#i haven’t written in months so pls be nice lol but i would love feedback

[riddledwithrats]

True Justice

Edward Nashton/The Riddler Character Study

Summary: Edward loses himself in thought

Words: 772

A/n: this is my first time writing eddie so i hope this isn’t absolute shit lol, i’ve seen a lot of different ways people characterize him and the little quirks they give him and i kind of combine some of them in my head. and that’s what he’s like to me lol so sorry if it seems ooc or anything like that

The fluorescent bulb of the dusty diner buzzes overhead, it crackles and flickers. Edwards eyes are well adjusted to the inconsistency, he’s grown accustomed to the dishonesty of Gotham. Not one thing in this city can be trusted, it's infested with its own greed and corruption. His deep green eyes scan over the dirty countertop, his gaze landing on the man beside him and his newspaper. Renewal, it reads.

This city has been preaching “Renewal” ever since he was a kid. A kid sat on a moldy mattress in the endless confines of Gothams resident orphanage. He can still smell the rats, the disease, coursing its way through the crumbling building. All with the ever-looming promise of RENEWAL, watching him and laughing.

What has this city renewed? The growing bank accounts of its most wealthy? Not one cent has ever gone to that orphanage. Not even after he set it ablaze. It was such an insignificant loss that the GCPD didn't even garner it an investigation. Edward takes a deep breath. He can't let himself lose it in front of the minimal amount of people in this hole-in-the-wall diner. He must keep his composure, his facade, if his plan for true renewal is to go the way he wants it to. He grows giddy just at the thought of the water washing away this stain of a city, he’ll be doing Gotham a service. The only way to save this city is to start from the ground up.

What if it doesn't deserve saving? A clawing voice says in the back of his head. “Of course it deserves saving,” Edward replies under his breath. He thinks of the countless people who —just like him— have been wronged, betrayed, and ignored. They deserve a new life, one of true promise. One of honesty, and acceptance. A life in which they can prosper. The only way Gotham can ever offer this, is by creating a new Gotham. An honest Gotham.

Gotham and its rotten underbelly should drown with it. The voice cackles and Edward shakes his head to rid himself of the horrid sound. No, no, no. He MUST stop the lies. The only way to rid this city of corruption is to wipe it out entirely… And if a few innocent lives are lost in the process, then such is life. Edward grips the pencil in his hand. Oh, yes, that's right. He had been doing a crossword puzzle. He looks down at the paper underneath his quivering, shaking hands. When had he started sweating?

The filled in spaces read: Infested. To calm himself, he reads the word over and over. Wracking his brain for words that rhyme, something he taught himself in the orphanage to drown out the cries of the other children. Arrested, invested, protested. He looks around the diner for more words. Buy our new Apple Pie! A red sign on the window says. Buy, he thinks, Buy, Guy, Sky, Try, High, Cry, Why, Die, Die, Die, Die, Die, Die…

A loud horn honks outside and Edward is whipped back into reality. He's clutching the little, paper crossword book in his hands so tightly he can feel it slicing paper cuts into his palms. He looks around and notices the TV hanging in the corner of the diner. A breaking news bulletin flashes across the screen. Mayor Found Slaughtered In Home. Edward tries to hide his joy as he watches in anticipation, watches as his plan is set in motion as the seedy patrons of the diner rustle and perk up at the news.

He watches in delight as their eyes grow wide as saucers and they begin to stand and leave the establishment hurriedly. Desperate to get home, desperate for some semblance of safety in this cesspool of a city. There is no safety here, not with the cruel and unjust running amuck with wads of cash in their hands.

If there’s one thing Edward can agree with the Batman on, it’s that this city is in need of true and proper Justice. And while the Bat distracts himself with petty crime, Edward feels a smile creep across his face, The Riddler will begin a crusade against the TRUE criminals. Gothams very own, high and mighty, the ELITE. The corrupt, the LIERS, THE RATS!

The diner is empty and Edward is shaking from the force of the truth running through him. Every forged line, every check sent to yet another millionaire, none of it will ever get past him. He knows what they did and he will bring TRUE JUSTICE to Gotham.

Starting with the city's beloved, deceiving Mayor.

[carbootsoul]

i was tagged by @katarahairloopies!!! thank u :mwah:

name: leo! @/zeitgeistofnow on ao3, @lazypigeon & @timetohope on here, altho i’m considering uh switching back to not having an art blog :/ i have to think abt it.

fandom(s): ace attorney is my main one rn bc i’m replaying the games with a friend of mine and it’s reminding me how invested i am in the characters!! a lot of my recent fic is atla stuff, altho i’ve been distancing myself from the fandom bc i’ve kinda exhausted my interest in it. finally i’ve been reading a lot of mp100 fic but i don’t think i’ll ever write for it. i just love how dumb all the characters r (with the dubious exception of ritsu)

where you post: ao3!! tbh i always get suprised when people say they write/read fic on any other platform like i haven’t messed around w wattpad or ff.net since middle school... catch up........

most popular oneshot: going just by “one chapter” as the definition of a oneshot, the firestarters, bc it’s fluffy and modern au :) i wouldn’t necessarily call it a oneshot tho bc to me a oneshot shows like, one scene? so like by my definition and your sweet sweet sun makes me crazy (i wanna lay you down and see how you amaze me is my most popular!! (also @ kit u thought UR fic titles were unnecessarily long??? i’ve hit the ao3 LIMIT for characters in titles. it’s about the aesthetic

most popular multichapter fic: sdkjflakjlkj it’s two crowned kings; and one that stood alone, which is a w359 fic i wrote back in late 2017. it’s literally the last fic i haven’t orphaned from when i actually wrote podcast fic (i have 4 other podcast fics but they were all borne out of nostalgia and written after i stopped participating in the fandom). i rewrote all but the last chapter? the last two? about a year ago and i fucked up halfway through so like chapter 6 and 7 are repeated and there’s something missing but i’m too lazy to fix it. no one’s going to read it now anyway :) it WAS the top minlace fic for a little while tho which i take great pride in.

favorite story you’ve written so far: oh that’s a hard question akfsldkfj i honestly like most of them!! and i write a LOT so there’s a lot to choose from. tonight, we are young is def one of my favorites- it was fun to write and i got to explore the ways zuko and yue r similar, which i LOVE to do outside of a zukka/yukka view. you can lean on my arm as you break my heart  is one that i’m really proud of? the whole “cooking as an expression of bato’s love” is definitely some of my favorites. a lot of my ace attorney fics would be categoried as my favorites if i hadn’t improved, too, if that makes sense. like they’re no long my favorites because i can see where my writing is shitty and it bothers me, but if i had written them a month ago they’d be my favorite.

fic you were nervous to post: figures 1-5: killing gods def!! it’s a lot more purple-prose-y than most of my fics and it was also written before i’d kinda like emersed myself in the atla fandom so i didn’t have as good a grasp on the general understanding of zuko’s character as i do now. tbh it’s one i’m rly happy w tho!! i have a few people leave really nice comments on it and rereading them makes me really happy. also it was the start of me hating the position of fire lord and being at least passively anti-it in my fics.

how you choose your titles: they’re almost all song lyrics!! only 14 of my 50 words AREN’T song lyrics and about half of those are from before i started writing ace attorney fic lol. sometimes i go into a fic with a song in mind for the vibes and then i usually go with lyrics from that (like in ‘cuz we’re the greatest /they’ll hang us in the louvre), but otherwise i usually pick an artist i’ve been listening to and go through their songs until i find a lyric that fits. sometimes the lyric doesn’t even really fit the fic and i just chose it at random or because i searching up the word “fly” in my spotify library or whatever. honestly i like coming up with titles? i know a lot of fic writers hate it but being able to just use song lyrics is v soothing for me and while i know that most people won’t search out a song just bc it’s a fic title like.. seeing that the title of a fic is a hozier lyric does affect how i read it and i kinda like that.

do you outline? i outline my long form/multichaptered fics with varying strictness. usually anything over ~8k will have some kind of outline. sometimes i go into it with every single scene planned out, sometimes it’s just notes on the side of the google doc that say “it's about MORE family. about how it's not betraying your existing family to find more” and “scenes i want to include: [...]” and “vampires... ngl kinda hot.” i’m trying to outline super strictly less bc i’ve found it’s less fun? but i do try to keep a plot arc in mind. since most of my fics are more character-driven than plot-driven, that usually just means keeping track of what character development i want to happen or what is motiviating the characters. 

complete: um everything posted on ao3 i guess. also the MULTITUDE of orphaned fics out there asksfjldkj i always click ‘leave my pseud on’ so if u look up my username you see all of my fics and then a. lot of other ones.

in progress: - a fic titled ‘dad phoenix’ that is actually just a no DL-6 au with defense attorney miles edgeworth and single dad bartender phoenix where neither of them want to date for A While but phoenix gets wrapped up in one of miles’s cases. it’s about family. it’s about writing teenagers. it’s about the background franmaya which is ALWAYS what i’m here for in wrightworth fics - a franmaya werewolf/vampire au because i’m ~gay~ and love rivals to lovers and also franziska and maya both being angry their older brothers r dating each other. - my secret santa fic!! which i can’t talk about much but it does feature toph and zuko and also piandao and jeong jeong???? idk where they came from but they are Part Of The Fic Now also i forgot iroh existed for half the fic and wrote piandao as zuko’s father figure and now i’m in too deep. - a 5+1 bakoda fic (maybe a bato/hakoda/kay fic??? i need to decide. that’s part of why this fic is still incomplete bc i can’t decide which relationship dynamic i prefer) that’s 5 times bato said he loves hakoda and one time hakoda said it back. possibly i have already written him saying i love u back and i need to change the title a little. - retail au klapollo where klavier works at an overpriced boutique and apollo comes in to buy earrings for nahyuta’s birthday. klavier gives him a punch card (one that the store doesn’t actually offer anymore as a bid to get apollo to come back) and all of apollo’s family come in to use the punch card and also give klavier variations on the shovel talk/find out if he’s actually into apollo. - a LOT of atla fics that i don’t think i’ll ever finish :(

coming soon/not yet started:  - i want to write some blackmadhi bc they’re.. cute..... and it’s a good excuse to also write athena and i love her - my stuff for yueki week!!! i have NOT prepped enough but hopefully i’ll remember in time! i wrote the prompts in a way that kinda set up stuff i’ve already wanted to write (don’t look at me lol) so hopefully i’ll get at least two or three fics finished in time. - i want to rewrite the wrightworth fic i have about them not getting married bc it was interesting and i like what i wrote about but i think i could have written it better and made it more interesting. rewriting fics is hard tho bc i’m never sure if it makes sense to just edit in the new work or to repost it? and then if u repost it do u delete the old one? conflicting so i might just not

do you accept prompts? totally!!! a disclaimer tho i’m not super into writing atla stuff anymore (most of the atla stuff i’m still writing is  something i made a commitment to finish) so if your prompt is an atla one i probably won’t do it :/ basically anything else is fair game tho!! podcasts/aa/sa/uh i don’t remember anything else but like if you search a fandom on my blog and come up with more than two posts about it chances r i’d be happy to write fic for it!

upcoming work that you’re most excited about: oh huh i mean probably the no dl-6 au!!! it’s the longest ace attorney fic i’ve written already and since it’s wrightworth it’ll get more attention than any franmaya fic i write. my standards r so high now tho after getting to much feedback from atla fans... love u all... obviously i have no choice but to pressure my atla mutuals into playing ace attorney. pls ask abt it bc i WIll Give You A Sales Pitch about why you’d like it in relation to atla

tagging: i’m not rly tagging anyone!!! @deadflora if you still consider urself a fic writer also consider urself tagged! also any of my other mutuals who write fic i just can’t think of anyone rn