#i'm writing an owed fic and lets just say there's a kid involved

[bearw-me]

This is kinda dark so if you don't wanna do it it's cool. Can I request Carmilla running into a son reader? [Years before she had her daughters she had a son but she was too strict/serious on her boy which led to him...taking his own life. The experience made Carmilla realize she mightve been too hard on him so when hid sisters come around she showers them with love] The reader thinks carmilla is going to scold him, scream at him or anything but she just hugs him hard and tells him she's sorry and that she loves him

i'd like to put my author's note up here before you guys read what i wrote/make a little disclaimer!

TW: mentions of harm

I wouldn't write the act, per-se, but i had absolutely no problem with your request because it doesn't really involve those details (fic wise) this one is mostly about comfort and a nice reunion!

just before you go, know your best-friend mal is always here for you <3 this and every other fic i write is my silent love-letter to you

𝐍𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐋𝐞𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐆𝐨 — 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞

𐐒 includes : carmilla carmine x son!reader, odette, clara 𐐒 cw : angst, hugs, kisses, comfort 𐐒 summary : after a few decades in hell, you decide it's time to stop putting it aside and visit your mother for the first time since you've appeared in hell. as anxious as you are, she receives your visit with open arms. 𐐒 word count : 1.1 k

The metal body of the cab rattled against the broken highway, the sights of Pentagon city flashing past you in a pink florescent blur. You sighed, slumping into the leather seats.

Were you really doing this?

The thought made your stomach bubble with new found nerves. Rolling and wrenching the muscles in your stomach so hard you suddenly had to lean forward in your seat. Forced to stare at all the dust and garbage littered about the floor.

"Oh god I'm gonna be sick," you mumbled to yourself.

"Don't throw up in my car kid," the driver growled at you, suddenly adjusting his rearview mirror so that he could keep an eye on you.

You tried not to roll your eyes, taking a quick glance out of the window just in time to witness the change in districts.

"Might wanna keep your head down kid! We're in Carmine's district now," he laughed, a hoarse sound filled with cigarette smoke.

You had never actually been in this part of hell. After all these years you've been here, watching as the districts had shifted between hands in the great soul exchange. . .

All those years until you realized she had fallen here just like you.

And you didn't really know how to process that thought just yet.

The once chaotic district was now more silent.

Shadows skulking between buildings and alleyways, making deals to sell weapons and bartering for money.

You grimaced, opting to let those images blur in your mind and let your head fall against the rattling window.

What possessed you to see your mother after all these year? Who knows. . .

It just felt like it had to be done.

Soon, the tall white building had come into view, a place you heard the overlords of hell met up.

And today, Carmilla would be here, same with your-. . .

Odette and Clara.

You stepped out of the cab, soles hitting the pavement with a tap. You paid what you owed to the driver and waved a quick thanks as he sped off, the devil on his heels.

That left you alone, standing like David against Goliath with the empire she had built.

She's. . . kept herself busy.

It's all you could think about. Staring at the gleaming tiles of the building with hesitance.

What would she say to you? Should you have told her you were coming? That you were here?

The sickness that seemed to be plaguing you had come back in waves.

The last time you had remembered seeing her, you were both alive on Earth, screaming at each others faces.

"One day, mi hijo, you will have to do everything for yourself! You will have to take over the business! YOU have to carry all that burdens us and I NEED you to be ready for that! Why can't you just see that! I won't always be here for you! YOU NEED TO STEP UP TO THIS!"

But. . .

You just couldn't do everything she had wanted of you. The standards, the rules, the burden. . . it was all too heavy for one person to carry.

And now here you were, on the white-waiting room couch unannounced.

To sayy. . . what exactly?

You bit at your nails in thought, leg bouncing up and down as you waited for your name to be called.

It was pretty empty today.

No one was really sitting in here with you.

That was a great thought.

A deep, strung-out exhale shook its way out of your lungs.

Nerves, you figured.

You didn't even know what to do with your hands, running them through your hair and rocking back and forth in your seat, wondering if it was too late to just stand up and leave-

"Um. . ." You stopped completely, turning your head towards the sound of your voice.

Just before the office doors, two small sinners stood side by side, holding a clipboard up to their faces as they eyed you with surprise.

Odette and Clara.

There was no mistaking them.

"That's. . . me?" You rose from your seat like a ghost, not really feeling anything but utter surprise.

It was the first time you've ever seen them. The same cream colored hair, the same eyes, they even stood en pointe like her.

Odette and Clara.

"Come with us," Clara beckoned, her curly hair and grey skin. . . did she look like that too? Now that she was a sinner?

Thank goodness the girls turned away from you quickly, giving you just enough time to wipe a stray tear from your eye. Estranged siblings that you've never even met. . . and you were so full of emotion at just the sight of them.

Did they know who you were?

You watched them wearily, the two exchanging quick glances at each other and occasionally, at you.

"She's right in here," Clara trailed off.

Odette glanced at you through her round glasses, a hint of worry lifting her eyebrows up "She wasn't expecting you today."

"Alright," you shrugged. I mean, it was a fact you already knew, but to hear the two of them say it to you was the final slap of reality you weren't sure you entirely needed.

The two of them opened the doors for you, watching intently as you shuffled into the room, and back at each other incredulously.

"Ay dios mio, I said I didn't have time for meetings. . ." you heard her mumble, face covered by a laptop screen, hunched over and lost in her work.

It was how you remembered her.

"Mamá," you called out, finally taking a seat in front of her desk, unsure of who or what you'd find on the other side of that screen.

With that one word, she froze still, a pair of demonic red eyes peering over the top of that silver screen.

"Mamá," you said again, a choked sound now that you realized it was her.

It was actually her.

A sinner, your mother, an overlord, who was finally before you.

It was like all the things you had planned on telling her had thrown themselves together and crumbled beneath the sight of her.

"Mi hijo."

"Mamá, I know you're mad at me," the tears came without warning, and you shuffled uncomfortably in your seat, unable to keep looking at her as the sobs wracked through your body, pleading for her forgiveness "I tried my best! I tried! I-"

"Mi hijo, I'm so sorry," your mother flew into your arms, the familiarity of her love so striking that you became undone in her arms.

She cried into your neck, a sound you've never heard before "Oh mi hijo, no heavens could ever keep me away from you, never, and I and never letting you go again,"

"I love you mi hijo."

[shoujo-wizard]

love love platonic stobin w all my heart 💖 just have preferences tht I don't often see in fics, like I get why ppl write Robin as not wanting to know abt Steve's sex life & vice-versa but idc I love a stobin tht have so few boundaries they might as well have none at all, the codependency is very real

this got quite long so it's all under the read more, also it got kinda horny at the end

they share the same piece of gum till it runs out of flavor

stobin switch name tags at work often & will only respond to the name tag they wear tht day

they coordinate a normal & sexy costume for Halloween (Steve always wears the sexy one)

they share (clean) underwear

when Robin gets a new swimsuit Steve gets a coordinated speedo/swim shorts

they regularly & will shower together naked style

they get matching booty gym shorts with writing on the ass, they own many pairs of these type of shorts all say different things, their favorite pairs say: you will live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension, the hat man owes me money, menace to society, pretty boy, better gay than grumpy, and queers who riot

Steve taught Robin how to kiss

when Steve got constipation Robin bought the laxatives & held his hand in the bathroom

one of the kids calls for Steve in the other room, Robin walks in to answer

when they go out to eat they'll order different things but will freely eat/try things from eachothers plate

pool parties at Steve's involve a game of chicken tht they ALWAYS team up for & they win 9 times out of 10 bc they use underhanded tactics

in this vein whenever the Party decides to play a board game or card game stobin r on a team together even if the game doesn't call for teams (the only reason they even try dnd is bc Eddie caves & lets them play as one character)

they have keys to the others house but both prefer climbing in thru the window

stobin go to a gay bar in Indianapolis together semi regularly: Robin gets very consensually groped by dykes tht buy her virgin cocktails as Steve makes out w & humps older daddy material men on the dance floor, while Robin gets eaten out by one of the dykes in the bar bathroom Steve is getting face fucked by a daddy of his choice in the other bathroom, at the end of the night/early the next morning they go get burgers from a diner they found by following a herd of drag queens

when Steve & Eddie finally kiss & say they're boyfriend Steve immediately gets up, fully leaves the room, & calls Robin to tell her

when Robin & Chrissy finally kiss & say they're girlfriend Robin does the same to call Steve

stobin bring their partners to above gay bar: Chrissy & Robin make out at the bar then fuck in the bathroom as a few of Robin’s former dykes watch & maybe join in, meanwhile Eddie lets Steve dance with a daddy they choose together & watches as Steve makes out w & humps said daddy before he has both men follow to the other bathroom where he takes out the butt plug Steve had been wearing all night, fucks Steve raw before letting the daddy wear a condom & fuck Steve too

the 4 of them get burgers together afterwards

I'm deeply inspired by this post

[tsbs-ship-hate-confessions]

Honest to God there is nothing more hypocritical of a bunch of whiny proshippers complaining about hate

yet preach free speech as long as they get to jerk off to kids getting fucked by their parents.

The hypocrisy is appalling.

'oh oh proshipping doesn't mean that stuff anymore, we're Clearly anti censorship oh oh the horrors of being called a creep for making celestialcest smut and giggling about siblings diddling each other. but we totally don't glorify dark topics why would you say such a thing'

like pick a fucking struggle. deal with the consequences of your actions. None of this is okay.

And mind you, this is coming from someone who is a major proponent of dark fiction. people should get to write whatever fucked up shit they want to. coping, venting, idc the reason

but you cannot honest to God be stupid enough to assume you're not a walking red flag. No one owes you trust that you're 'doing it for the right reasons' or 'don't support the morally stripped content' just like how you don't have to owe anyone an explanation. That street goes both ways

It's even stupider, when these fucks are all like 'u should clearly know I don't condone this'. I'm sorry, are we all a hivemind now? Are we above communication? It literally cost nothing to add a note of 'hey btw I think this shit isn't okay in case you can't read the room'. if ppl decide to assume bad faith after that then that's on them. but being a fucking mule about it? really? thought we were supposed to be adults here

speaking of which

"Children shouldn't be reading this anyway, My audience is smarter than that" ok thanks for infatizing and being ablest. nothing says fun like attempting to grow and try new things regardless of learning disabilities. or do you think we all roll over and die before highschool?

Also are we gonna brush past the part where the sun and moon show is literally made with kids in mind? Why again are we so desperate for smut over a show literally built around found family? 'everyone here is so immature' yeah bud, it takes one to know one. we were all kids. all of us were the newbies of the internet at one point. I ain't saying ya gotta hold anyone's hand or babysit but is throwing a hissy fit over finding spiders in a jar labeled spider the hill you really wanna die on? if you don't like it, leave

you literally preach that same shit yet seldomly follow your own advice.

Actually, let's go a step further: you're not welcomed here anymore than the gore anons are

P.S.

The reason why murder and gore is more acceptable than pedophilia smut is because one of these attracts actual predators. Porn is still porn at the end of the day, whether it's video or a picture, or words. and if it's on a screen it will fuck your head up the same way you can't have just one cigaret. it's always 'one more can't hurt' until it's an addiction you cannot escape from. And once someone is in that cycle, it gets worse. because soon the same thing that got rocks off doesn't work anymore. so then you find something stronger to get that high. then you have to find another stronger way to get that same effect

And that is exactly how convicted pedophiles go from using fictional kiddy porn to actual csem. There is actual fucking evidence for this shit with neurobiology and psychology to back it up

TL;DR violent video games don't create serial killers because people can only have a dopamine addiction. video game addiction is like sugar addiction Porn however can most definitely create pedophiles and rapist because of the involvement of dopamine, oxytocin, norepinephrine, vasopressin. porn addiction is like meth or heroin

These 2 are Not remotely comparable to the other 2

ALL, actions have consequences. It does not matter if you are a celebrity, or a fic author with 3 views. You are not an exception, and you feed the machine that gets kids groomed, trafficked, and even killed when you choose to sexualize and normalize pedophilia and incest.

So if you're getting shamed for getting giddy over shipping shit like Killcode and Bloodmoon or Sun and Dazzle. maybe you should think long and hard about why that is.

This is so much bigger than fighting over 'making dolls kiss'.

Get the fuck out of a fandom filled with kids before you get someone hurt

-

[zmediaoutlet]

abandoned(?) wip: the cult fic

Here's one that I really really really want to write because it was for a charity run and it is NOT the fault of the fic or the donator that I got hit with a depression meteor, nor indeed that somehow it was 'easier' to write a bunch of other fics instead of the charity fics that I still owe!! Ugh. The self is a real garbage pit sometimes. So hopefully let's call this one dormant and not abandoned, and so --

Big Idea: which isn't mine, bc charity fic as aforementioned, but -- Jared runs a cult and Jensen joins and there's lots of sexy sex. Pretty much. :) But because it's a cult fic, I really wanted to dive into that, which required plot [spits on floor], and it's really more now about like... lost youth getting wrapped up into a personality & lifestyle just for somewhere to belong. Like cult stories always go. It's an unusual fic for me in that I'd normally never do ageswap (even with J2 -- I prefer to keep them as is) and I don't actually have much interest in irl cults, but it's interesting as a stretch in that sense.

Why it was abandoned: because plot!!! Ugh. Plot is the worst, idk how people are like 'ooh I wanna get all involved in this murder mystery'. Yack. But if it's gonna have a plot it's got to work, and it also has to have a bunch of legible and interesting and not-quirky-stand-in characters -- like I want it to read like actual humans, not goofy nonsense a la the cult in Bad Times at the El Royale. So that requires some genuine thought and time put in and probably even a chart, and... #lazy writer noises. But I have some random scenes I think might be good already planned. Trouble would be if I could make Jared-the-cult-leader seem believable and not just like a doofy romance novel figure. My personal trouble with cults is that whenever someone's holding themselves up as a leader because of whatever mystical whatever I'm like, this motherfucker? Are y'all kidding? So I'll have to get over that instinct, lol.

Snippet:

"He renamed it when we came," Allie says, easy. She taps her thumb on the steering wheel, smiling. "He said Wildheart was more right, for what we were going to be." Jensen nods but he has no idea what that means. Whatever the name was before, the wild part at least is right. His grandpa had a farm, outside Dallas, and that was all neat rows, trimmed up hedges, smoothed-out roads with everything exactly in place. Jensen didn't mind it—driving it was easier, he thinks, as they're jolted by the Volkswagen rocking over yet another huge tree root—but it was… Well, it doesn't matter. He'll never see that farm again. He's about to ask another question when Allie turns, again, and the screen of oaks gives sudden way to—open air, a field. The sky opens up above them and Jensen leans forward, trying to see everything. They're on a dirt drive and there are—people, young, maybe his age or maybe Allie's, on the grounds on either side of the drive, working squared-off garden plots—tomatoes, in chickenwire cages. More that Jensen doesn't recognize as they roll past. A boy with red hair waves at the car and Allie waves back, grinning. "Good to be home," she says, to Jensen. Home, Jensen thinks, and chews his thumbnail, scanning the grounds. A medium-sized house, at the end of the lane, painted a faded yellow that needs redoing. On the west side of the house Allie pulls the Volkswagen up next to a purple Gremlin with messy handpainted yellow flowers on the rear hatch, a Cadillac with a rusted-out door and some kind of viney plant spilling out of the broken back window. "C'mon," Allie says, turning off the engine, so Jensen takes a deep breath and gets out of the car into the sunshine, holding his duffle up against his chest, looking around. No one's running up to bug them—the dozen people gardening are still gardening, down by the lane—and Allie flips her keys into her palm, comes around the hood of the car, touches his arm, soft. "Nothing be scared of, sweetie," she says, quiet even though it's just the two of them, and Jensen—believes her. He has to. He wouldn't have gotten into her car, otherwise.

[do-you-have-a-flag]

as someone who 1. had the books read to her as a child 2. loved them 3.went to the book release parties 4. went to the movies release day 5. cosplayed ficced and fanarted 6. made friends through the fandom I get it.

I get that it's a fun world to play in and you have an attachment to the characters and the flaws of the writing were about on par for a lot of kids fiction at the time even with much better stuff out there it was a unique major pop cultural moment and the fandom did change lives and create friendships. I would never argue that it always being bad means anyone should feel guilty for enjoying it cause that's not how art works. things with bad qualities by bad people can still be influential and their popularity can sill come from a sincere place.

and even with all that, I accepted that I have spent a lot of time and money on the franchise in the past but she soured the idea of continuing to engage with it. I can hold my nostalgia and experiences close to my heart and still chose to disengage from fandom and new content.

I'm just SAYING that this author has done and continues to do real harm in the mainstreaming of her transphobia, and even if you don't conceded that fandom that doesn't line her pockets still keeps HP in a place of pop cultural relevance that supports her financially, I am begging you not to even hate watch this now you know she is involved. do not discuss it unless you are telling uninformed general fans about why she is harmful. let it flop.

"read another book" glosses over the actual phenomenon of how this fandom was experienced. It was so pervasive in a way that has not been replicated. but I am asking you to think about if you want to continue to tie your positive experiences to the words and actions of a bigot who campaigns and donates towards harm and amplifies the voices of extremists. I am asking you to accept that it was something you enjoyed but that you can't recapture that feeling by sitting on this rotting corpse of a fandom. I encourage you to take your friends with you and make whatever you get into contain that same spark of creativity and collaboration the HP fandom gave you be creating it yourselves.

Even Daniel Radcliffe has made clear his support for trans people and said of Rowling "-nothing in my life would have probably happened the way it is without that person. But that doesn’t mean that you owe the things you truly believe to someone else for your entire life.”

you don't have to throw out your merch and denounce HP in the public square, you just have to stop spending money and attention. it's the lack of action that is the bare minimum. it's so easy.

since much of her political news rantings are based in the UK i will just link a relevant charity and encourage anyone inclined to donate

https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/

Welp, if JK Rowling being executive producer and therefore being fully involved in the show wasn't enough for people to boycott, then here's HBO basically saying they don't care JK Rowling is a bigot from hell who literally helped lead a harassment campaign of lies against Imane Khalif in her transphobia and obsession with women being terf's standards of women alongside posting harassment against trans people on twitter at times, they gonna stand by her, while using the excuse, "personal views". Hmm, yes, personal views- that's one way to uh, call what the fuck JK Rowling comes out with a-lot- last I checked personal views do come with consquiences if said out loud....a thousand times in JK's case and still counting....especially if they hurt people, but hey, if it means making another Harry Potter project to milk, just let it fucking be I guess.

[faebriel]

hiii kai 😅😈🛒🎢✨💖

HI ZANNA <3333

😅 answered here!

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

lmao. from it's called freefall:

"Yes, sir?"

that was the very first line written in that fic simply because i knew 1) i wanted to write c!quirkyduo and 2) i wanted to choose violence. everything else kind of fell in around that. WE LOVE CAUSING EMOTIONAL DAMAGE IN THIS HOUSE 💥💥💥

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

i loveeeee me hopeful-tinged melancholy. writing really really sad shit and then going pat pat here's a hot chocolate. okay it's gone a bit cold. there is so much sadness and anger here but there's hope and love too and it's very important to look at all of it instead of what you just want to see.

like - okay cool i'm going to talk about it's called freefall again but it's my most recent fic so that's okay. it is a hurt/comfort fic. tubbo is hurt and wilbur reaches out to him. wilbur apologises for the ways he's hurt tubbo in the past and tubbo accepts the apologies that wilbur actually owes him - because the festival wasn't wilbur's fault and he knows that, they were happy in l'manberg, etc. and most of all, he trusts wilbur enough now to tell him the truth about ranboo. on one hand that is a really significant sign of trust considering tubbo has been hiding a large chunk of his life from wilbur for quite some time, to the point where he didn't even want wilbur around his kid. that is a good thing! by showing care and thoughtfulness, wilbur has reearned a significant amount of tubbo's trust. but on wilbur's side of things, this revelation is entirely devastating, because not only is it a massive blow to someone he cares about but it's one he didn't even know he made. he thought he did good but in his mind tubbo has just revealed that he did worse. the hurt and the sad makes the care mean more but the care means that the hurt... hurts more. i lost my words

that was a lot of rambling but pls consider i like that fic okay. also i have a habit of including cooking/baking scenes like including wips i can think of about five off the top of my head

🎢 Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

probably cause most of us are bitter over someone honestly!! a lot of my fics are very straightforward but i feel like that's one (especially given most discourse around the topic back in august 2021) where it wasn't 100% certain how wilbur and niki's relationship was going to be resolved. wilbur's characterisation in that fic as well was played very close to the chest until the very last scene on purpose to make the way forward between them a bit less clear. i think if i published that fic now it would be a bit of a "yes kai we know you like your positive/hopeful open endings get on with it" but still !! i guess my fics are less rollercoasters and more the teacup ride

✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

:'] i like to think i can write complex relationships well. i try reaaaally hard when i write to consider 1) how characters view each other 2) how they say they view each other 3) how much of that they'd communicate to the POV character 4) how much of that they'd unwittingly communicate to the POV character (e.g. body language what have you) 5) what would the POV character pick up on 6) how would the POV character's biases colour what they're picking up on. layers upon layers

💖 What made you start writing?

when i was little i was one of those kids with verrryyyy intense and involving imaginations. well let's be frank everyone is. but in the sort of vein as 'the term maladaptive was thrown around'. but eventually a lot of my friends grew out of Let's Make Widespanning Sociopolitical Drama With Rainbow Magic Fairies OCs and then i had nowhere to put it !! i've always been into drawing and at some point i wanted to actually write down all my ocs stories and then boom the brainrot began. even then i was not Fantastic at writing Entire Stories but i sure did have a 100 page google doc with some of my oc lore and worldbuilding and story snippets and outlines lmao

i only started competently finishing stories when i started writing fanfic lmao and that was absolutely motivated by 1) the General Inspiration To Write but more importantly 2) No One Has Written The Fic I Want To Read, God Damn, God Damn. these two tenets have driven me to continue writing fanfic ever since

ask game!! ✨

[cryptid-bloodhound]

guys guys guys stop and imagine: Bloodhound has a kid.

Bloodhound showing up to parent-teacher night/a school function, but in true Bloth fashion, they show up in full gear with Artur bcus they’re so used to just walking around in that shit that they forget that People Don’t Do That and the other parents are horrified and the teachers are like ‘omg not again’. Bloodhound is canonically well-known enough that replicas of their mask have sold like fuckin hotcakes so the guards who have to confront them probably piss themselves.

Security Guard: Uhh..you..you need to leave your weapons in your vehicle.

Bloth: ??? Ah! My apologies. I was veiðr and forgot.

Security guard: And the bird-

Bloth: Artur is staying.

Security Guard: Yep! That’s totally fine. Exactly what I was gonna say. Welcome to the school! 

Security Guard: ....[furious whispering into walkie talkie] what the fuck do i do?? ..No, you tell them their bird can’t come in. I am not saying that to fuckin BLOODHOUND. I like my life more than my job, dickhead

-

Stupid Alternative: Everyone thinks Bloth is some weird, super-dedicated and accurate Cosplayer and their kid is like ‘omg pls stop’

[alister312]

4, 12, 13, and 14!

:O an ask………… thank u for letting me have a proper opportunity to gush………

4: Do you have a favorite South Park creator in the fandom (artist, writer, cosplayer, etc.)? If so, who?

Okay as someone who has only ever existed on tumblr, ff dot net, and YouTube as a SP fan, I do not know if there’s any super cool people on places like insta or twitter (or even ao3 really except for saturnpanther). HOWEVER. My absolute beloved author is petroica traversi on ff dot net because her Gregstophe content is!! SO GOOD!! And that was my second ever South Park ship and I fell very hard for them. I also remember enjoying fallingwithstyle and angel-of-gryffindor, and ofc hollycomb is a classic.

Speaking of classics, in terms of art, I think we as a community owe our life to preoprix. They have so much incredible work out there and I was thrilled to see that south-park-fanart-archive is reblogging so much of it right now. I don’t remember a ton of other old artists I liked during my initial phase… there was someone who’s signature was like “LZ” and I liked their art a lot? And I’d be lying if I said the zombie apocalypse AU fic I used to have wasn’t inspired by tuckerenthusiast’s Craig of the Dead designs. As for current artists, almost literally everyone I see is so talented. Buuuuuut I’m especially enjoying content from miraco, ameangel-sp, chaaistheanswer, bunypark, sn33z3s, stankyles, meuhhjelly, cheesym0rgue, fuzzylampnecklawyer, and emilyartstudio-s!! There’s definitely others I’ve seen and spam reblogged but like. If I just name dropped every single SP artist that would be a bit much imo. But all those above people are producing art that I'm in love with the styles of who I always reblog stuff from if I see it.

As for YouTube there’s literally just one person but they were integral to my first SP brainrot so shoutout to Mihoshiii. Also this video, living rent free.

12: Who’s the first character that caught your eye when you first watched the show? Or: Who was your first favorite character?

This is very hard because I had an unconventional introduction into SP. When I was younger I was really into Let’s Players and I watched one of them do a LP of The Stick of Truth, which made me want to watch the show. So I was just generally pumped for all the characters as soon as I started watching? I will say, I have a vivid memory of searching “South Park” on google images to find fan art. One of the suggested search results was “South Park Yaoi” and I thought that was funny as hell so I clicked it. Very first image was Kenny leaning out of a bus and kissing Butters and I haven’t known peace since.

13: Do you have a favorite minor character? Who?

OH BOY DO I

Back in 2017 when I was much more active on Cartoon Amino, I literally made a bunch of South Park Top 10 lists, one of which was about minor characters. Christophe was my number one, partially because I was edgy and partially because I was correct. He makes such an impact with such little screen time and I would have LOVED to see more of him. Which is why I write so much fanfic involving him, I think. However, as I’ve gotten older, I’m less sure about giving him the number one spot. I think he’s tied with Gregory?

I do have so so much love and so many thoughts about both Gregory and Christophe, it’s hard to choose which one I love more! I’ve found that I’m much more able to get into Gregory’s headspace when writing though because we have (conceptually in my head) more similar upbringings. But maybe I like getting into his headspace because I like using him as a way to study my thoughts on Christophe. The two are honestly so much a part of one another to me, I don’t know how to separate them.

Besides them, though, I’m in love with Kevin Stoley, the Goth kids, and Corey Lanskin. Every time I think about them I’m ☺️😊

14: Do you have a favorite female character? Who?

For sure Bebe. I also think that Karen is such a sweetheart and Nichole deserves so much more and my fanon interpretation of Red is the best buuuuut Bebe is best girl. I almost cried during the vaccine special when she FINALLY got a line after so long without one.

I just think it’s funny that much of fanon (at least, old fanon) reduced her down to “dumb girly blonde stereotype” when she is so much more than that. So it always makes me very happy to see her being used in any other way. Or when she’s used at all, which is oddly rare considering she, at one point, was the only girl besides Wendy listed among SP characters on the Wikipedia page. I want to see her hold a gun again. She deserves it.

[destihellhound]

We Write Our Own Destiny

Canon-divergent ending to 15x19, ignoring 15x20. Also on AO3 | ff

Tagging @destielintheimpala because she’s my best friend and @ineffable-cas because I remember seeing them asking to be tagged in any fix-it fics.

"I won't be hands on," Jack told them. "Chuck put himself in the story - that was his mistake. But I learned from you and my mother and Castiel that when people have to be their best, they can be. And that's what to believe in. Well... I'm really as close as this," he said, placing a hand over his heart. Then he raised his hand in a stationary, dorky wave. "Goodbye."

"Wait!" Dean said, as Jack turned to walk away. "What about Cas? Chuck pulled Lucifer out of the Empty, you can save Cas!"

Jack raised his hands, palms outwards. "I'm hands-off, Dean."

"But it's Cas," Dean growled, taking a threatening step forwards. "We can't get to him there, and it's not like the Empty is just going to give him back if we ask nicely." When Jack didn't seem at all inclined to change his mind, he tried a different approach. "You owe me."

"Uh, Dean?" Sam said hesitantly. "Maybe not a good idea to piss off the new... Him."

"It's Jack, Sam," Dean said, glancing over his shoulder. "The kid who killed our mother." He turned on Jack. "You said you wanted to make it up to me? This is how you do that!"

"Dean, I—" Jack's eyes glazed over for a second as his attention seemed to be focused elsewhere. "She really does have a soft spot for you Dean," Jack told him before disappearing in a burst of divine light.

Dean stared at the space where Jack had stood, just a moment before. What the hell did that mean? Had Amara persuaded Jack to change his mind, or was he still against interfering?

"Hello, Dean."

Dean froze at the familiar voice, almost afraid to turn around. The last time he'd heard Castiel's voice, it had been Lucifer. He swallowed around the lump that had formed in his throat. What if it was just another trick?

"Hello, Sam."

"Hey, Cas," Sam said warmly, and his brother's voice was enough to have Dean turning.

Cas was smiling at Sam, though still visibly confused as to why he was back on Earth. When he turned to Dean, however, his smile faltered.

Dean wished he could say something, anything, to wipe that insecurity off Castiel's face because the angel was back where he belonged. He was always better with actions than words, however, so he strode up to Cas and wrapped his arms around him, hands clenching in that god-awful trench coat.

"Dean," Castiel began, unsurely.

"Later, Cas," Dean murmured in his ear. "Let's go home."

Dean felt like a great weight had been lifted from him as the angel hugged him back; a weight he hadn't even realised had been dragging him down.

"I'll make burgers. You love burgers."

"Everything tastes like molecules to me."

"Not the point," Dean said, leading them back to the car. "You are a part of this family, Cas - don't ever forget it."

"Hey, Dean?" Sam asked, a sudden thought striking him. "Do you think Adam... Michael was destroyed, but do you think Jack brought Adam back?"

"I hope so," Dean said. "That kid deserves to catch a break. We'll reach out, make sure everyone we know is back, and put out the word that we're looking for him."

"Okay."

As they got nearer the Impala, Dean saw Miracle sitting patiently beside the rear door.

"Oh, hell no..."

"Do you think he's got an owner around here?" Sam asked, looking around.

"We're not keeping the dog, Sam."

"You've changed your tune."

"That was different, okay?" He'd just lost Cas. "It was supposed to just be us, and then there was this little miracle and—"

Miracle barked, as if recognising his name.

Dean sighed. Looked at Sam. Ignored his brother's puppy-dog eyes. Looked at Cas. Took in the angel's hangdog expression.

"Oh, for..." He trailed off in defeat. "I am not feeding him. I am not walking him. And I am not vacuuming the hair out of Baby! That's your job," Dean told Sam. "And if you don't keep her clean, I will shoot you, and then I'll shoot Mir— the dog!" He turned to Miracle. "And you are not riding shotgun!" He got in the car and slammed the door.

"Do you want to ride up front?" Sam asked Cas, failing to hide his amusement at Dean's feigned dislike of their adopted four-legged friend.

The angel responded by getting in the backseat with the dog.

As they began the long drive back to the bunker, Sam texted Eileen. His relief at getting a response was nothing compared to the relief and joy that wiped years off his face when she answered his video call and he saw her face.

His relief echoed the feeling flooding through Dean for getting Cas back, and he glanced at the angel in his rearview mirror.

"I love you," Sam told Eileen, doubling down on his feelings by communicating them through ASL as well.

"I love you, too," she said.

"Get a room, you two," Dean teased them.

Sam called him a jerk as he dug his headphones out.

Dean didn't think Sam had said those three little words to anyone since Jess, and Dean himself had never said them; could never bring himself to say them. He glanced at Cas in the mirror again, chest constricting at the thought of losing Cas again. He'd lost him too many times, and was terrified that he'd lose him again.

Sam arranged for Eileen to meet them at the bunker, but in the end Dean volunteered to take a detour to her house so that Sam could ride home with her. Thankfully he took Miracle, too, and Cas moved into the front passenger seat.

"Is it later, yet?" he asked, once they were back on the road.

Dean swallowed. He had meant later, once they'd eaten and he'd had a chance to figure out what the hell he wanted to say. "I guess it is."

Cas sat there silently, minutes dragging by, until Dean realised the angel was waiting for him to speak. Cas had said everything he'd had to say before the Empty took him, and now it was Dean's turn.

"Look, uh, I've never... Guys aren't something that... If you know me, then you know that..."

"I am a multi-dimensional wavelength of celestial intent," Cas reminded Dean patiently. "It is the vessel that I am possessing that presents as male." He squinted. "I could take a female vessel, if that is something you would—"

"No!" Dean exclaimed quickly.

Cas swallowed. "It's not my vessel," he realised sadly. "It's that my feelings for you are not returned."

"Dude, that's not what I'm—" Dean trailed a hand down his face. "Losing you, it hurts. It hurts as much as losing Sam, only it's different, and I don't know what that means."

"I think," Cas began carefully, "it means that you love me. But you need to decide what kind of love it is that you're feeling. Familial, platonic, romantic..."

"What?"

"Do you love me as family, as a friend, or as a romantic partner? I loved you as a friend, then as family, and I grew to love you romantically - but I don't love you because I have a desire for sexual intimacy with you. As an angel that would be as disappointing as eating - merely experiencing the physical and hormonal sensations without feeling the accompanying pleasure. Though if that was something you desired I would be more than willing to oblige, but I don't see that as being something you would have an interest in. At least, not in this vessel. Yet you are unwilling for me to change vessels."

"It wouldn't be you, then."

"I would still be me, Dean."

"I know, I just mean..."

"You've gotten used to seeing me as Jimmy Novak."

Dean coughed. "Way to make it weird, Cas."

"All I want is to spend your life with you," Cas told him.

"You've always been welcome to do that, Cas. But you leave."

"Or you send me away."

Dean swallowed, knowing that Cas was thinking about his time as a human - when Gadreel, pretending to be Ezekiel, had insisted that Castiel could not be around him. "I'm sorry," Dean apologised. He'd apologised before, and would keep apologising. "You needed me, and I should have been there for you."

"You made the choice you did out of your love for Sam," Cas acknowledged. "And that love is one of the many reasons that I love you. I would settle for living your life with you as your friend, as family, if that was all you desired. But I hope for you to desire more."

Dean frowned. "I thought you said you didn't want sex?"

Cas stared at him for a long moment. "Commitment, Dean. A promise to spend your life with me, faithfully."

And Dean nearly drove the car off the road as he realised that 'commitment' meant no more one night stands, no more casual flings. He was such an idiot... But the more he mulled over the meaning of Castiel's words, the more he surprised himself to realise that he was okay with the idea. Sure, sex was pleasurable and fun, but without a meaningful, emotional connection to the other person involved it lacked something that always left him feeling physically satisfied but otherwise empty.

"Would you ever have told me how you felt?" he blurted out. "If you hadn't been trying to save me from Billie?"

"I don't think so," Cas admitted.

"Why not?"

Castiel stared out of the window, looking away from Dean. "Because to hear you tell me that my feelings were not returned, or worse, for you to ask me to leave, is something that would hurt too much."

"The Empty's definitely not coming back for you, right?"

"No, Dean. Our deal was fulfilled."

"Then say it again, Cas."

Castiel turned to him, slowly, with hope in his eyes. "I love you," he said quietly.

Dean shot Cas a meaningful look. "I know."

Hurt momentarily crossed Castiel's face, before realisation dawned and he beamed. "I understand that reference."

Dean laughed, and pressed his foot down on the accelerator.

"So, what now?" Sam asked, once they'd all pushed their plates aside, stuffed full on Dean's homemade burgers.

"Everything we've ever done has been because Chuck wanted it that way," Dean said. "From before we were even born, Heaven was manipulating Mom and Dad into a relationship. Hunting has been my life, but I don't want the job title to define me."

"Job title?" Sam echoed, amused.

"Yeah. 'Hunter' - I want to be more than that."

"Such as?"

"A teacher," Dean said. "I was thinking about it on the drive home - the next generation of hunters are growing up fast, and they need help just like Bobby helped us. And you were doing good, running that network of hunters from here. That could be our future - making our own way. Not hunters, or Men of Letters, but combining that into something that is ours. From now on, we write our own destiny."

Sam nodded thoughtfully.

"And I want to retire. At least partially. I want to live a life. I want to live my life. I want to be a brother," he said, looking at Sam. "Maybe even a brother-in-law?" he asked, giving Eileen a look that caused her to blush and Sam to kick him under the table. "And a... partner," he finished, looking at Cas. He wasn't sure what the right word was to describe what he wanted with Cas, but he had time to figure it out.

Sam cleared his throat. "You cooked, Eileen and I will clean up," he said, gesturing at their dirty plates. "Why don't you and Cas go, uh, watch some Netflix. And maybe chill." He chuckled to himself.

"Sure, that sounds like a great idea," Dean said, standing up and dragging Cas out of his chair. He failed to understand what Sam found so funny. "Maybe we can finish Game of Thrones - I hear that show had a terrible ending..."

[rivalsforlife]

oooo i'm sorry but one more scene for commentary if youre up to it: maya and phoenix talking in chapter 6?

Of course, no need to apologize!! Once more, keeping this under a “keep reading”:

Around noon, his apartment intercom buzzed. “Nick, it’s Maya! Let me up.”

Maya? What was she even doing here? Maya never visited him out of the blue anymore… Whatever. She’d probably think he was at his office. She’d go away soon.

There was another buzz. “Nick! I know you’re in there! I called your office, you know!”

Kids these days. Selling out their bosses that easily… Maybe he should cut Athena’s salary. Nah, he wasn’t Edgeworth. … Edgeworth.

“don’t think about Edgeworth don’t think about Edgeworth -- ah damn it”

“Nick! Hello! Nick!”

She had to give up eventually, right? Whatever she was here for, someone else could help her…

“Security’s coming after me, if they arrest me you’re gonna have to defend me, you know, do you want that? I’m not even gonna try to pay you for it since it’s gonna be your fault —”

Ugh.

Phoenix stumbled out of bed and buzzed her in. “Fine. Come up.”

“Thank you!” she chirped in a sing-songy voice. “Hey, you heard him, let me go…”

Maya’s Obnoxious Little Sister Energy is eternal. Her next strategy was to break from the guards and dash as far as she could go trying to break her way into Phoenix’s apartment which... wouldn’t have ended well haha.

Also! Like I mentioned in the previous ask, a lot of this fic was just Phoenix’s Relationship Issues, and the way I characterized him in this fic was a lot of... he needs to have people around or he kind of falls apart, and his history of having people around was that these people needed him in some way -- Maya after she was accused of murder and then hanging around for Mia’s sake, Trucy being abandoned and needing looking after, even Miles to an extent needing to be saved from his corrupt ways and the von Karma influence -- and now that they’re all growing up and don’t need him anymore he thinks they’re going to abandon him.

That’s a long-winded way of referring to that one sentence of “Whatever she was here for, someone else could help her”

Also... I don’t live in an apartment and haven’t visited many apartments? So I’m not totally sure how the whole buzzing someone in process works. no one’s called me out on it though so I guess I’m okay.

Phoenix sighed and wondered if he should make himself look presentable. There probably wasn’t enough time. Maya wouldn’t notice that he hadn’t changed his clothes for two days, right?

She probably would. But he couldn’t do anything about it, as just then there was a knock on the door. Figuring he should appease her so she wouldn’t give security anymore trouble, he reluctantly let her in.

Indeed, there was Maya, looking cheery as ever. “Hey, dude. What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing,” said Phoenix, and in response to Maya’s raised eyebrow as she took in his appearance, “Just not feeling well. Why’re you here, Maya? I thought you were busy up at the village.”

passive-aggressive “oh aren’t you supposed to be busy?” from Phoenix here...

One of the other major changes I made to this fic in the editing process was cutting out a LOT of Maya content. I really love her and wanted her to be here more, but to properly go through the Phoenix Characterization Study I had to make it seem like she wasn’t around as much so that Phoenix would feel more lonely. again, sorry, Phoenix... but like originally she came down for the picnic in chapter 3 and was around at the beginning of chapter 4, so it would be SO WEIRD if she showed up in every single chapter except for chapter 5 and then Phoenix accuses her here of being too busy to hang out with him. She was there all the time! So I only had her show up for the wedding and added in a few more lines alluding to her not being here as much as she used to in trilogy days.

“I am,” she admitted, pushing her way into his apartment. “But your daughter called me yesterday morning and said that if you didn’t call, I should check in on you. So. Here I am. And I know you’re not just sick.”

Kids these days indeed! Like Phoenix didn’t feel bad enough, his own daughter had to go and parent him. “Look, Maya, everything’s fine. I’m sorry Trucy made you think something was wrong.”

One writing tip I got and I’ve been working on implementing is like... trying to have a general idea of what every character is up to when they’re not “on screen”, so to speak. Even then, what they’re thinking about when they’re not the POV focus. So basically after the call with Trucy just prior to this scene, she immediately decided to call Maya (because she could tell something was Off with her dad and Miles, given his reaction when she mentioned his name,) and then told her to check up on him because he really scared her during that phone call... though she wouldn’t admit it. She basically saw it as a hint of returning to a sort of... disbarment-era depression, which she didn’t want, so she wanted to make sure someone could check in on him as soon as he could since she couldn’t.

Also another small aspect of Phoenix characterization (that’s going to be like 99% of my commentary about this fic I’m sorry) is that the way he deals best with depression is like... being around people, and doing things with people. It’s obviously not a method that works for everyone, but it keeps him from dwelling on things and kind of gives him a purpose, helps him feel like he’s needed. Mostly got this headcanon from RFTA where he says he was unable to take on any cases when Maya was gone until Ema showed up... and then even at the beginning of 2-2 he does seem pretty down. Trucy kind of knows some of this since she was the main thing keeping him together during disbarment era, at least enough to know that when Phoenix is depressed he’ll do much better if he’s got someone he cares about around.

Anyways, Trucy probably told Maya just to call in, because she knows her aunt is busy and part of the reason Maya hasn’t been around much is because she’s stuck with all sorts of Master responsibilities at Kurain, but Maya herself wanted to come down and check on Phoenix in person because she knows how he can get and if it was enough to worry Trucy, then she was pretty worried too.

Maya planted her hands on her hips. “No way, mister. I did not take a two hour train ride down here for you to tell me everything’s fine. Do you know how difficult it was to get permission to leave?! I had to pull the old ‘I need to visit my boyfriend’ card for them to let me go!”

Phoenix groaned, despite himself. “Have they still not caught on about that?”

“Their desperation for an heir has blinded them to common sense. They made me drink some disgusting fertility tea before I left, so you really owe me one.” She lowered her hands and sighed. “Look, Nick, I know something’s up. So talk to me. Please.”

I took a few liberties to sprinkle in my Kurain headcanons in here... which I’ve rambled about more in depth elsewhere, so I won’t go into too much detail, but basically: hereditary spiritual power leads to a lot of pressure on people who have said hereditary spiritual power to reproduce so they can pass it on to the next generation. Particularly with Maya (and Pearls to some extent though I believe Maya would willingly take the heat on it) since the two of them are the only remaining spirit channelers of the Kurain technique. And since it took Maya a really long time to become the Master officially (I don’t buy the idea that she wasn’t skilled enough by the end of T&T, my headcanon is the Master training process involves two years in Khura’in but she put that off until Phoenix was in the clear regarding Kristoph stuff) they probably don’t want her leaving the village to “goof off” unless she’s doing it to produce an heir. her biological clock is ticking! haha! (... ugh.)

And this kind of leads to -- in the elaborate backstory of this fic that I can only touch on through DVD commentaries which is like half the reason I do these things -- Maya and Phoenix agreeing that if Maya needs to get out of the village but whoever the other people in the village are start putting pressure on her, she can say she’s “visiting her boyfriend” who they think is Phoenix but really isn’t... and I guess they assume they’re getting up to heir-making activities but oh darn! didn’t work this time! guess I’ll have to go again next week! (obviously they’re just out getting burgers or something.) 

Hence people in the village pushing fertility tea on her because they think the problem is that she’s not getting pregnant... although they’re kind of misunderstanding the reason why she’s not getting pregnant... because no amount of fertility tea in the world will lead to a spontaneous pregnancy without other activities first. which aren’t happening. I feel like I need to clarify this multiple times just in case someone misunderstands.

Pearls both knows about this agreement and knows that Phoenix and Maya aren’t actually dating because she’s like nineteen now? She’s probably known for years, she never brings it up during DD and SOJ.

“I won’t go into much detail” oops. I’m so sorry.

Phoenix didn’t say anything.

Maya took him by the arm and guided him to the couch, plopping him down none-too-gently before sitting next to him. “You can trust me, right?” she asked. “You’re my best friend. I’m here for you, even if you did something really stupid.”

Phoenix laughed a bit. “Yeah… I did something really stupid.”

“Okay. Tell me.”

Phoenix buried his face in his hands with a sigh, then rolled his head to peek through his fingers at Maya. She looked — angry, sure, he wasn’t exactly being the most cooperative of people right now, but — open. Prepared. Like she was actually going to listen.

I know that SOJ called Miles Phoenix’s best friend, which don’t get me wrong I absolutely loved, but I do wish Maya was ALSO considered Phoenix’s best friend if not one of his closest friends, because they’re so obviously best friends. They’re a different flavour of best friends than Phoenix and Miles, because Phoenix and Miles are the “it’s complicated and there are secret romantic feelings possibly but we trust each other unconditionally” best friends, Phoenix and Maya have a twenty-five step secret handshake they have to execute every time upon meeting.

But of course that doesn’t mean they can’t be serious, Maya is absolutely here for her dumb best friend

“It’s…” He sighed, again. “Have you ever — have you ever wanted something for a really long time, but — but you never thought you’d get it, and then you have this chance, and you just… panic?”

Maya nodded solemnly. “Steel Samurai movie premiere tickets. I won a raffle, but I forgot I signed up for them and thought it was a hoax, and didn’t get to accept them before the deadline. The bad Wi-Fi didn’t help, either.”

“But that doesn’t mean they can’t be serious” um

The one constant among all the ace attorney main characters is that NONE OF THEM WANT TO TALK ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS EVER

Also I struggled a lot with this fic trying to figure out... exactly what was going on in Phoenix’s head, and how he would interpret what was going on in his head. I kept changing opinions all the time and it was so off before I did editing haha. Even this line is still a little weird with the “Have you ever wanted something for a really long time” because he probably shouldn’t be aware that he has wanted this for a long time. ... I’m going to stop pointing out the flaws in my own fic now--

At Phoenix’s glare, she added, “I’m just kidding. Thought I’d lighten the mood a bit. Is this about Edgeworth?”

“What makes you think that?”

“‘Cause when is it not about Edgeworth with you,” asked Maya, cutting straight to the heart of things, as always. “Did he ask you out?”

“Not even that.” Phoenix turned his gaze to the floor, ashamed. “He said he loved me. I… I told him I didn’t feel the same.”

Maya was silent for a moment. Phoenix didn’t dare look at her. “Do you?”

“I like being around him,” said Phoenix. “I like seeing him smile, and laugh, and — and he makes me happy.”

What he wouldn’t give to see Edgeworth smile and laugh at him again.

“Not what I asked, dude.”

“Nick’s being really broody again it’s GOTTA be Edgeworth...”

Anyways that second-to-last line there is sticking out at me and I’m pretty sure it’s one I wavered back and forth on deleting before deciding to keep. ... at least I think I kept it? I’m taking these from google docs so there might be a few tiny changes from the ao3 version but I don’t think there’s anything too major I changed while doing last-minute edits.

Again we run into the problem of Phoenix Is Incapable Of Admitting He’s In Love With Miles -- which is the whole psyche-locks thing that pops up in the scene after this. The psyche-locks were also a pretty last-minute addition plot-wise... I think this fic was the most I deviated from my outline, but I was pretty rushed for time so I didn’t do as much planning as I normally would.

Hm I think there’s another ask where I can talk more about the psyche-locks? I’ll talk a bit here because I put a lot of thought into it. Basically I ran with the idea of black psyche-locks hiding something even the owner isn’t aware of, and that those psyche-locks are (typically? who knows about Kristoph) inflicted through traumatic events. Phoenix has three because I came up with three main Issues he had to work through, but some of them kind of blend together... two of them came up through specific traumatic events (Phoenix guesses them in chapter 8) and another one is just general overall trauma. if no one brings up the particular scenes by the time I get to that other ask, I’ll talk more about them, but basically there are three locks from three separate traumas and three occasions where they break -- someone guessed one of the breaking scenes on the narumitsu discord, but no one’s brought up the other two yet! 

Long-winded way of saying that the psyche-locks are the reason that Phoenix can’t admit that he’s in love with Miles yet... and it’s kind of a cheap fantasy visualization of the trauma, basically? Maybe not the most elegant way of addressing it, but I never claimed to be writing for a series which addresses issues elegantly.

“But — but can you even imagine it?” Phoenix demanded, raising his head to gesture fully at the ridiculousness of it all. “Me and Edgeworth?”

“Yeah,” said Maya, simply. “It’s not that hard, really.”

Phoenix had no response.

“You two balance each other out well, and you trust each other, and you both care a ton about each other,” Maya elaborated. “If you love him, what’s the problem?”

oh Phoenix you have no idea. you and Miles are so easy to imagine together that you’re the number one pairing on ace attorney ao3 by a longshot.

Also one thing I kind of wanted to avoid was less of the... “you and Miles are PERFECT for each other how do you not SEE this” thing. nothing against the trope, of course! Just the whole concept of people shipping their friends intensely is something I’m not super familiar with and tbh would make me pretty uncomfortable...? It’s sort of the deal with rpf. Of course this is fanfiction with fictional characters but from an in-universe perspective...

So Maya’s taking the approach of more “Yeah, I can see you and Edgeworth as a couple, I think you’d work well together” rather than “you two are SO perfect together and I’ve been shipping you since 2016!!” because while that may be what Maya is THINKING it’s definitely not what Phoenix needs to hear right now.

“It just… seems like a recipe for disaster. I wouldn’t even know how to… like, this isn’t my first time feeling like this, but when I think about us, me and Edgeworth, it’s…” Why couldn’t he find the right words? “It’s too much.”

Maya brought a hand to her chin and tilted her head thoughtfully. “So — tell me if I’ve got this right — you like Edgeworth too, but for some reason, when he confessed to you, you panicked and you don’t know why.”

“I guess…” Phoenix returned his face to the comforting darkness of his hands. “I don’t know what it is. I-I shouldn’t have a problem, right? But the thought of a-actually admitting that I… or being in a relationship, it feels like I’m standing at the edge of a cliff and am about to fall off.”

Maya was silent for a long time. Phoenix just hoped that whatever she said next, it would somehow magically fix all his problems.

Instead, she said the most ridiculous thing Phoenix could possibly imagine. “Maybe you have trust issues?”

It certainly lightened the mood. Phoenix threw his head back and laughed harder than he had in a long time.

Phoenix is a very trusting person, absolutely, but you can’t tell me this man walked out of the Dahlia Debacle without quite a few romance-related issues. It’s kind of a weird sort of contradiction... 

“No, I’m serious,” she persisted, through his laughter.

“What are you talking about, Maya?” Phoenix managed to get out, once he had that fit of mirth under control. “There’s no way I have trust issues. My whole thing is trusting people and believing in people until the end, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. But trusting someone not to be a murderer is a bit different, isn’t it?”

“It’s not like that’s as far as it goes,” Phoenix argued. “I trust you, I trust all of our friends, more than just not being murderers.”

“Yeah, sure, but romance is kind of on a different level.” She leaned back into the couch thoughtfully. “When’s the last time you’ve been with anyone?”

“... At least not since I got Trucy,” Phoenix admitted, only a little shamefully. “You try hooking up with people while having the world’s most perceptive daughter who’s desperate for a ‘new mommy’.”

“Been with anyone seriously, I mean.”

Phoenix winced. “... College.”

“I rest my case, Your Honor.”

Prettty self-explanatory here, I managed to get most of my thoughts on the actual fic instead of wanting to put it in an appendix or something. Basically... you can trust people in different ways? Phoenix can trust someone to not be a murderer to the extent of putting his own life on the line for them... but when it comes to revealing any sort of details about himself, or general emotional intimacy, he’s kind of stingy about it. Of course the out-of-universe explanation is “Phoenix doesn’t talk about this stuff because we need suspense so the player keeps playing the game instead of an exposition dump as soon as the issue comes up” but I like finding in-universe explanations for out-of-universe stuff.

I think I just regurgitated my points in a few excerpts oops.

Last little comment there regarding the idea of Phoenix presumably having a casual sex life -- Iiiiii am super asexual, have known that for a long time, generally kind of squeamish about the concept and also live a very sheltered life. so I don’t know much about people hooking up... like how people just go out and do these things. But I know people do these things so I try to reference it within my limited knowledge. Anyways yeah presumably that was happening in the background throughout the trilogy in the universe of this fic. probably not an important point. i’m moving on now.

“I’m not hung up on that!” Phoenix insisted. “Iris was a good person, she was the person I trusted. I’ve known that for years, now!”

“But she did lie to you,” Maya pointed out. “And you thought she tried to kill you for five years. I dunno, if it were me, I’d have a hell of a lot of relationship issues now.”

“Do you want me to psychoanalyze you too, now, Maya? It’s not gonna be pretty.”

“Oh, no thanks, that’s what therapy’s for,” she said, far too cheerily. “But really, Nick.”

Anyways I’m pretty invested in the whole Iris-Phoenix dynamic post-Bridge to the Turnabout, because like on the one hand, hypothetically the woman you were in love with but you thought was a killer coming out to say that she actually didn’t kill anyone and was actually in love with you should resolve all your lingering relationship issues resulting from that... but I don’t see that actually happening.

It probably took Phoenix the whole five years to come to terms with the fact that Dahlia hated his guts and tried to kill him, because I do believe he was seriously hardcore in love with her at the time. Well, Iris, but he didn’t know the difference. And then finding out Iris actually loved him... but not enough to actually, say, tell him this beforehand?... makes things kind of messy. Phoenix probably thinks he should be all better now but really the whole Dahlia-Iris thing was messed up and undoubtedly messed him up a lot.

Last little bit is just me squeezing in that Maya probably also has a lot of messed up relationship issues and also definitely needs therapy. (And is getting a bit of therapy in this fic! Good for her!) I have a lot of thoughts about Maya’s trauma... but unfortunately this fic is about Phoenix so I couldn’t go too in depth about that. Sorry, Maya. One day.

Phoenix sank further into the couch. “I don’t have trust issues.”

“Y’know, there’s still a lot of stuff I don’t know about you,” said Maya. “You never tell me anything personal until there’s a murder or something and then you have to. What happened to Edgeworth, both times. The whole Dahlia thing. It took me ages to get you to tell me how you got disbarred, even! And, like, romance has this level of intimacy to it, where he’d need to know stuff about you that I wouldn’t know, that Trucy wouldn’t know. And Nick, you know I love you, but I know you’re scared of that.”

“What do you know about it?” Phoenix snapped. “You’re barely ever here.”

He felt horrible as soon as the words left his mouth. Maya gave a sharp inhale and stiffened, her eyebrows knitting above an angry and hurt glare.

“I’m sorry,” Phoenix apologized, looking at the floor. “That was… that was unfair.”

“Yeah,” said Maya. “Yeah, it was.”

yep regurgitating my points from above. Anyways, highlights: platonic “I love you”s are great, we should have more of those. Just... emphasizing that it’s platonic because the Phoenix and Maya friendship is one of my favourite things in the series.

And there’s that “You’re barely ever here” comment that I had to cut Maya out of most of this fic to fit in, because otherwise it wouldn’t make any sense. In the universe of this fic Maya was pretty distant being busy with training and spirit medium Master stuff after the trilogy... and presumably hasn’t seen Phoenix as much as either of them would like. She loves hanging out with her best friend, and probably feels super guilty too, that Phoenix is dealing with all these issues and she can’t be there because she has other responsibilities -- so obviously it upsets her when Phoenix kind of accuses her of not being there for him, because she definitely would be, if she could, and if Phoenix would let her. 

Pretty much you can’t always be around for everyone all the time, Maya would be so worn out if she had to juggle coming down to the city to hang out with Phoenix all the time on top of all her other responsibilities. She knows this, Phoenix knows this too, he’s just kind of lashing out right now because he’s hurt and confused and misses all his important people, but Maya just happens to be in front of him right now.

And yeah what Phoenix said was pretty uncalled for, which he realizes right away, and Maya acknowledges -- a pretty short fight, I don’t think these two would stay mad at each other for too long. 

They sat in a tense silence for some time, until Maya sighed and brushed back her hair.

“Look, I’m saying these things because I’m scared of it, too,” she said, barely above a whisper. “After Mia, and Mom… I don’t want to be left behind again.”

“Maya…”

“Just think about it, okay?” She extended a pinky towards him. “Promise.”

Reluctantly, Phoenix linked his pinky with hers. “Fine. I’ll think about it.”

points at this and says Maya’s Definitely Got Trauma From Trilogy Events then brushes it off to get off the uncomfortable emotion topics

“Good.” Maya hopped up from the couch and stretched her arms above her head. “I’ll forget about what you said if you buy me lunch, okay? I’ve got a client this evening, so I can’t stay long, but I’ve got enough time to stop by Eldoon’s.”

“If you insist,” said Phoenix with an exaggerated sigh, and Maya laughed, so Phoenix willed himself to push the conversation from his mind for now. Maya would be spending four hours on a train today for his sake; Eldoon’s really was the least he could provide.

and in true Phoenix and Maya fashion we’re just gonna forget about the emotions and go get ramen! 

Anyways thanks anon for requesting this scene I apparently have so many thoughts about Phoenix and Maya friendship... sorry if this is totally incoherent I should not have started this so late it’s like 11:30! But thank you! I will do more of these tomorrow... hopefully.

[archiveofidentityconstellations]

cass won't share her cheese nibs and bruce doesn't love me and i think?? that i deserve better??? than this???? i'm moving to alaska where NO ONE CAN TELL ME WHAT TO DO

the sequel to that one trix yogurt fic

I feel like I should tell you that I am MASSIVELY fucked up right now 

 like i am such a garbage heap that oscar the grouch took a look at me and said 

 “fuckk off!! i have standards!” 

anyways

it’s Brimothy, bitch

what is UP mothertrucksrs it is Me i am back here to write a report on the UNBELIEVABLE SHIT I JUST HANDLED.

okay so u know how Gotham city is on crack cocaine all the time. with like some LSD and heroin and never ever any weed except for like who is that pig guy?? nevrm he doesn’t have weeeed but like he is definitely a Pig. what the fuck is his name. what the fuck.

 okay so anyways 

 is it Goyle

 Doyle

 Pigoyle 

 tin foil? lmao

OKAY FUCK anyways the City, who Also May Be My Lover, is in a constant life crisis (which i relate? a Lot) and do you want to know this s h i t

Crocodile

Killer Croc

who Steve Irwin would be v disappointed in

Is climbing

into people’s FUCKING TOILETS

???????????????

THIS ISN’T FLORIDA

THIS IS NEW JERSEY

WE WEAR SHOES IN THE WINTER

WHAT SORT OF FLIP-FLOP WEARING CUCKER DOES HE THINK HE IS

okay so obviously KC is a big guy. a Dude. a whack-o whaler of a Male. a Big Boh. the largest banananana in the pack. he is Big. so he cAn’t fit into most people’s toilets. he can, however, fit into Big People’s toilets (big as in wealthy, not As in Tom Hanks)

so KC (crispy,,,nuggest…i wonder if fried alligator is good—not that im thinking of eating him, though someone really should threaten him with cannibalism, like if you’re going to be a bitch about it then you deserve the same done to you, it’s just manners) is in cahoots and canoodles with Someone Who Shall Not Be Named (not bc i don’t know, I do, that’s how detectives work. it’s my JOB to know, and i was a prodigy) but bc there is a whole other report detailing this person and their movements and its case file #4461 if u don’t believe me, but i ain’t no snitch, but i will say that tonight’s events connect to file #4461 so Dad if you’re reading this you should already have it out bc it’s your JOB

speaking of jobs ding ding here is mine coming round the mountain as she comes bc the apple bottom jeans the boots with the fur will be coming round the mountain when she comes shE’ll be coming round the mountain she’ll be coming round the mountain she’ll b e coming round and getting low low low low low l ow low

It was a crisp October night. The sun was blinking its sleepy lids, setting the ballroom with an incandescent glow. Bruce Wayne strode across the floor, his daughter Cassandra accompanying him. They wore matching expressions that the privileged always wear: guarded, yet hungry. Hungry for what? Probably for the crab cakes just out of reach. Neither of them had an allergy, and Cassandra in particular had a propensity to shove anything edible in her mouth, so it really was a tragedy that those crab cakes were all the way across the room. There should really be a table right in the middle of the dance floor just for snacks. That way caterers wouldn’t have to do so much leg work, which is actually a good thing, because that ballroom floor is slippery af. This narrator should know, he has Died A Few Times getting there. Suddenly, the night’s festivities were interrupted by a social faux pas: a scream.

You don’t just scream at regular parties, it’s uncouth and hysterical. But you can scream if the social boundaries have already been crossed, and boy, were they crossed.

You see, Dear Reader, there was a man in the toilet.

I use the term “man” loosely, as his glaring yellow eyes do wonders when you might just crap your pantaloons. You start imagining things, like dinosaurs whcih i am personally a big fan of bc Jurassic Park has a kid named Tim in it and I am also Tim.

 hI y is our toilet so big that Killer Croc could wiggle his way up? also how long can he hold his breath. 

 it seems to be impressively long

 hey Bdad how long can he hold his breath? please let me know if you can, and if you won’t i will eat all your wafers becauzs i wa

Mrs. Trenton screamed and fled the impertinent bathroom guest, who wasted no time in ripping the commode to pieces. There was a roar and all the guests paused, unsure if it was merely pipe problems or if they were under attack.

Reader: They were, in fact, under attack. 

The guests, deciding that Mrs. Trenton was a social entrepreneur, followed her lead and began to scream. Killer Croc had made it to ballroom, standing at an impressive height just outside the doors.

He was Not wearing a shirt.

okay have u ever noticed that Killer Crog hasn’t got any nipples????? where are they? he’s got pecs but no nipples?? 

where did they go where are his nip nops i kno people don’t like to think about this but i hAve wondered since i was like 13 like where did they go. has anyone ever asked him. 

did they fall off

“Take the crab cakes!” shouted Matthew Fielder, a lil bitch.

“No, take me!” said Cassandra Wayne, who would literally rather die than give up those crab cakes.

Killer Croc paid them no heed. He desired one thing and one thing only, the sweet satisfaction for his carnal craving: Humain Flesh.

(alliteration hell yeah hell yeah take that Mrs. Johnson i do know shit and im creative as well u jusy don’t know how my brian works it’s like a golden goose egg trap ye ye ye)

 i just Realized 

 i am…a high school drop out

 i don’t know why im doing this

Dear Reader, as an Aside: Smoking can lead to many health issues, especially if one begins smoking at a young age. Harmful side effects include increased risk of stroke and brain damage; muscular degeneration, eye cataracts; cancer of lips, nose, tongue, and mouth, and nipple loss.

 Jason you may want to have a talk with you and your mipples

The terror in the air was stifling. Cannibalism conduct was not something conveyed in etiquette classes. Rich people never expect to be eaten.

Reader, everyone hardly breathed. Something deeply primal had occurred. 

From the doorway the golden eyes struck. Deadly. Lethal. Hungry. 

This was more than vengeance. It was a sadistic occasion of play.

  okay good thing Dames wasn’t there because he fucking HATES KC he gets all huffy and shrieky about him like “he’s a HYGIENE PROBLEM” and it’s like,,,,,.ur right but i don’t want to agree with you because where do we stand if i do that?? as brothers???

 i think the fuck not 

anyways i just realized i’ve been calling Waylon Jones KC the entire damn time (NEWSFLASH ASSHOLE) but to be fucking h, he wants to to be called that. i called him Allen once and he was so PISSED so i can only think of actually calling him by his name. he wouldn’t even be chill with me naming the sewer alligators even tho they were awesome names. i called one Dundee. that’s fucking genius. that’s just. i’m fucking amazing. stupenous. and unappreciated.

 maybe his nipples fell off because he swims in shit every night?????

 question: why do i swim in shit almost as often 

 what the dfck

 what are my life choices

 i feel like there should have been some fine print involved here 

 “Robin duties include scraping shit off your asschreks 3 times a week”

 mahbe,,,,maybe not what i want 

 personal choice

though i haven’t really seen any alligators in the sewers for years now, which is

oh my god OH MY GOD HE ATE THEM  HE ATE THEM OH MY GOD  OH MY GOD !!!!!!!!!!

HE FUCKING  HE FUCKING. HE. HE ATE HIMSELF  HE FUCNING ATE HIMAELF AND HIS FAMILY HIS COUSINS HIS CPOUSINS  HIS FAMILY OH MY GOD  THIS IS LIKE MY 8TH GRADE GRADUATION ALL OVER AGAIN

im so disturbed……..i like, need to eat something. Fucking hell. this Not what i had in mind when i decided to be alive.

i feel like as if i woke up one day and i was the only one in the entire world who remembered Caillou. also could pull off my face and eat it like taffy. imw so. i.

mom i know i refused to go to Shabbat when i was ten so i don’t get to say this but:

this is Not kosher 

oh heyy i want some pIckes

i was also thinking of takin a spin class?? like fuck it i like to bike. fuck it. and maybe iwdont want bruce and nigtwink fucking watxhing me with their beady eyes. like get those off my calves. my cleavage is up here, gentlemen. stop talking about proper form. some people can do things and suck at them. i’m never going to be like a professional ice curler. and i shouldn’t feel bad about that. who the fuck curls for fun. maybe Canada???????

note to self: look up the history of the sport of curling 

i’m going to get good at it to piss off Jason

Back On Topic:

Killer Croc took a step forward. His mouth trembled, watering in anticipation. He took another step.

Mrs. Trenton drew in a breath. 

The room was silent. 

Far across the room, Bruce Wayne clenched his champagne glass. Cassandra Wayne stopped chewing the crab cakes.  Reader, I won’t mince words: Waylon Jones crossed the threshold.

  and the instant he put his foot down on the ballroom floor he fucking slipped like a drunkass toddler

like when Damian is really really tired bc he’s like 2 years old (only an evil 2 years old like chucky) and Jason tries to give him a high five 

gremlin still doesn’t get that “down low” precedes “too slow” 

and he like. faceplants

onto the fucking concrete 

and then Bruce yells at Jason 

and then Jason yells back

“I NEVER ASKED FOR SIBLINGS”

like it was something we all did, like wrote it down on our batmas lists for Brucie Claus 

and im sitting there, a perennial Forgotten Middle Child

and Damian is like still. on the ground.

anyways KC is just slipping across the ballroom, slippering and sliding bc the floor was just waxed and it’s silent except for the wet slaps of his feet against the floor and the screech his tail makes every time he trips (sort of like this) and when he sometimes falls it makes that sound of when your thighs SLAP against the mats and it sounds like a wet walrus coming to cheer you on while a Giant simultaneously swallows a liquid-filled gummy worm down his throat like QAWAGGHHHHHHH only his falls reverberated against the ceiling panels and the cherubs looked down in like. disgust.

Cass began chewing the crab cakes again by the time Killer Croc fell for the twelfth time so idk it was an embarrassing situation

 we all did that Thing people do when a social barrier is breached 

 we like…..avoided each other’s eyes and made light conversation 

 meanwhile Killer Croc’s body screeched in the background

anyways Matthew Fielder was like “so I hear you dance ballet” and Cass responded “uh huh. tap too” and the chewed up crab cake crumbs fell out of her mouth and onto the floor

 i CAN’T

scrambled cock on a cracker, Cass why does Alfred let this happen????? what is this??????  like she can snort creme puffs like cocaine but GOD FORBID i put my elbows on the table and call damian “a poisonous little bitch” because he ate my croutons

 the standards in this family are unbelievable

So everyone is just talking and Mrs. Trenton is sipping champagne now and Luis Alvarez is doing that thing where he starts trying to eat caviar one teeny tiny egg at a time and KC is just like WHUMPH for the thirtieth time

finally dad takes pity on him and crouches down and is like “hey how you doing slugger” which???? Offended me. Very Much.

that’s MY nickname 

has Waylon No-Nipples Jones been adopted by Bruce Wayne??? has Waylon No-Nipples Jones retrieved HIS sorry ass from time?? i don’t fucking think so 

the audacity of this man

but before Killer Croc can reply

Red Hood

BURSTS INTO THE ROOM

guns out, voice modulator kind of fuzzy like a broke refrigerator that makes an “eeeeeeeeeee” sound ever since i tripped over it and fell on it

 which wASN’T MY FAULT 

 IM NOT “deformed baby zebra clumsy” FUCK YOU JASON 

 MAYBE HE SHOULDN’T KEEP HIS EXPENSIVE HELMET ON THE FLOOR THEN 

 you know what? I’m GLAD i tripped over it.

 yeah. suck it. 

 im glad you sound like a 90s japanese transistor radio 

 off brand too

 fuck you 

 I GOT A BRUISE NOT THAT ANYONE CARES 

 even Bruce was like “hey tim you need to watch where you’re going”

 ???

 how about YOU watch where YOU’RE GOING 

 “where” as in TIME TRAVEL 

 REMEMBER THAT BRUCE 

 REMEMBER THAT?!???????

 HUH BIG GUY?!???????!!???

 no one is allowed to criticize me from now on

 i am Above Reproach 

    anyways yeah Red Hood appears at the party and shoots KC and Bruce was like “why the FUCK would you SHOOT HIM” as if he has some misplaced paternal feeling for Waylon No-Nipples Jones because he called him slugger which is something he calls one of his other kids but whatever im not bitter im just insecure and sad all the time but don’t worry about it maybe i’ll die one day and you’ll all be sorry especially about Certain Things like not sharing cheese nibs huh Cassandra

so RH and Bruce Wayne kind of argue. like. literally sniping at each other bc SOMEBODY forgot that Red Hood is a criminal and not their misplaced son and RH is like “it’s!!!!! a tranquilizer!!!!! ya big hoe!!!!!” only he doesn’t really say it like that but everyone isn’t even listening at this point because this party has already been so goddamn weird and we’re all suffering from secondhand embarrassment

i am Assuming,,,,,that Killer Croc Jones “Jonsie No-Nipples” has been taken away to be put into jail and studied for his non-nipple properties but at this point i’ve been sitting here huffing that cold medicine or whatever Bruce gave me. which

 oh yeah i was crushed earlier 

 it was by “slugger” but whatever

 yeah his body broke mine 

 it was because Bruce and Jason were fighting again and not paying attention so 

 KC was tranquillized and like 

 fell on me 

 he drooled on me too 

 those ballroom floors really hurt 

 like my head feels like mush 

 Alfred’s oatmeal 

 on its second day 

 because i refused to eat it on the first day 

 that man has a spine of Steel and he Does Not Let You Waste Food 

 btw he fell on me because i pushed Luis Alvarez out of the way 

 he was really transfixed by those tiny fish eggs 

 it’s fun to put them on your tongue and let them like slide around 

 so i pushed him out of the way and was promptly crushed to death 

 B said something about a broken collarbone 

 i am more worried about a broken butt 

 fuck

 my coccyx

PROFESSOR PYM wait no shit that’s a comic book character

anyways my butt is broken and im hungry and dad wouldn’t let me get out of the chair so i write up this report because I am A Real Life Detective and I do my JOB

once again im the best

hey red jood can you get me some cheese nibs cassandrA won’t share which is p mean especially since i was all for being eaten to give her those crab cakes  red hoof red  why isn’t he responding to me i want xheese nibs red hanz  red  red  Red Hood please I require sustenance  red fhau red gjji red hhood ted joood redb hood red red edds red red edd dedd red red red red red wd red  what the fuck what a right bastard sometimes oh hi Badaman

EDIT: His name is “Pyg.”  Fucking. Pyg. Points taken off for unoriginality.

decided to have a tumblr version too ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[nihilnovisubsole]

My fashion queen, incredibly important question: How would one go about figuring out fashion *style* for characters? I've noticed your OCs always have a Look(TM), and I've gathered from your blog (and fics) that you've got an eye for aestethics - please, could you give me advice at least where to *start*. I'm completely unaware of fashion and, frankly, completely overwhelmed at the prospect of just starting..

Ah! Previous Anon again - forgot to add a more specific question about fashion (I’m squeezing in 2 quesiton in one xD). Do you have fashion advice for sleek/distant female character’s clothing that doesn’t hinge on formal dresses? (as is discernable, I have literally NO idea what a Grown Ass, Self Respecting Woman would wear)

wow. that’s high praise. when i got this yesterday morning, i knew i wanted to give it the answer it deserved. this is over 1500 words long, so apologies to anyone on mobile, but i wasn’t letting go until i’d really sunk my teeth into it.

unfortunately, since you’re anon, i don’t know enough about your character to suggest anything specific. instead, i want to take a step back and see if we can solve the root of the problem - “where do i start?”

when i was a teenager, an english teacher told me this: “the biggest constraint in writing is no constraint at all.” when you have the whole spectrum of something - in this case, clothes - to pick from, it is overwhelming. the natural human instinct is to freeze up. so while it may sound strange, if you’re just starting out, you might feel better if you have some constraints to work within.

with that in mind, you can treat finding a ‘signature look’ for your character like solving a murder mystery. you eliminate all the suspects that don’t fit until you know enough to narrow it down to the one that does. that’s going to involve something else you’ll recognize from murder mysteries: you’re going to have to interrogate the character. open them up and get to know them - their background, their likes and dislikes, their quirks, the role they play in the world around them. every answer will give you clues and weed other things out, and eventually, you’ll get a box small enough that you feel comfortable working in it.

now, i love fashion, and i love using clothes to send messages about a character’s personality. so as someone who’s had that interest for my whole life, i work from the other end. the constraints happen, in large part, without me thinking about them. i tend to zoom right to a certain aesthetic or item of clothing, say, “okay, what outfit can i build with this,” and go from there. but since you’ve said you’re “unaware” of fashion and it’s intimidating to you, i’ll try to ease you in through a different route and see whether that helps.

so, if we’re going to pick your character apart, let’s think about some practical questions first:

what setting does your character live in?

if you’ve narrowed your setting down to a historical decade, you’ll find most of the style questions already - firmly! - answered for you. for example, a victorian woman would, by default, wear skirts. if the character is contemporary, you’ve got a lot more wiggle room. if you want to mess with historical fashion rules for symbolic or story purposes, awesome, but i think that’s probably more advanced than you’re looking for right now.

if the setting is fantasy or sci-fi, what’s its dominant aesthetic? is it cyberpunk? sleek ~apple~ sci-fi? or is it more like star wars? is it medieval fantasy? woodsy faerie fantasy? JRPG-style fantasy? you get the idea.

what does your character do?

speaks for itself. what’s their job?

what is your character like, just in general?

this is where everything you know about their personality goes. if they’re a fussy courtier who’s worried about their reputation and appearance, they’re probably not going to be comfortable in plain, casual clothes.

what can your character afford to wear?

again, speaks for itself. do they buy designer brands? are they trying their best with what they have? or are they super strapped for cash and just have to get the job done?

does their social scene have an easily-identifiable aesthetic that you could work with?

does your character wear urban/street fashion or preppy rich-kid clothes? are they part of a subculture that dresses in a certain way, like teddy boys? do they have the desire or freedom to go all-in with that style, or do they have to play it down, like being corporate goth?

do they need to wear something they could travel, do hard work, or fight in?

goes with the job question above. do they need some kind of outerwear or accessory where they can hide weapons? do they always need to be ready, or is it situational?

basically, where does the character’s aesthetic need to sit on a chart of form vs. function?

what do other characters who are similar to your character wear?

look at your favorite movies, games, and TV shows and see what professional designers are doing with characters like yours. what colors and cuts are they using? what other elements do they choose? do you like them? if you don’t like them, what would you change? sometimes you can learn more from what you hate than what you love.

hopefully, you’ve already culled a huge swath of fashion ideas that you Know You’re Not Going To Do. you may still not know what you do want to do, either! that’s fine. let’s move onto some more artsy questions:

are there any colors your character would prefer or avoid?

it sounds silly. it’s not. a limited color palette will go a long way toward making a character’s outfits look unified and purposeful. obviously, in real life, most people don’t restrict themselves as much as fictional characters do. but if you were a costume designer, you’d want to have some guideposts to work with.

are there any motifs you associate with your character?

animals, elements, religious or cultural symbols, plants - you can sneak all these into their clothes’ details. maybe their dress has beading in the shape of a peacock, or rose earrings, or icy sparkles, or a bear pelt for a cloak.

have fun with meanings! moon motifs for mysteriousness, poisonous flowers, etc. let your inner lit major out.

do you want your character to have a certain silhouette?

this may seem odd if you’re just going to be writing your character and not drawing them, but think about it anyway. do you want to emphasize that your character is tall? is everything they wear skintight? do they have a large, unique hat?

a great example of this is maleficent. not only does she have a horn-shaped headdress, her huge, flowing robe tells us there’s a much bigger power in her than her body would suggest.

is there a certain ethos you want their clothes to project? what, in their world, would do that? what in our world would do that?

let’s say you want your character to look very powerful, to the point where people would find their looks alone intimidating. should they wear sharp, simple, severe clothes, maybe in dark colors? or should they wear very embellished clothes, like royalty? what are your setting’s ideas about beauty? modesty? does your character play by the rules, or do you want them to stand out?

what colors, shapes, and styles appeal to you personally?

for all the time i’ve spent talking about restrictions and guidelines, it’s important not to lose the fun of it, either. use your favorite color! give them clothes you’d want to wear in real life! character style is a playground where you can let wish fulfillment run wild.

at any time, feel free to turn to google or wikipedia if you’re not sure how to answer one of these questions. if you see an interesting idea, pick it up and follow it - what you’re doing here is training your eye, and that’s how you’ll learn. that said, if you’re already intimidated, i wouldn’t dive too deep into couture/aesthetic blogs until i had a more solid grip on how i wanted the character to look. it comes back to what i said earlier - there is such a thing as too much to choose from, especially when you’re not sure what you should be looking for yet.

there’s one other thing i want to mention that can help bring a character’s wardrobe together: repetition. if you’re planning several outfits for a character instead of just one, echo some of the motifs, shapes, or colors from one to the next. they don’t all have to be identical takes on the same thing, but if they have certain traits in common, they’ll feel less like separate outfits and more like a matched set. they could all be in members of the same color family or have similar patterns on them. maybe your character has a certain accessory that they wear with everything. you get the idea.

while i may not be able to plan your character’s wardrobe outright, i hope this makes the whole process seem more straightforward. or that it gives you some ideas to work with, or any other kind of help you might take away from it. this post is getting unfathomably long, so i’ll wrap it up, but i’d be happy to put any of my own characters through a “question test” like this one if you’d like to see how it works in practice.

finally, if you can find an interview with an artist or costume designer who worked on something you like, those things are worth their weight in gold. i read an interview with colleen atwood when i was in middle school, and it revolutionized the way i thought about fashion and storytelling. and when i say “revolutionized,” i mean “i owe basically everything i just told you to that article.” dig into them and see how they think and talk about their art! they’re more qualified to teach you than i ever will be.

[vaspider]

Yeah, that's because the argument isn't really you shouldn't be able to accidentally stumble onto to story, the argument is that the story shouldn't exist.

The fact that not writing about things doesn't mean it doesn't happen, that these arguments silence victims, that you have to go through 9 or 90 steps, etc. - those arguments don't matter to the pro-censorship crowd. They really don't.

I think probably a better question is:

Why aren't the people who are so set on attacking fanfic writers over the content of their stories, locked away behind 900 steps, working on bringing awareness to & working against the public broadcast of materials they object to? The obvious example of Game of Thrones comes up, but (for further example) Beforeigners on HBO contains content in which a woman talks about having been raped at 12 by an adult man, and freaking Call the Midwife, of all things, shows an incestuous relationship in an episode in s1, maybe s2, and suicide in the same episode.

These are all FAR easier to find and accidentally consume than AO3 fic. So why aren't there more pushes to get rid of these things?

Or perhaps that's too far out of reach. All right: why isn't this energy being focused on, say, taking copies of Forever... by Judy Blume off of the shelf at their local library? A vulnerable person is FAR more likely to be exposed to the underage sex in that (written by an adult!) without proper warning than to properly-tagged fanfic!

The answer to this is twofold - 1) if they walked into their local library and demanded Forever be removed from the shelves, the librarian is very likely to laugh in their face because librarians get very spicy when you try to censor their libraries and 2) it's much easier to just send nasty messages on Tumblr and harass bibabewitch83 from AO3 than it is to do... well, anything more strenuous.

So you have a group that solidly fails to even try to remove more accessible objectionable content from general circulation but spends their time targeting fanfic writers, who are not only close enough to hit and people they're likely to get a reaction from, but also tend to be one or more of queer, disabled, assault survivors, marginalized genders (basically everything but cis men), neurodiverse/neuroexpansive, or otherwise marginalized. And on top of that, this group demands complete public declaration of being on "their side" or they brand you an enemy.

Let me be clear: I still am not involved in this Fandom debate. I am not involved in the particulars of this debate. I have been saying that I'm not in this discourse for at least eight years and setting boundaries about engagement, namely that I won't answer asks or declare myself an anti or an anti-anti.

And I - and others in the same boat as me - are still enduring years of harassment: anon messages to random blogs declaring us pedophiles, people placing us on "sides," putting words in our mouths, telling people we abuse our kids, etc.

So the combination of those things -- the sole targeting of marginalized individuals and not television shows, movies, or even the local library, the demand for declaration and compliance, and the harassment and outright abuse of people who refuse to participate (and those close to them) -- makes it clear that this isn't about purity of fiction.

This is a pro-censorship group exhibiting frankly kinda culty behavior which focuses on bullying marginalized individuals. They hit the people close enough to punch, and they seem real eager to hear us say "ow".

That's it. That's all. Arguing the logic of it all obit gives a false patina of discourse to an extended harassment and bullying campaign.

Seriously, y'all, at some point y'all just gotta stop humoring this.

Good morning! I’m salty.

I think we, as a general community, need to start taking this little moment more seriously.

This, right here? This is asking for consent. It’s a legal necessity, yes, but it is also you, the reader, actively consenting to see adult content; and in doing so, saying that you are of an age to see it, and that you’re emotionally capable of handling it.

You find the content you find behind this warning disgusting, horrifying, upsetting, triggering? You consented. You said you could handle it, and you were able to back out at any time. You take responsibility for yourself when you click through this, and so long as the creator used warnings and tags correctly, you bear full responsibility for its impact on you.

“Children are going to lie about their age” is probably true, but that’s the problem of them and the people who are responsible for them, not the people that they lie to.

If you’re not prepared to see adult content, created by and for adults, don’t fucking click through this. And if you do, for all that’s holy, don’t blame anyone else for it.

[othercat2]

Hi! So let me start by saying I'm loving your fic! I hope you're still doing request and prompts for it, so, could you write about David's opinion about Karkat before vs his opinion on him after the talk they had over pesterchum about Dave's future? If you someday also write the discussion David had with Dave right before that conversation I would owe you my life.

(Oh sheet I forgot to say WHICH fic I was talking abt in my last ask, sorry about that! I was talking about two for mirth)     

TotallyValid Concern

Dave is an okay kid. (Okay he’s in his twenties, butstill. He’s a goddamn kid.) You aren’t at all sure what you expected when you startedtalking to him, and later, met him at the airport for his visit. You’d seen himon TV and online, but TV takes off a few pounds and most of your actualpersonality. (You wish you’d reached out to him sooner.) Dave is smart,apparently shares the family sense of humor and is really, really good at aswordsmanship style that seems vaguely European. (No katanas shitty orotherwise here.)

You were maybe worried the kid would be some kind ofbasket case outside of TV appearances and comments on social media. You’d metrepatriate activists, and while they never went into too much detail, it was alwaysenough to make you uneasy and angry that anyone had gone through the shit theyhad. (It was also pretty shitty they were still going through shit.) But heseems okay, if also really nervous.  

It is pretty much not Striderly to take notice of such things,so you spend a lot of time distracting him until he relaxes. He’s impressed byyour penthouse and immediately feels the need to text about it to the Emissary.He laughs about whatever the Emissary texts back and tucks his phone away.

You…really don’t know how you feel about that. It becomespretty clear that Dave likes the Emissary, and frequently texts him, or sendshim pictures. Framing it as some kind of survival thing or something didn’treally work. Dave acted exactly like someone in a relationship, not someonepretending to be in one for their own survival.

There’s a lot of discussion over dinner, the three of youfeeling Dave out, Dave trying to figure you out. He doesn’t talk about Bro,which you aren’t really surprised about. You wouldn’t want to talk about Broeither. He does talk about having been a gladiator, and a little about havingbeen sold to the Grand Highblood. He also gives Hali a little lecture abouttrying to get him in trouble. “It’s not just rude, it can get someone killed,”Dave says. “You don’t set people up like that. If you get caught, everyone’sgoing to be against you, when you could have had allies instead.”

Hali taps his chair leg with his heel. “It’s not like hewould have done anything to you,” he says.

“Yeah but you didn’t know that, did you?” Dave pointsout. “It’s the principle. Karkat’s an Emancipationist so I wasn’t in any dangerbut if I had been, it would have been your fault.”

The conversation goes on to other things, but you can’thelp but thinking about the Emissary. About what the guy was actually like.Dave seemed pretty fond of him, but you weren’t sure you could trust that. DidDave have the frame of reference to know whether someone was “dating material”?Was the Emissary actually as much of an “Emancipationist” as he talked upbeing? (Did it even mean the same thing?)

So you worry. You have completely valid concerns.

Dave talks up how the Emisssary, “Karkat” didn’t want aconcubine. He also talks about “trying to get his seduction on” and some of thetraining he went through. “I really liked the dance lessons. The other classeswere kinda dumb though,” he says, dismissing them. “I ended up meeting a bunch offacilitators and sex workers online, and they liked my dancing, so that waspretty great. I got reblogged a couple times by actinicFlame who’s a well-knowncourtesan who blogs about dancing, mostly.

Mona wants to see the dancing, because she’s a traitor.(Mona: “David, it’s obviously something he’s proud of, and enjoys doing.” You:“It’s some kind of sex thing. I do not want to see my nephew doing some kind ofsex thing.” Mona: “David, it’s clear the dancing is an art thing, not just a‘sex thing’ let him show off.”) You do not want to see the dancing, but areover-ruled by the boys, who are also traitors.

The kid takes it out to the roof. Under Mona’s directionyou and the kids have dragged up a few of the chairs that usually live out bythe pool. Dave performs a dance with a lot of leaps and spins with his sword, asecond slow dance with a lot of posing, and then something he refers to as his“victory dance,” which involves a lot of strutting around and posing andswinging his sword.

You can’t help but be impressed. You think he couldprobably do the dancing professionally, in the UPT. You think he could probablygo to school for it, and make your suggestion for it a few nights later. Hecould probably get into one of the modern dancing troupes, or maybe start atroupe of his own. The kid gives you a skeptical look.

“I didn’t really get an early enough start, Uncle David,”the kid says.

“I don’t necessarily buy that,” you say. “I think youhave the chops to go on and have a really successful career at dancing. I didsome research about schools you could go to, with good dance programs.”

“Karkat already has me enrolled in classes,” Dave says.“Mostly a bunch of literature classes. At school feeding institutes in theEmpire.”

“The ones you talked about him signing you up for out ofthe blue?” You ask. “That you complain about?”

“Like the dance programs you want me to sign up for?”Dave shoots back. “Which are in the UPT, not the Empire, where I actually live.With my master.”  

“Is the story about you being rescued by the GrandHighblood and put in the custody of the Emissary not true?” you ask. “I mean,that the concubine thing was completely fake, like the fake married trope?”

“It was a joke, which is different from being fake,” Davesays. “At least as far as I can tell from what the Grand Highblood thinks. Andwhat he thinks is what matters, and what he thinks is that I belong to Karkat.”

“So you belong to Karkat, but you also belong to theGrand Highblood, and you have to put up with what they want,” you say. “Wheredoes what you might want come into play?”

“Well, I want tobe able to fight in the ring, but that’s not going to happen,” Dave says withconsiderable amusement. “And you can’t exactly offer me that.”

“Hey, fencing is a thing,” You say. “Hell, there are allkinds of sword competitions out there. I’m sure we could find you something.The sky’s the limit, kid.”

“I still belong to Karkat,” Dave points out. “Who doesnot live in the UPT.”

“But you don’t have to,” you say. “Even with this GrandHighblood hanging over your head telling you where you have to be, if Karkatcared about you, he’d let you stay here, right?”

“There’s no ‘if,’” the kid says, a little angry, but alsostrangely amused. “I know he cares about me. He’s so careful it’s almost alittle annoying sometimes.”

“Well okay,” you say. “So say I buy you from the GrandHighblood.”

“No,” the kid says.

“What, you don’t think I got the money? I bet I could buyhim out a couple times.”

“Yeah, but then I’d owe you,” the kid says, glaring atme. “And I don’t know what you want.”

“You’re family,kid,” you say, feeling a little frustrated at this point. “I want to know you’resafe. I want to make up for not being around to call CPS on that asshole. Jesuskid, you got raised by my asshole brother and sword and sandal epics I have aconcern!”

The kid flushes red at that. “I’d still owe you, UncleDavid. You can’t just–argh!” His hands go up in the air, form a gesture, adiamond with the first two fingers of either hand. You know that symbol is theone for moirallegiance and “pale” feelings in general. “It’s appreciated UncleDavid, really. Don’t offer to buy me, don’t make an offer to the GrandHighblood for me. It will not go well.”

“Kid–” you start to ask if he is actually in danger buthe shakes his head.

“Nope, look,” he says, lowering his hands. “I can’t giveyou a reassurance you’d actually believe,” he says. “You don’t have anythingthe Highblood would want that would be more than making his moirail happy. Hethinks I can make his moirail happy, and I really care about his moirail. But Ican’t give you a reassurance you’d believe, because you don’t know any of the signs and I keep forgetting.”

“Signs, huh.”

“Codewords and handsigns,” Dave says. “Which I shouldn’tbe telling you about. There’s ones for ‘yes I really am safe,’ and ones for ‘noI am not safe’ and ‘can I trust you’ and things like that.” He gives you asour, irritated look. “And I can’t reassure you, so you need to talk to Karkatyourself.”

“Okay,” you say. “Kid, I really am sorry about Bro. If I’dknown the asshole had somehow reproduced…”

“You cut off contact, right?” Dave says. “How would youhave known?”  

“Maybe I shouldn’t have,” you say. Maybe Bro had cared about you in his own way.After all he named his kid after you.

“No, fuck that,” Dave says. “Don’t even think of feelingguilty about it. I would have cut him off eventually if he hadn’t died. I won’tsay it didn’t mess me up as a kid, but as an adult I can say he was a shittycustodian, and the cutting off contact was the only thing you could have done,okay?”

You want to argue that, and you do, a little. But the kidis pretty definite about what he thinks about your guilt. There’s some morearguing about the Grand Highblood, going to school in the UPT and the like, butthe kid eventually argues you into talking to Karkat.  

[whitesilverandmercury]

helloooo! c: i'm here with a fic prompt: otayuri, tattoo parlour AU where one of them (you can choose!) is getting a tattoo for the first time. you can do whatever you want with that. PS: DON'T CALL YOUR WRITING SHIT OK YOU ARE SO SO WONDERFUL AND I LOVE IT?? AND YOU?? so much. too much. you're rad, okay. take care of yourself and take your time. ♥♥♥ have a wonderful day!

fic prompts ☆ fuck me up here

disclaimers: don’towna/n: ahhh omgthis is such a cute idea and as soon as i read it i was like yessss ok let’s do this.also, you’re too sweet, and thank you for yelling at me bc sometimes it justneeds to happen, thank friend

59°N, 30° E.

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yes.”

“You changed your mind at the last minute. I thought you wanted a Rosa … uh.”

“Rosecrucian.”

“Rosecrucian sun and moon on the top of your foot.”

“Yes, and I’m getting that one next time.”

“Remember this is permanent — ”

“Beka,” Yurii snaps, and Otabek does not rear back but he pauses, cutting Yurii a glance without lifting his head as he finds his favorite grip on his tattoo gun.

He sits comfortably on his artist’s stool to the right of the leather-cushioned table,feet planted wide apart, holes in the knees of his jeans and holes in hisshirt, the openings of his sleeves slit down past his ribs. A few of his owntattoos peek through, dance across firm, flickering muscle and tan skin.Deadpan, almost sarcastically, he gives his station’s footswitch a little pressof the toe, the gun buzzes as if to reply, Yes?

“I know it’s permanent,” Yurii says, lying on his back withlegs drawn up and heels planted on the edge of the table. He wiggles hisfingers, right arm outstretched on the adjustable rest, cool air ticklish onthe spot where the stencil’s been peeled off — the inner forearm, just belowthe bend of his elbow, sweet soft skin, shaved and sterilized.  

Otabek frowns at the arrangement of inks on his tray. “Yourcousin is going to hate me for this.”

“He already hates you.”

Otabek’s eyes flicker up, dark and penetrative in a hoveringsort of way. “Ah, chto-chto?” hemumbles, brows dimpling gently as if he forces them not to knit together forappearances’ sake. “Nu, pochemu?” Comeagain? Why?

Yurii hides a tiny smile behind his free hand, where he runshis thumbnail along the ridge of his teeth anxiously. He loves it when Otabekslips into Russian, usually when surprised, when frustrated, when excited, whenhe is being particularly romantic. It’s kneejerk; he hasn’t been in the U.S. aslong as Yurii. It keeps Yurii on his toes, keeps him sharp. Makes him blush.Feels pleasantly sneaky, no one knows what they say and no one gets to know what they say — exceptprobably Georgi, one of the other artists in the shop — and of course Victor,at home, but he only sometimes forgets not to rattle off in Russian when his fiancéis around — or, well, if he’s scolding Yurii —

“Potomu chto,” Yuriimumbles against his knuckles. Because.Otabek snaps his tongue against the back of his teeth; he recognizes the impishglow on Yurii’s face.

“Because we’re involved?” he mutters below a sigh, dippingink and scooting closer with a rattle of the wheels on his rolling stool.

“‘Dating’ is a cuter word than ‘involved.’”

“Do I look like I enjoy cute words?” Otabek leans in, onehand stretched in a firm L to holdsoft skin flat and even as he takes the needle to stencil. Yurii chokes back agasp not from the pain — not really — but from surprise. He clenches his otherfist so as not to move suddenly, instinct begging he give Otabek a pointed look.

“No warning?” he grunts.

“Oye, I’m sorry, babe.”

“It’s fine,” Yurii says through a tight sigh. He needs torelax; his arm is already tingling from holding it so stiff with anticipation.But it’s probably for the better, like getting a shot at the doctor’s. Nowarning, get it done with. And the skin is sensitive, defenseless unlike driver’stans or hard-working palms, feels like a million little flu shots stabbing overand over, and over again. Not too bad, but the needle’s got a definite nip —

“Breathe,” Otabek murmurs without even looking up, his headlow and that one dark tuft of hair falling almost across one brow. Broadshoulders hunched, mouth in the thin line of concentration. Breathe, he says, and Yurii blushesbecause this has happened before. Not the tattoo — no, it’s his first — butOtabek, hovering over him, beside him, whispering Breathe because he knows Yurii is denying a discomfort just un-mildenough to be distracting, a needle pulsing at his skin or the first time theyhad real sex —

Yurii clears his throat. “I’m okay,” he promises.  

There are a few minutes as silence as he lets himself getaccustomed to the feel. “Stop tapping your foot,” Otabek mumbles. Yurii stops. “Stopmaking a fist, relax your arm,” Otabek grunts next. Yurii obeys. He lets out aslow breath and goes back to the conversation from earlier that is not yetover:

“You look like the type of guy who pretends he doesn’t enjoycute words but secretly enjoys cute words.”

Otabek casts him a quick look of submission at odds with thefirm frown on his face. It is his version of pouting.

Yurii smiles a little, a gentle laugh with no sound. “I’mkidding,” he reassures. His fingers are starting to tingle, out there at theend of the armrest. “Victor doesn’t hate you. He just likes to play mama bearsometimes.”

Otabek issues a friendly little scoff as he dips his needlein black ink; the sound comes out something more like a dissatisfied grunt.

“Also,” Yurii says, “I hate being up late at night andoverhearing him and Yuuri have sex, so I think he owes me.”

“Oh my God … ” Otabek sighs again, exasperated, but theghost of a smile haunts his mouth.

The shop is noisy but not loud; up front, the door opens andcloses with a gentle ringing of chimes now and again. Laughter echoes from apartitioned work station off to the left. To the right, one of the artists — JJ— is on the phone with his girlfriend. Georgi preps for a girl in a yellowsundress getting something on her ankle. Under the cool, dim lights of theshop, the walls dance with in-house sketches and paintings, little posters forlocal new age stores, book exchanges, music venues. Weird wall hangings likecherubs or gargoyles that look like they belong more in a French boudoir or aVenetian palazzo sit right next to things like a vintage drive-in sci-fi movie.The cute little receptionist with the snaggle tooth and two-toned hair singsalong to the music —

“So you hear them doing it, hmm?”

Yurii’s arm is going numb for the pressure of Otabek’s handsand the restriction of blood flow, stretched out to the side as it is. Thepinpricks in his hand almost match the pinpricks of the tattoo itself. He sendsOtabek a little glance. It’s been a good twenty minutes or more, and back onthat topic? Otabek does not usually talk while he works. Yurii knows; he’s hungaround during enough of his shifts to know that. “Not all the time. Once ortwice.”

“So next time I come over, we should be very loud, then,huh?”

Yurii chokes on a breath that was meant to be a laugh or ascoff or something in between. Below his free arm, thrown across his forehead,he shoots Otabek a look; Otabek peers back at him from his seat to the left ofthe table, unbothered. He’s not even playing off Yurii’s mischievous side. Heis absolutely serious.

With a stutter of the heart that Yurii knows means he’sgoing to be blushing in a breath or two, he gives a roll of the eyes andgrumbles, “They couldn’t handle it.”

“Says the tiger who becomes a mewling kitten when he hitsthe sheets.”  

“Holy shi — Beka, tikho,oh my God — ”

Otabek chuckles, leaning back with a creak of his rollingchair. Gently, he swipes away the last bit of blood and ink. “Done,” hedeclares. “I’m going to put a clear wrap on it, and in a few hours … ”

“I know, Otabek. I’ve seen you do it a million times. I stillhave your Bacitracin in the bathroom.”  

Squeak of clear bandaging, rip of tape. Yurii sits up on oneelbow to look, nervous but excited, and so very ready to move his arm and getblood flowing again.

Simple and clean at the top of his inner forearm, neat, unassumingand crisp: 59° 57’ N, 30°18’ E.

“Not so bad?” Otabek asks, meaning the pain. “Eh, it’s asmall one. Just black lines, really.” He pauses, frowning at the fresh tattoo.Fine, minimalistic line of numbers. 59°57’ N, 30° 18’ E. He raises his browsslowly. “Chto znachat nomery?”

What do the numbers mean?

“Gde my poznakomilic’s drug drugom.”

It’s where we first met each other.

Otabek gives him a funny look, scrunch of the nose andflicker of dark eyes. “Ne ponimayu,”he grunts. Don’t understand.

Yurii frowns, face heating faintly. Maybe he said it wrong.“V Peterburge,” he says, and now hereally does blush as Otabek takes him by the wrist to turn his arm gently toand fro, examining the numbers. “They’re coordinates. Longitude and latitudefor St. Petersburg. Where we met.”

Otabek’s dark eyes swerve up to find his again, wide andintent, and somehow slightly vulnerable as if he does not know what to think orsay.

“You’re kidding,” he mutters, low, below his breath. He isbristled, his blue latex gloves still on, fingertips dusted in black like thecrumpled up paper towel on his tray. He just sits there, slouched forward onhis leather-seated stool, elbows on his knees — is he blushing, too? Yurii can’ttell. It’s always so hard to tell. He thinks he can figure it out, though, whenOtabek gets flustered enough to get that sweet, lovely pinch to his face, thatdefenseless light in his eyes. Finally, he clears his throat, leans backand begins peeling off his gloves. “I cannot believe you just suckered me intodoing a sappy tattoo like that.”

Yurii lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.He swings up and around to sit, carefully, letting his sore arm rest along onethigh. The place where the needle had been burns in a weird, buzzing way, ghostof the sensation and tender skin. “Yeah, well, I’m sorry I ruined your edgystyle with something so cheesy — ”  

Otabek reaches out and grabs the edge of the tattoo table,dragging himself forward on the rolling stool until he is between Yurii’s knees,looking up at him from below.

“I didn’t say cheesy,” he husks, and God, Yurii is so weakfor that look he’s giving him — the look that as rule of thumb always precedes … well, at the least a good make-out. He blushes, furiously, and struggles tohide it, but the meaning cuts deeper into him, burrows its way into his heartfor good. There is already something to Otabek giving him his first tattoo —maybe not kosher by artist superstitions, but —

Otabek cranes up for a kiss; Yurii is startled back intofocus but hurries to meet him halfway, bounce of the ponytail at the top of hislittle blond halfback, creak of the rolling stool as Otabek leans in. Quick,harmless, brush of tongue, subtle graze of teeth. Yup. Rule of thumb.

“You like it?” Otabek whispers in Russian, once his mouth isno longer busy, though he still leans forth against the table, head cocked backto look up at Yurii as Yurii leans down to bump his forehead with his nose likea lazy cat looking for attention.

“Da,” Yuriiwhispers back, “I really love it.”

Otabek smiles, because he is the type of guy who pretends hedoesn’t like cute things when in reality he loves cute things. And it’s not just the tattoo he means, it’s a jobwell done with the ink and it’s the meaning of the numbers and it’s the wayYurii does that little grin with his tongue between his teeth, running hisfingers through Otabek’s hair — it’s all of that, he means all of that as hesays, “Good. I like it, too.”

end.