “was not going to set him up with any of them, no matter what he says!”

Laughing on the way to where the rest of the Hamato family was, Izra finally felt like she could take on anything now. Especially with the return of her old friends, being with new friends, and hoping both worlds would get along just fine, maybe even be much more closer like she was with April and the brothers. ‘Oh yeah, I think it’s going to be great. I have a good feeling about this,’ thought Izra, before reaching the room to explain her situation, excited to get everyone on board.

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(Prologue: Current: Ch.2)

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